The First Quintet had Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, Philly Joe Jones on drums, and John Coltrane on tenor sax. There is a famous debate among Miles Davis fans over which quintet is better. Miles Davis’ band repeatedly shifted in its composition, but it can be roughly grouped into two stable periods: the First Great Quintet and the Second Great Quintet. Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants (1959) It was very common for couples to go to see him in jazz clubs together. Another interesting thing about this album is how Davis exemplified a kind of 50s masculinity, but his music was disarming and romantic. In his later more experimental years his clothing was much more unusual, colourful, and counter-cultural. Davis, with his suits, beautiful women, and suave look, was the definition of cool. Van Gelder was a legendary audio engineer known for editing in such a way that produced a distinctive sound.Īs far as I know, this album played an important part in the etymology of the word cool. If you listen to this album, it’ll probably be the Rudy Van Gelder (RVG) remaster. Luke Muehlhauser talked about this on his blog, which I recommend. In general, there are many remastered, extended and reissued versions of all of Davis’ popular songs and albums, and frequently no canonical version. My overall highlights from this era are Boplicity, Four, and Bags’ Groove. This doesn’t bother me so much anymore, but in any case, I recommend remastered versions where you can find them. There’s a lot of static on the earlier recordings. He replaced Dizzy Gillespie as trumpeter for the quintet of the legendary saxophonist Charlie Parker, which is how he first came to notoriety. Miles Davis’ career spanned the most important eras in jazz. You may find this guide significantly more helpful if you follow along with this playlist on Spotify, which compiles all of the featured songs in order. So, after hundreds of hours of listening, I present to you: a beginner’s guide to Miles Davis. This guide is by no means meant to be authoritative. This is why jazz is considerably more difficult to get into than other genres and has a lack of listenership among the youth.ĭisclaimer: I’m a philistine with limited musical knowledge or ability. Some of it sounds cacophonous to a newcomer. Many of the more Avant Garde songs mentioned in this post don’t sound good unless you’re really concentrating. Jazz musicians seem to be the most thoughtful and intelligent of any genre. Moreover, I enjoy the intellectual demandingness of jazz as a genre. As Ken Burns put it, jazz is “familiar, but brand new every night”. Jazz is so interesting to me because of its fusion of intricate underlying structure with improvisation and spontaneity. Tyler Cowen writes that “current times are the very best for jazz, ever”. For another, the decline of the cultural centrality to jazz has led to a decline in the price of concert tickets, etc., such that there’s high returns to having expertise. For one thing, almost all of jazz is on Spotify now at amazingly high quality. There is a perception that jazz is dead, and Davis himself even famously declared that jazz was dead. This difference is most apparent for Cookin’, Relaxin’, Workin’ and Steamin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet, all of which were recorded over a two-day session in 1956 (!) to complete Davis’ contract with Prestige records. The years I mention are from the date of release.
Some of the years in this post may be confusing because of the lag between recording and release. This post is grouped chronologically within periods, but the different periods overlap so it’s not strictly chronological. If you feel that I missed something important, please don’t hesitate to contact me. So do not take this piece as an endorsement of him as a person. Miles was famously difficult, rude, and beat his wives on multiple occasions. This means that the jazz fusion period is underrepresented, because I personally don’t like it as much as his earlier work.
This list is far from comprehensive and there are many albums I chose to leave out. I will list and discuss the albums that I view as essential listening, and bullets beneath will list my favourite songs from that album. My aim with this guide is to write something that would have been very helpful to me when I started listening to Miles Davis.
Many of these are different recordings of the same song, but jazz is so improvisational that it’s difficult to draw the line of what counts as a distinct song. He was one of the most influential figures in the history of jazz, and he had a prolific output (just on Spotify, he has over 1,000 songs). Miles Davis (1926-1991) was a jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Inspired by: A beginner’s guide to modern art jazz