Customer Reviews

Walkin' (20 Bit Mastering)

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"Walkin" has just been reissued as a 20-bit remaster by Prestige (along with others from that mid-50s period, i.e. Relaxin'/Workin'). The sound is of course in mono, but absolutely excellent. The material and top-notch performances are ahead of anything in jazz at that time. My only complaint is that at full price ($15) there are NO new liners or photos, just one of those wraparound cardboard holders whose function is dubious... I mailed Prestige the little tear-out card and suggested they look at the Columbia Miles reissues as a model...In the end, it's the music that counts; the 1st two tracks "Walkin'" and "Blue n'Boogie" are alone worth the price of admission.

The title track of this album announced to the world (though only a few people were listening) that Miles Davis was back after several years of heroin addiction and erratic playing. Miles had pioneered the cool style four years earlier, but on Walkin' he and his companions went in the opposite direction -- focusing on the groove and the blues in a style that would soon be known as hard bop. On "Walkin'", Kenny Clarke and Percy Heath set up a mid-tempo groove over which Miles blows some incredible trumpet; trombonist J.J. Johnson, pianist Horace Silver, and the underrated saxophonist Lucky Thompson rise to the challenge as well. "Blue'n'Boogie" is given the same treatment but at a much faster pace. On both these numbers, the new LP format allows the musicians to really stretch out and develop their ideas. Side 2 of the album has the same rhythm section, but Johnson and Thompson are replaced with Bird-clone Dave Schildkraut. The playing is mellower -- "You Don't Know What Love Is" and the beautiful Davis ballad "Solar" as well as the more energetic "Love Me or Leave Me". Walkin' was the first Miles Davis classic since the Birth of the Cool and is absolutely essential to any fan's collection.

A lot of people mistakenly group this album with Seamin, Relaxin, Workin, and Cookin, which were all recorded during a later span of time, consecutively, with the Coltrane group. This one is completely different.

With that out of the way, this is a good jazz record. It is not OUTSTANDING or ESSENTIAL per se, but the first two tunes are swingin' blueses, featuring soloists that don't appear with miles too much like JJ and some guy named Lucky Thompson, who is a little different than most of the sax players Miles plays with. The other songs on the CD are with a different, less bombastic group featuring a mousey but inventive alto player that i hated for a long time after i bought the cd. What I still dislike, however, is Miles's solo on the last song on the cd, where he keeps repeating the same lick. Otherwise, the ballad is in his usual tender style, and Solar, the original Solar, sounds completely different than the way anyone else ever in the history of jazz ever played it afterwards. It's really chilled out and beautiful and I think the prince of darkness is using a cup mute.

OK, buy it for Solar, and enjoy some fine blues and an obscure Bird clone.