..:: audio-music dot info ::..


Main Page     The Desert Island     Copyright Notice
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz


Miles Davis: 'Round about Midnight / Milestones

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Columbia Records
Released: 1956 / 1958
Time:
 58:18 / 68:51
Category: Jazz
Producer(s): See Artists ...
Rating: *********. (9/10)
Media type: CD Double
Web address: www.milesdavis.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2008.10.23
Price in €: 9,99



 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s

'Round about Midnight - 1956:

[1] 'Round Midnight (Hanighen/Monk/Williams) - 5:55
[2] Ah-Leu-Cha (Parker) - 5:53
[3] All of You (Porter) - 7:01
[4] Bye Bye Blackbird (Dixon/Henderson) - 7:54
[5] Tadd's Delight (Dameron) - 4:26
[6] Dear Old Stockholm (Getz/Traditional) - 7:49


Milestones - 1958:
[1] Dr. Jackle (McLean) - 5:50
[2] Sid's Ahead (Davis) - 13:02
[3] Two Bass Hit (Gillespie/Lewis) - 5:14
[4] Milestones (Davis) - 5:46
[5] Billy Boy (Traditional) - 7:14
[6] Straight, No Chaser (Monk) - 10:40
[7] Two Bass Hit [alternate take] (Gillespie, Lewis) - 4:32
[8] Milestones [alternate take] (Davis) - 6:01
[9] Straight, No Chaser [alternate take] (Monk) - 10:28
 

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


'ROUND ABOUT MIDNIGHT - 1956:

Miles Davis - Trumpet

Paul Chambers - Bass
John Coltrane - Tenor Saxophone
Red Garland - Piano
Philly Joe Jones - Drums

George Avakian - Producer, Liner Notes, Original Recording Producer
Mark Wilder - Engineer, Mastering
Frank Laico - Engineer, Original Recordings
Ray Moore - Engineer
Teo Macero - Mastering
Bob Belden - Reissue Producer
Michael Cuscuna - Reissue Producer
Howard Fritzson - Reissue Art Director
Randall Martin - Reissue Design
Don Hunstein - Photography
Aram Avakian - Photography
Dennis Stock - Photography
Seth Rothstein - Project Director

MILESTONES - 1958:

Miles Davis - Trumpet

Cannonball Adderley - Alto Saxophone
Paul Chambers - Bass
John Coltrane - Tenor Saxophone
Red Garland - Piano
Philly Joe Jones - Drums, Double Saxophone

George Avakian - Producer
Teo Macero - Producer, Remixing
Bob Belden - Reissue Producer
Harold Chapman - Engineer
Tim Geelan - Remixing
Mark Wilder - Mastering, Mixing, Remastering
Dennis Stock - Photography, Cover Photo
Aram Avakian - Photography
Chuck Stewart - Photography
Michael Berniker - Coordination
Nathaniel Brewster - Research
Amy Herot - Coordination
Bob Blumenthal - Liner Notes
Charles Edward Smith - Liner Notes
Don Hunstein - Photography
Michael Cuscuna - Reissue Producer
Howard Fritzson - Reissue Art Director
Randall Martin - Reissue Design
Seth Rothstein - Project Director


 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s

'ROUND ABOUT MIDNIGHT - 1956:

1962 LP Columbia 8649
1991 CD Columbia CK-40610
1991 CS Columbia CJT-40610
1994 CD Sony Jazz 4606052
1997 CD Sony 65359
2006 CD Sony 1201
2008 CD Sony 88697352442



Miles Davis's long relationship with Columbia began with the 1955-56 recordings heard here, as the trumpeter's suddenly rising career curve was consolidated after the move from the independent Prestige label. The band on this CD is the first of Davis's classic quintets, the extraordinary group with John Coltrane, pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones that still stands as the definitive ensemble in modern mainstream jazz. The music ranges from the smoldering emotions of Davis's distinctively muted ballad performances to the searching quality already apparent in Coltrane's keening horn, while the band's unique chemistry is apparent on "Dear Old Stockholm" and the novel counterpoint of Charlie Parker's "Ah-Leu-Cha." The Legacy Edition contains four bonus tracks from the original sessions, plus a second disc of live material - one track from the Newport Jazz Fest 1955 (with Thelonious Monk), and eight previously unreleased tracks from the 1956 Pasadena concert.

