The Pan Piper (Miles Davis) (LP 568 - 572)

Miles Davis Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (CD, Not Now Music, 1958) ***

Miles Davis with Cannonball Adderley   Somethin' Else (CD, Not Now Music, 1958) ***** 

Miles Davis Sketches Of Spain (CD, Not Now Music, 1960) ***

Miles Davis Miles Davis and The Modern Jazz Giants  (CD, Not Now Music, 1959) *****  

The Miles Davis Sextet  Jazz At the Plaza Vol 1 (CD, Columbia, 1958 but released 1973) ***** 

Genre: Jazz 

Places I remember: HMV; the Warehouse (Hastings); Kings Recording (Abu Dhabi)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles/ Gear costume: Sur L'Autoroute (Ascenseur pour l'échafaud), Autumn Leaves (Somethin' Else); Oleo (Jazz At The Plaza Vol 1)

Active compensatory factors: I confess to being a pleb when it comes to Miles Davis. 

I love Kind Of Blue (like everybody else does) and I love the hard bop sets of the late sixties that include John Coltrane (Jazz At The Plaza), Red Garland and Thelonious Monk (Modern Jazz Giants) or Cannonball Adderley (Somethin' Else).

Ascenseur is basically a movie soundtrack. It does a good job of it too, with soundscapes to (I presume) match the visuals. Sur L'Autoroute is a good example.

Somethin' Else is really a Cannonball Adderley album with Miles as a sideman but Miles has become the much bigger name so my re-released CD version has his name front and centre. In reality Miles and Adderley are part of a great ensemble with Art Blakey on drums and Hank Jones (piano). Sam Jones (bass) rounds out the group.

Sketches Of Spain is another key album in Miles' influential body of work, but it's one I can't appreciate much, somehow. Maybe all I can say is that it's not to my taste.

The Modern Jazz Giants album is brilliant though. The vibraphone sounds of Milt Jackson add some great textures and counter foils for the trumpet throughout the album and Coltrane appears on Round Midnight.

Finally, Jazz At The Plaza Vol 1 (Vol 2 was Duke Ellington recorded at the same event). This is the group that would shortly go on to record Kind Of Blue so we're talking genius level players.

There's a party vibe going on and the sound is a little spotty on the trumpet at times but Coltrane is on fire! He must have had off nights but I've never heard them. Bill Evans is also in sublime form. Wow - what it would have been like to experience this live.  

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Where do they all belong? I haven't explored Davis beyond that late 50's/ early 60's period. At one time I bought Bitches Brew and Live Evil but quickly sold them off. Yikes - too tough for me. Free jazz, I've come to learn, is not my thing maan!