Miles Davis

Miles Davis – That’s What Happened 1982-1985: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 7 (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 03:30:48 minutes | 4,02 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Columbia – Legacy

Miles Davis – That’s What Happened 1982 – 1985: “The Bootleg Series Vol. 7” sheds new light on an underappreciated period of the musician’s restless, career-spanning search for sublime and transcendent sounds

The 3-CD set includes two discs of previously unreleased studio material – from the Star People, Decoy and You’re Under Arrest sessions – and a third disc of Miles Davis Live in Montreal on July 7, 1983; the collection comes in a slipcase with mini sleeves for each album and a booklet with liner notes by Marcus J. Moore and revealing new interviews with Miles’ fellow ’80s players, including Vince Wilburn, Jr. (drummer and bandmate), John Scofield (electric guitarist), Darryl Jones (bassist), Marcus Miller (bassist) and Mike Stern (guitarist).

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Miles Davis – Star People (1983/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 58:36 minutes | 2,45 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Columbia – Legacy

Star People is a 1983 album recorded by Miles Davis and issued by Columbia Records. It is the second studio recording released after the trumpeter’s six-year hiatus, the first to feature electric guitarist John Scofield (who was recommended by saxophonist Bill Evans), and the last to be produced by long-standing producer Teo Macero. Bassist Marcus Miller (who would go on to produce future Davis sessions) plays on five of the tracks. Electric guitarist Mike Stern features on most of the pieces, and drummer Al Foster and percussionist Mino Cinelu round out the rhythm section. Davis played trumpet and Oberheim synthesizer simultaneously (without using overdubs), and also on separately recorded interludes for the over-18-minute-long blues “Star People”.

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Miles Davis – Kind Of Blue (Includes Pitch Corrected Tracks) (1959/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:10:19 minutes | 2,50 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © HDTT

This will be the best sounding digital reissue of Kind of Blue in your collection. There. I said it. No waffling around. This reissue is stunningly good. If you don’t run and get it NOW, you will kick yourself for not having done so sooner once you finally hear it.

Transferred directly from an excellent tape in pure DSD256, with no PCM processing, Bob Witrak has created a transfer that is more transparent, more resolving, and more natural sounding than any I have in my rather extended collection of over a dozen different issues. Bob is something of a technical savant when it comes to pulling information off of a reel-to-reel tape. And here he accomplished something very special from a very good tape to which he had access. (No, not the master tape.)

Update 09-11-2022: Bob has given us some more insight to the provenance of this tape. Now posted on his website, he says: “Transferred from a 15ips 2-track tape”. There was no retail release of all five tracks on 15ips tape, as far as I know, so this sounds he had access to a safety master or a production master for manufacturing.

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Miles Davis – Decoy (1984/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 39:24 minutes | 1,62 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Columbia

Here again are the boys from Chicago who brought Miles back with The Man With The Horn. Robert Irving III on keyboards took over the role that Miles had assumed with a true sense of harmony and only a rudimentary mastery of synthetic sounds and movements. Irving shared the responsibilities of directing with the trumpet player’s nephew Vince Wilburn, Jr., but Al Foster continued to lead the tempo. John Scofield drew the funk of bassist Darryl Jones in the direction of chromatic abstraction. The two tracks that he cowrote with Miles are fragments of solos, “That’s What Happened” reprising the beginning of his solo on “Speak” (Star People). On another note, the participation of Branford Marsalis in the September 1983 sessions convinced Bill Evans to leave the band. This rather short album was extended with two recordings from the 1983 Montreal Festival. In spite of this, Decoy offered a good balance between the dominant funk that subsequently took over and the jazz tradition, reflected by Scofield’s angularities, Marsalis’ freedom of tone, and the breadth of Miles’ playing that had recovered its full power.

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Miles Davis – Big Fun (2022 Remaster) (1974/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 02:22:29 minutes | 6,26 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Columbia – Legacy

Released in April 1974, Big Fun filled in a few of the gaps with tracks recorded between 1969 and 1972. Standout performances from November 1969, recorded on the heels of the Bitches Brew sessions, reveal how early Miles began to incorporate Indian instruments—sitar, tabla—into his music: “Great Expectations/Orange Lady,” “The Little Blue Frog” (Miles’s muted trumpet adding a delicate, retro touch), and the soulful and deeply lyrical “Yaphet” were wonderful rescues.

