The Miles Davis Quintet: The New Miles Davis Quintet [CONCORD JAZZ INC.]

Why you'll love it

This Craft Recordings edition presents the album in mono on 180g vinyl, pressed in the USA. It's the debut of the band now known as Miles Davis's First Great Quintet, recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's studio on November 16, 1955.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Mono
• Pressed in the USA

About the album

Everybody remembers the cover's big one-word title, Miles, and most people call the album that. It captures a brand-new band: after a well-received set at the 1955 Newport Jazz Festival and a run at Café Bohemia, Davis put together a group with a young John Coltrane on tenor, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums.

Davis had already arranged for Columbia's George Avakian to buy out his Prestige contract, but he owed Prestige some records first, which is how this one came out ahead of his Columbia debut. Bob Weinstock produced the session in Hackensack, New Jersey. Ellington's "Just Squeeze Me" sets an easy, swinging tone, "There Is No Greater Love" is a quartet feature with Coltrane sitting out, and "How Am I to Know?" and "S'posin'" show off Davis's muted lyricism. Benny Golson's "Stablemates" gives Coltrane room to stretch.

"The Theme" was the tune Davis used to close his sets, so the album ends exactly the way a night at the club did. The band's cue to say goodnight, though in our experience most listeners just flip it back to side one.

Also at Kops: more Miles Davis on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Prestige / Craft Recordings (cat# CR00722), a reissue of the 1956 album.