Stuart Broomer - Amazon.com



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, 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. Musically, this sound is as unusual and as beautiful as it was when issued in 1956. Davis had already led the charge through two changes in jazz - both cool jazz and hard bop - and was beginning to move in another direction here that wouldn't be defined for another two years. Besides the obvious lyrical and harmonic beauty of "Round About Midnight" that is arguably its definitive version even over Monk's own, there are the edges of Charlie Parker's "Au Leu-Cha" with its Bluesology leaping from every chord change in Red Garland's left hand. Coltrane's solo here too is notable for its stark contrast to Davis' own: he chooses an angular tack where he finds the heart of the mode and plays a melody in harmonic counterpoint to the changes but never sounds outside. Cole Porter's "All of You" has Davis quoting from Louis Armstrong's "Basin Street Blues" in his solo that takes out the tune, and Coltrane has never respected a melody so much. But it's in "Bye-Bye Blackbird" that we get to hear the band gel as a unit, beginning with Davis playing through the melody, muted and sweet, slightly flatted out until he reaches the harmony on the refrain and begins his solo on a high note. Garland is doing more than comping in the background; he's slipping chord shapes into those interval cracks and shifting them as the rhythm section keeps "soft time." When Coltrane moves in for his break, rather than Davis' spare method, he smatters notes quickly all though the melodic body of the tune and Garland has to compensate harmonically, moving the mode and tempo up a notch until his own solo can bring it back down again. Which he does with a gorgeous all-blues read of the tune utilizing first one hand and then both hands to create fat harmonic chords to bring Davis back in to close it out. It's breathtaking how seamless it all is. There's little else to say except that Round About Midnight is among the most essential of Davis' Columbia recordings.

Thom Jurek - All Music Guide



MILESTONES - 1958:

1997 CD Columbia 65340
2001 CD Columbia/Legacy 85203
2001 CD Sony International 9726
2001 CD Sony 85203
2007 CD Sony/BMG Japan 10082

The title does not refer to the trumpeter's composition from his first recording date but is an acknowledgement of thissession's visceral impact. Tenor saxophonist John Coltrane had left the trumpeter in the spring of 1957 to join Thelonious Monk for his engagement at New York's Five Spot, and wasreplaced by a rising star on alto saxophone, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley. When he returned, Davis had a formidable three-horn front line to go with "The Rhythm Section". MILESTONES is a bracing rhythmic tonic, coming after the refined ballad moods and lush orchestral pastels of MILES AHEAD. Andfrom the furious, adults-only hyper-drive of the opening "Dr. Jekyll" (with its thrilling tenor/alto battle and daredevil drum breaks), through a dazzling Dizzy Gillespie/John Lewis bebop anthem ("Two Bass Hit") to the bright dancing groove of "Straight, No Chaser", MILESTONES is an epic historicalevent-even by Miles' standards. The slow, bluesy "Sid'sAhead" first appeared as "Weirdo" on Miles' March 1954 BlueNote session, and offers tantalising portraits of the horns. Coltrane attacks his line like a blues guitarist, in shortbursts of vocal cries and loping syncopated tangents; Milescomes out jabbing, slow and purposeful, feinting and fadingbehind the beat with lovely long tones and bends; Cannonball comes out all agitated and excitable, with little quicksilver runs and sing-songy asides (such as "Skip to my lou my darling"). Pianist Red Garland's famous feature on the traditional "Billy Boy" highlights his mastery of a two handed orchestral style, his brilliant use of space in blues phrasing,and his interplay with the driving young Paul Chambers (with his enormous beat and impeccable bow work) and the fiery Philly Joe Jones (whose complex melodic variations transcend the technical limitations of the drums).



This 1958 date finds Davis with his first super group: alto and tenor saxophonists Cannonball Adderley and John Coltrane, drummer Philly Joe Jones, bassist Paul Chambers, and pianist Red Garland. It looks to the past with the bebop and blues likes of Jackie McLean's "Dr. Jackle," John Lewis and Dizzy Gillespie's "Two Bass Hit," and Thelonious Monk's "Straight No Chaser." The band points solidly to the future with the modal masterpiece "Milestones," which set the stage for the historic Kind of Blue. Davis's own tune, "Sid's Ahead" has a melodic line like Benny Golson's "Killer Joe," and "Billy Boy" features Garland, Chambers, and Jones and is a stylistic shout to Ahmad Jamal. This superbly remastered edition of Milestones contains three alternate takes. "Two Bass Hit" snaps, crackles, and pops with Jones's rope-a-dope rhythms. The title track rings with an even more lyrical statement by Davis, and on "Straight, No Chaser" Coltrane delivers an even more harmonically daring solo, while Adderley takes on Trane's supersonic scalar style, capped by Chambers's grooving solo. A classic recording from a classic group.