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Miles Davis Quintet – ‘Round About Midnight (1957) [MFSL 2012]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 39:28 minutes | Scans included | 1,2 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 755 MB
Monoural | Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab # UDSACD 2083

Given that ‘Round About Midnight was Miles Davis’ debut Columbia recording, it was both a beginning and an ending. Certainly the beginning of his recording career with the label that issued most if not all of his important recordings; and the recording debut of an exciting new band that had within its ranks Philly Joe Jones, Paul Chambers, pianist Red Garland, and an all but unknown tenor player named John Coltrane. The title track was chosen because of its unique rendition with a muted trumpet, and debuted at the Newport Jazz Festival the summer before to a thunderous reception. The date was also an ending of sorts because by the time of the album’s release, Davis had already broken up the band, which re-formed with Cannonball Adderley a year later as a sextet, but it was a tense year. (more…)

Miles Davis – The Musings Of Miles (1955/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/192 kHz | Time – 35:44 minutes | 747 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | Artwork: Digital Booklet | © Prestige Records

By the time Miles Davis recorded „The Musings Of Miles“ on June 7, 1955, he’d expanded and refined his approach to the bop idiom which had nurtured him, and the cool approach–which he’d championed. He learned to refine and edit his line, discovered what aspects of his style were derivative and which were truly his own, and, most importantly, zeroed in on his own signature sound and style of phrasing.

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Miles Davis – Workin’ With The Miles Davis Quintet (Rudy Van Gelder Remaster) (1959/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 42:24 minutes | 478 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | Artwork: Digital Booklet | © Prestige Records
Recorded: May 11 and October 26 (#7), 1956 at Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ
Remastered: 2006, Rudy Van Gelder at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Workin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet is an album recorded in 1956 by Miles Davis. Two sessions on May 11, 1956 and October 26 in the same year resulted in four albums—this one, Relaxin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet, Steamin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet and Cookin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet. Track 2 is a composition written for Davis by Eddie Vinson (see Blue Haze for more details). “Trane’s Blues” (also known as “Vierd Blues”, a tongue-in-cheek reference to Blue Note founder Francis Wolff’s heavily accented verdict on it), also credited to Davis, is in fact a John Coltrane composition (originally titled “John Paul Jones”, and from an earlier session led by bassist Paul Chambers; before the closing statement of theme, Coltrane and Davis play a bit of Charlie Parker’s “The Hymn”). Paul Chambers plays a cello bassline on “Half Nelson”.

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Miles Davis – The Musings Of Miles (Rudy Van Gelder Remaster) (1955/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 35:52 minutes | 423 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | Artwork: Digital Booklet | © Prestige Records
Recorded: Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, June 7, 1955
Remastered: 2008, Rudy Van Gelder at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

This was a forerunner of the Miles Davis Quintet as it was his first session with Red Garland and Philly Joe Jones. Up to then his Prestige dates had been of the “all star” variety. (Oscar Pettiford fills that bill here.) By the fall, John Coltrane and Paul Chambers would come aboard to help form the first of a continuum of great Davis working groups. On “A Night in Tunisia” Philly Joe used special sticks with little cymbals riveted to the shaft.

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Miles Davis – Steamin’ With The Miles Davis Quintet (Rudy Van Gelder Remaster) (1961/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 40:04 minutes | 409 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | Artwork: Digital Booklet | © Prestige Records
Recorded: May 11 and October 26 (#5), 1956 at Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack, NJ
Remastered: 2007, Rudy Van Gelder at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Of Miles Davis’s many bands, none was more influential and popular than the quintet with John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones. Davis’s muted ballads and medium-tempo standards endeared him to the public. The horns’ searing exposition of classics like “Salt Peanuts” and “Well, You Needn’t” captivated musicians. The searching, restless improvisations of Coltrane intrigued listeners who had a taste for adventure. The flawless rhythm section became a model for bands everywhere.

Steamin’ With The Miles Davis Quintet is, in many respects representative of the total work of the quintet, it affords an excellent opportunity to examine just what this remarkable music was and how it was made. Such chemistry is inexplicable, and so, apparently, is the personality of the man who generated it. (more…)

Miles Davis – Relaxin’ With The Miles Davis Quintet [Rudy Van Gelder Remaster] (1958/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/44,1 kHz | Time –  36:51 minutes | 414 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | Artwork: Digital Booklet | © Prestige Records
Recorded: May 11 (#5, 6) and October 26 (other selections), 1956 at Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ
Remastered: 2005, Rudy Van Gelder at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Relaxin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet is an album recorded in 1956 by Miles Davis. Two sessions on 11 May 1956 and 26 October in the same year resulted in four albums—this one, Steamin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet, Workin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet and Cookin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet. These four albums are considered to be among the best performances in the whole hard bop subgenre. The album was remastered by Rudy Van Gelder in 2005 for Prestige Records. This album includes dialogue snippets taken from the original master reel. It also emphasizes the Miles Davis’ concentrated ballad-style playing with his medium-register trumpet.

