Classic Prestige Sessions 1951-1956 (Bril)

Miles Davis | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 4, 2009)
• Original Release Date: 2009
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Prestige
• ASIN: B002ECN4LY
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #192,325 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

In the early 1950's Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins developed a friendship and working relationship that produced some of the best and most important jazz of the decade. To prove the point, Prestige Records proudly presents this all-new compilation that showcases just some of their stellar work together that was recorded for the famed jazz label.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars HARD BOP'S BABY PICTURES, August 15, 2009

By 

Mark E. Farrington (East Syracuse, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Classic Prestige Sessions 1951-1956 (Bril) (Audio CD)

This set assembles all the Prestige tracks recorded by Miles Davis & Sonny Rollins, over 5 sessions, from January 1951 to March 1956. While Joe Tarantino's 24-bit transfers are excellent, the 1953-56 sessions (disc 2 of this collection) are available in better sound in the Van Gelder Remastered editions of COLLECTORS' ITEMS and BAG'S GROOVE (i.e., newly tranferred to 24-bit digital sound by the original engineer, Rudy Van Gelder). For this reason, my review concentrates on the two 1951 sessions (all of disc 1).

In 1951, Miles Davis was grappling with two life-sized challenges: one personal, one musical.

First, as we all know, in the 1940s and early 50s heroin addiction was epidemic in the jazz community. By early 1951, Miles was at least one year into his habit - and by now "getting high" was hardly the object of "using" as much as it was to avoid feeling sick. He made sporadic attempts to kick his habit but, as he admits in his Autobiography, in 1951 he still wasn't ready to face it no-holds-barred. (In November 1953, he would do so.)

Musically, in the immediate wake of the "Birth of the Cool" music of 1949-50 (including the exquisite Columbia sides with Sarah Vaughan), Miles found himself in the challenging position of having to "triangulate" a new music from mid-to-late 1940s BeBop on the one hand, and "Birth Of the Cool" on the other. Because he lacked the virtuosity demadned by BeBop, and needed a "working" situation minus the expense of the multiple arranged horns of "Cool," he had to cut a path to a newer aesthetic in which he could better reach his inner, stylistic Center. This would also involve working around (and, to a certain extent, overcoming) his technical limitations as a trumpet player.

What all this comes down to, in terms of his early 50s recordings, is that Miles would have good days, so-so days and utterly bad days...This "Dig" session of October 1951, and the Blue Note and Prestige dates of April and May 1953, respectively, were some of the good days. Both this "Down" session of January 1951 (with Sonny Rollins) and the May 1952 Blue Note date (with Jackie McLean) qualify as at least so-so, and worth having. But the path-etic "Ezz-thetic" date of March 1951; the venomous "Serpent's Tooth" session of January 1953 with Bird and Sonny Rollins, despite a decent-enough version of "Round Midnight"; the not-so-tasty "Tasty Pudding" date of February 1953: these were some of the bad days. (To quote Sir Winston Churchill's reaction to a lackluster dessert, "This pudding...has no THEME.")

Now, while it is true that Miles had yet to kick his habit, what you will NOT hear, on any of these 1951 tracks, is the kind of strung-out, mental / emotional breakdown manifested on Charlie Parker's notorious 1946 "Lover Man" and "Max is Making Wax." (So sorry, jazz voyeurs, to ruin your day.)

JANUARY 17, 1951 was a busy day for Miles. In the afternoon, for Norman Granz, he recorded his last truly fruitful session with Charlie Parker. (The "Star Eyes" from this date is, to say the least, a thing of beauty.) A few hours later Miles cut his first sides, as a leader, for Prestige. With him were Sonny Rollins, Benny Green, John Lewis, Percy Heath and Roy Haynes. The sound quality is so-so, even for 1951. With a whole Charlie Parker session just behind him, Miles is alert and full of ideas, but frankly - I speak as trumpet player, myself - his lip is shot; it is a challenge for him just to get through simple, low-to-mid-range lines without cracking notes.

The first track, "Morpheus", is a John Lewis Blues, bracketed with a kind of abstract, Birth-of-the-Coolish head-arrangement. (Prestige's Ira Gitler gave the tune its title because it brought to mind the ancient god of dreams.) Miles spins two choruses of boppish lines - and not only avoids embarrassing himself, but, from the very first note, impresses the listener with his incisively dark tone.

Next comes "Down", another Blues, but with a more straight-ahead, funky character (as in "get DOWN"). Miles puts in two choruses; his personable, pleasantly lyrical way with the Blues, first heard on the 1945 "Now's the Time" with Charlie Parker, has obviously grown into its next stage. As Ira Gitler notes, "his solo...felt as if he was talking to you, telling a story as it were." To me it is the least unsuccessful track of the session.

Two takes of "Blue Room" follow. (The first is obviously taken from an originally unrealeased, worn acetate with added reverb.) On both takes Miles indulges himself with sweet, moody lines (punctured with some "clams") , and on the first take Sonny Rollins already shows the sensual, "fluffy" tone and lyricism that would render him instantly recognizable. Meanwhile, John Lewis holds it all together with his disciplined, neoclassic taste.

"Whispering" is next, a medium-tempo romp which surges along well enough, without really creating a new mood or exploring anything about the original tune.

Before the session ended, John Lewis had a gig to get to, and so Miles "comps" admirably on piano for "I Know," a Sonny Rollins solo over the chords of "Confirmation". Technically, this is Rollins' first side as a "leader". It ends abruptly enough to make one wish it had gone on for a few more choruses.

