Finding myself home alone for a long weekend, I was determined to play as much of Miles Davis albums from my collection as time would permit. There was not enough time to hear all 42 titles. Which was fine since many of these albums are played frequently, with Jack Johnson, Seven Steps to Heaven and Miles Ahead at the top of my usual playlists. This allowed me to focus on CDs that had not been heard in a long time. For the half-dozen albums that contain two, or more, CD’s I just played the first disc. That list included Circle in the Round, Agharta, Big Fun and the Bootleg Sessions.
The experiment was a raging success and there will be some changes to the usual suspects that end up in my car and office over the next few months. For today’s Jazz-Notes I’m going to make some observations, many likely to be inflammatory for hardcore fans.
A Journey into the Miles Davis Albums
The best surprises were two of Miles Davis albums separated by thirty years; Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants that included recording sessions from 1954 and 1956, and Tutu from 1986. We’ll start with Jazz Giants since it needs some context. There are, in fact, two albums with this name, both released by Prestige and recorded by Rudy Van Gelder. The first was recorded during two separate sessions in 1954 and ultimately titled Bags Groove (though the actual song title is Bags’ Groove) with Sonny Rollins, Milt Jackson, Thelonious Monk, Horace Silver, Percy Heath and Kenny Clarke. A reissue in 1987 included multiple takes of Bags’ Groove and But Not For Me. A terrific album, but less impressive than the album released in 1956 with cuts from one of the 1954 sessions and another from 1956. It was remastered in 2008 by Rudy Van Gelder.
Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants provided an unexpected jolt. As happened often over the weekend, a song would pop out and send me to the liner notes. Here the line-up on a single tune, ‘Round Midnight, was John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones. The difference between the sound of the earlier session in December of 1954 and the ‘Round Midnight session of 1956 was incredible. If there was ever a question regarding Miles ability to evolve intelligently, it is answered by this album. The journey to Kind of Blue seems inevitable.