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Miles Davis – Cookin’ With The Miles Davis Quintet (Rudy Van Gelder Remaster) (1957/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 33:25 minutes | 375 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: Q0buz | Artwork: Digital Booklet | © Prestige Records
Recorded: October 26, 1956 at Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ
Remastered: 2007, 2006, Rudy Van Gelder at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Cookin’ With the Miles Davis Quintet is the first of four classic albums that emerged from two marathon and fruitful sessions recorded in 1956 (the other three discs released in Cookin’s wake were Workin’, Relaxin’ and Steamin’). All the albums were recorded live in the studio, as Davis sought to capture, with Rudy Van Gelder’s expert engineering, the sense of a club show · la the Café Bohemia in New York, with his new quintet, featuring tenor saxophonist John Coltrane. In Miles’s own words, he says he called this album Cookin’ because “that’s what we did-came in and cooked.” What’s particularly significant about this Davis album is his first recording of what became a classic tune for him: “My Funny Valentine.” Hot playing is also reserved for the uptempo number “Tune Up,” which revs with the zoom of both the leader and Trane. (more…)

Miles Davis – Collectors’ Items (Rudy Van Gelder Remaster) (1956/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 43:32 minutes | 429 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | Artwork: Digital Booklet | © Prestige Records
Recorded: January 30, 1953 (#1-4) WOR Studios, New York City and March 16, 1956 (#5-7) at Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack, NJ
Remastered: 2008, Rudy Van Gelder at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Any 1950s Miles Davis recording could easily be called a “collector’s item,” but these selections have special claims to this description. The first four offer Charlie Parker in his only recordings in support of Miles, who had begun his disc career as Bird’s sideman. The last four feature a unique Davis/Mingus encounter. In between is Miles just before launching his first great Quintet, heading two groups loaded with top talent of the “post-bop” period.

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Miles Davis – Bags’ Groove (Rudy Van Gelder Remaster) (1957/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 46:14 minutes | 525 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: Q0buz | Artwork: Digital Booklet | © Prestige Records
Recorded: June 29 & December 24, 1954 at Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, HJ
Remastered: 2007, Rudy Van Gelder at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Bag’s Groove was recorded in 1954 for Prestige Records but was not released until 1957. Most of the album was recorded on June 29, 1954, but the title track was recorded at one session on December 24 of the same year. Several of the tracks on the album were written by Sonny Rollins and would go on to become jazz standards in their own right. (more…)

Miles Davis – Steamin’ With The Miles Davis Quintet (1961/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 40:07 minutes | 1,92 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: PonoMusic | © Concord/Prestige

Although chronologically the last to be issued, this collection includes some of the best performances from the tapes which would produce the albums Cookin’, Relaxin’, Workin’, and ultimately, Steamin’. A primary consideration of these fruitful sessions is the caliber of musicians — Miles Davis (trumpet), Red Garland (piano), John Coltrane (tenor sax), and Philly Joe Jones (drums) — who were basically doing their stage act in the studio. As actively performing musicians, the material they are most intimate with would be their live repertoire. Likewise, what more obvious place than a studio is there to capture every inescapable audible nuance of the combo’s musical group mind. The end results are consistently astonishing. At the center of Steamin’, as with most outings by this band, are the group improvisations which consist of solo upon solo of arguably the sweetest and otherwise most swinging interactions known to have existed between musicians. “Surrey With the Fringe on Top” is passed between the mates like an old joke. Garland compliments threads started by Davis and Coltrane as their seamless interaction yields a stream of strikingly lyrical passages. There are two well-placed nods to fellow bop pioneers Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie on a revision of their “Salt Peanuts.” Philly Joe Jones’ mimicking cymbal speak — which replicates Gillespie’s original vocals — is nothing short of genius. This rendition is definitely as crazy and unpredictable here as the original. Thelonious Monk also gets kudos on “Well, You Needn’t.” This quintet makes short work of the intricacies of the arrangement, adding the double horn lead on the choruses and ultimately redefining this jazz standard. Although there is no original material on Steamin’, it may best represent the ability of the Miles Davis quintet to take standards and rebuild them to suit their qualifications.

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