Miles Davis Second Quintet Live

This blog's masthead puts Miles Davis at the center of genius in modern music.  I hold to that in spite of the fact that my collection of Miles' is very incomplete.  I have only a little of his work after 1969.  That was the point that Miles decided to strike out on a new course.

I have a lot of his work from the early fifties on.  Davis' fans are very lucky.  We have not only a fine body of studio work by his two "great" quintets, but very large box sets of live recordings.  I would suggest the following:

1. Stockholm 1960 Complete
2. In Person Live at the Blackhawk 1961
3. Live at Carnegie Hall 1961
4. Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel 1965

That is a powerful lot of live Miles Davis.  Fortunately, there is more.  Miles second quintet was well documented in the studio.  ESP is an essential album by what many consider the greatest small ensemble in the history of jazz.   The Plugged Nickel gives us the Second Quintet in a very pensive mood.  I love this collection.  However...

We have two recent collections of recordings made by Miles in Europe in the late sixties.  The Bootleg Series Vol. 1 features the second quintet:

• Miles Davis — trumpet
• Wayne Shorter — tenor saxophone
• Herbie Hancock — piano
• Ron Carter — bass
• Tony Williams — drums

I have just now acquired this box and I am in love.  I am playing 'Footprints' (a Wayne Shorter composition) and 'On Green Dolphin Street'.  It just doesn't get any better than this.  Enjoy.

The Bootleg Series Vol. 2 has just been released.  This was Miles' "third quintet" with Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Dave Holland, and Jack DeJohnette.  This group never recorded in the studio.  Miles regretted this.  Fortunately, some of their live dates in Europe were recorded.  I am waiting for the box to arrive in my mailbox. 

Miles Live @ the Blackhawk

The two most valuable Miles Davis box sets (of those that I have) are: 1) The Legendary Prestige Quintet Recordings and 2) Live at the Plugged Nickel.   If you have those two, you have big chunk of music from both of Miles' great quintets.  I would add that the former is much less important if you already have the individual albums released from those sessions.  

What comes next?  Almost certainly it would be Miles In Person Friday and Saturday Nights at the Blackhawk, Complete (Columbia, 2003).  This box contains four CDs recorded on April 21st and 22nd of 1961.  The Blackhawk was a great venue and the location of some very great jazz recordings.  This album is fine sample of Miles between his two quintets.  Here is the lineup:

• Bass – Paul Chambers (3)
• Drums – Jimmy Cobb
• Piano – Wynton Kelly
• Tenor Saxophone – Hank Mobley
• Trumpet – Miles Davis

Chambers and Cobb remain from the Kind of Blue album.  Hank Mobley fills the sax chair.  He gets some bad press for his work with Miles, but I can't hear any problems other than the fact that his name isn't John Coltrane.  Wynton Kelly is a superb hard bop piano player and he does a fine job here.  His work on the above cut is toe curling good. 

I am playing 'No Blues' from the first disc in the set.  If this doesn't recharge your smart phone, I don't know what will. 

I am also playing 'Softly As In a Morning Sunrise' from Wynton Kelly's  Kelly Blue.  This is just the rhythm section from the above album, recorded in 1959.