Eugene Holley Jr. - Amazon.com



What is immediately noticeable upon listening to this delicately and superbly remastered version of Miles Davis classic first - and only - album with his original sextet is how deep the blues presence is on it. Though it is true that the album's title cut is rightfully credited with introducing modalism into jazz, and defining Davis' music for years to come, it is the sole selection of its kind on the record. The rest is all blues in any flavor you wish you call your own. For starters, there's the steaming bebop blues of "Dr. Jackie" - recorded in 1955 for a Prestige session with Jackie McLean. Davis is still in his role as a trumpet master, showing a muscularity of tone that reveals something more akin to Roy Eldridge or Louis Armstrong than Dizzy or Fats Navarro. The tempo is furious as all the members of the sextet solo except for Jones. The saxophonists trade choruses and come off sounding like mirrored images of one another in the slower, post-bop blues that is "Sid's Ahead." With a slippery melody line that quotes two harmonic lines from early New Orleans-styled blues, Davis drives the band into the rhythm section's garage. It's Cannonball first with his stuttered, angular lines, hiccuping halfway through the interval before continuing on with a squeak here and the slightest squawk there. Next up is Davis, blowing fluid and straightened lines, ribbons through the rhythm section's center as Red Garland lays out and leaves it to Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones to provide the earnest, time-keeping 4/4 that Davis sidles to in the tune. When Coltrane solos, all best are off as he plays as pure a blues as he was capable at the time. Nonetheless, there are the long lines of slurred notes, smattered against Garland's harmonies and he slips into quoting "Skip to my Lou" before knotting it back down to the basics and even then not for long. Coltrane was already exploring the edges of mode and harmony; he used an intervallic invention in the choruses to juxtapose his solo against the rhythm section and it worked - but it must have made Davis raise an eyebrow. Chambers' solo is as tasteful and as breezy and free as only he could be. His contrapuntal soloing rides the rhythm out, Garland striding along quietly until the tune returns.

"Sid's Ahead" is followed by the track "Two Bass Hit," written by Dizzy and John Lewis. It's an off-kilter blues with a wide middle section, no doubt for Lewis' piano to fill. It's a wonderful ensemble showcase but Davis blows his ass off in his solo, riding through the two saxophonists and challenging them at the same time. But then comes "Milestones" with its modal round and interval, where harmony is constructed from the center up. It is a memorable tune for not only its structure and how it would inform not only Davis' own music, but jazz in general for the next seven years. It would also change John Coltrane's life. The exploratory style of soloing was already revealing itself in Trane's playing, but he loosens it up even more here. More importantly, this is the first place we get to see it in Davis, where there is no goal at the end of the rainbow, there is merely the solo itself in the heart of the mode. The alternate take of this tune, which is featured at the end of the album, tagged on with two others of "Two Bass Hit" and "Straight, No Chaser," has an even longer and weirder solo by Davis where he plays notes he probably never played again. The album's closer is Monk's "Straight, No Chaser," which became a signature tune for the sextet even when Garland and Jones left to be replaced by Bill Evans and Jimmy Cobb and later Evans by Wynton Kelly. Like "My Funny Valentine," it was a Davis staple that accented how intuitive the band was with unusual harmonic structures like Monk's. The Adderley solo is remarkable for its fluid, bebop-style runs over Garland's extended chords and flatted sevenths. Cannonball quotes the melody in a myriad of ways and goes off the deep end each time he does, taking the new rendition to its limit, always returning it to the blues root. Davis plays it cool, slithering around the rhythm section staying firmly in blues phraseology, even quoting a reverse harmonic melodic read of "When the Saints Go Marching In," bringing it in and out three times while pushing the blues line to its edge. Coltrane's solo is all over the place, slurring notes as he plays weird scales all over the blues and triple times the rhythm section. But he knows the tune better than anyone here - he spent six months with Monk just previous to this playing it every night. Coltrane knows how much he can stretch the intervals without breaking apart the body. He inserts his own modal interpretation on the blues halfway through his solo before slipping into the straight, swinging groove of his Blue Train album, finished only two months before. Garland, oddly enough, is the one to travel the furthest from Monk here, coming off with a Bud Powell-esque blues muscle that shifts the entire tune into a straight bebop blues before sifting in a few Errol Garland quotes as the bass solos and then the front line comes in to take it out. The alternate take is even stranger as Garland falters in his time not once but twice and has to find his way back in.

Legacy has done it proud on this series of reissues, as the sound is as fine as technology can currently make it, the notes are terrific, and the alternate takes offer additional delights to fans of the original recordings. They should also be commended for leaving them at the bottom of the album instead of placing them in with the original album's sequence, a practice that though widely used is distracting nonetheless. This is a fine issue of a classic, and treated like the piece of art it is.

Thom Jurek - All Music Guide



The recorded debut, and sole studio recording, of the Miles Davis Dream Team - with alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley added to the in-place quintet of John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones - done a year before KIND OF BLUE. The set is balanced between the up- and medium-tempo tautness of "Dr. Jekyll," "Two Bass Hit," "Straight, No Chaser," and "Milestones" - the three horn players riding Jones's rhythmic pulse like bronco busters - and the one leisurely ballad ("Sid's Ahead," which stretches to a full 13 minutes) that foreshadows the long, slow modal explorations just down the road. Throughout, Davis plays some of his greatest trumpet solos, slices of perfection nestled between the earthy Adderley and the already ethereal Coltrane. This album is a model of its times - a happy marriage between the gritty soulfulness of hard bop and the romantic lilt of cool jazz. Only a rhythm section prance through "Billy Boy" breaks the mood.

Steve Futterman - Barnes & Noble
 

 L y r i c s


Instrumental Albums.

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


Currently no Samples available!