OCTOBER 5, 1951 marked Mile's next session as a leader - and the first intended for "Microgroove" or 33 1/3 RPM LPs (even if, at first, they were only the 10-inch variety). So we get more choruses, more stretching out than on the usual bop records, and something better than 78-RPM sound quality - even if true "Hi-Fi" was still a few years ahead. Sonny Rollins is back with Miles, and joining them is the 19-year-old Jackie McLean on alto sax, Walter Bishop, Jr. on piano, Tommy Potter on bass and Art Blakey on drums. Charlie Parker attended this session, sitting in the control booth and making the young Jackie McLean very nervous (per Miles' Autobiography). But in the end, Bird's presence proved to be an encouragement, not an inhibitor.

Now, unlike Blue Note, Prestige did NOT offer paid rehersals, prior to recording. So, the "ensemble", while together enough, is seldom "tight" ; it even has the ambiance of a live date or jam session. There ARE some stylistically raw moments, perhaps because Miles & Company (whether they knew it or not) were moving toward a more polished Hard Bop idiom which had yet to be defined. That is to say, this session is really a series of "Baby Pictures" of Hard Bop. This is particularly the case with drummer Art Blakey. By the time of his sessions with Miles of April 1953 and March 1954, he has artistically grown in leaps and bounds ; his force-of-nature drive, while undiminished, is submitted to a refinement in texture and taste which is only hinted at in this session. In any case, most of this music yields great pleasure, even (at least, in my case) after DECADES of repeated listening.

(BTW, this session of October 5, 1951 is now available separately - in these same excellent transfers by Joe Tarantino - on a single disc entitled DIG.)

"Conception", that is, Miles' altered version of George Shearing's bop classic, starts off the session with everyone in good form. In March 1950, Miles had recorded it for Capitol (when it was titled "Deception"), on the final of his three "Birth of the Cool" dates. But this 1951 version is more about DRIVE and less about "cool"; not only does Miles sport a warmer tone, his solo is far more fluent and sinewy. Art Blakey puts in his most tasteful work of the session, opting for a more uninhibited approach on most of the other tracks. But already, Miles presages Hard Bop : projecting the more advanced, harmonic intrigue of BeBop, he injects it, even at this tempo, with a more thougthful (some would say "contemplative") lyricism. Indeed, this is one of his very best early 50s solos. (Miles also notes, in his Autobiography, that no less than Charles Mingus stopped by and sat in on bass for this track.)

"Out of the Blue" is a mid-tempo, Hard-Bop-precursing piece based on the chords of "Get Happy," its seemingly cut-off phrase endings adding to its character. Along with "Paper Moon" and "Conception," it strikes me as one of the most stylistically assured tracks of the session. Sonny Rollins turns in the best solo, quoting Thelonious Monk's "Well, You Needn't" with such non-chalance that you almost have to smile.

"Denial" is "headless" (i.e., minus arranged melody), a traversal of the chords of Charlie Parker's "Confirmation." Miles begins , adhering to a more purely Bebop style, followed by the others. Ira Gitler's liner notes do not confirm this, but I have always suspected the loosey-goosey quality of this track to derive from an on-the-spot decision to play it - as a tribute, because Bird Himself was present? Still, in spite of a promising opening by Miles - and some brilliant Milesian moments during the "trading of fours" - none of the solos end up as particularly memorable or deep-cutting. (The ending, too, is somewhat desultory and rag-tag.)

"Bluing" is next. At the time, much was made of the fact that this mid-tempo, unprecedentedly extended Blues was recorded with an "eye" toward the new LP format : it clocks in at 9 minutes, 55 seconds. And make no mistake : "Bluing" DOES live up to Ira Gitler's description : "an extremely moving, blues document." Even so, quantitatively AND qualitatively, Miles would surpass it on April 29, 1954, with his immortal, post-cold-turkey "comeback" Blues : the 13-minute, 25-second "Walkin' ". Miles takes two seperate solos, his mastery of Blues Narrative developing rapidly (compare it to "Down"); Rollins & McLean are hardly less effective. Art Blakey,... Read more ›

5.0 out of 5 stars Miles and Sonny, December 7, 2011

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Sonny (Long Island, NY) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Classic Prestige Sessions 1951-1956 (Bril) (Audio CD)

Quite good - a young swingin' Rollins with Miles who was a little more verbose on the trumpet than he would be later. Also contains the recordings with the Bird on tenor (it's still tough on 'Round Midnight to tell which tenor is Bird and which one is Rollins.) Some originals - Doxy & Oleo, etc. Really good stuff!

4.0 out of 5 stars Discography, December 26, 2010

By 

Dennis G. Voss Jr. (Lexington, KY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Classic Prestige Sessions 1951-1956 (Bril) (Audio CD)

Amazon aleady offers a lengthy review that sets this boxed set in context and then describes the music, so I won't add to that. But I thought a brief discography might be a helpful supplement to the longer review:

1) Disc 1 Tracks 1-6: represents the 1951 portion of Miles Davis & Horns supplemented by a bonus track ("I Know") recorded with Rollins as leader and Miles on piano. The rest of that album, with Al Cohn and Zoot Sims on saxes, does not appear here.

2) Disc 1 Tracks 7-13: the 1951 session that constituted Dig, including the two bonus outtakes that originally appeared on a compilation, Conception; the rest of what Miles contributed to that collection, under leadership of Lee Konitz, does not appear here.

3) Disc 2 Tracks 1-4 & 10-12: sessions held in 1953 and 1956 that were combined later on to constitute the album Collectors' Items

4) Disc 2 Tracks 5-9: a 1954 session that constituted the bulk of the album Bag's Groove, excluding only the portion that actually included Bags himself (i.e., vibraphonist Milt Jackson)

Buying the music this way might make sense for someone really into Sonny Rollins who only wanted the portion of the Miles Prestige catalogue that included him. I'd take a different route if you're trying to get into what Miles was doing in the early 1950s.