The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions

The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions is a four compact disc box set of recordings by the Miles Davis Quintet released in 2006 by the Concord Music Group. It collates on three discs the entire set of recordings that made up the Prestige Records albums released from 1956 through 1961 — Miles, Cookin', Relaxin', Workin', and Steamin'. The track "'Round Midnight" was released on the album Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants. The fourth disc contains live material from a television broadcast and in jazz club settings. It peaked at #15 on the Billboard jazz album chart, and was reissued on December 2, 2016, in a smaller compact disc brick packaging.

The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions
Box set by
ReleasedMay 23, 2006
RecordedNovember 16, 1955
May 11, 1956
October 26, 1956
GenreJazz
LabelConcord Music Group
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[1]

In 2019 Craft Recordings, an imprint of the Concord group of labels, released a 32-track version without the fourth disc of live recordings subsequent to the main body of studio recordings in digital hi-res format. It is also available in a set of six vinyl LPs from Craft Recordings in the original 42-track format.

Background

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In the summer of 1955, Davis performed a noted set at the Newport Jazz Festival, and had been approached by Columbia Records executive George Avakian, offering a contract with the label if he could form a regular band.[2] Davis assembled his first regular quintet to meet a commitment at the Café Bohemia in July with Sonny Rollins on tenor saxophone, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums.[3] By the autumn Rollins had left, and at the recommendation of Jones, Davis replaced Rollins with John Coltrane.[4]

In January 1951, Prestige Records owner and producer Bob Weinstock signed Davis to a one-year contract;[5] Davis would continue to record for the label into 1956. Weinstock gave Davis an advance of $750, but the company's artists' contracts were often manipulative with low royalties, paying nothing for rehearsal time.[6] With his success at Newport and the formation of the Miles Davis Quintet, Davis convinced Avakian to buy out his contract with Prestige.[7]

The terms of the deal between Avakian and Weinstock allowed Davis to record for Columbia but not release any of the material until Davis fulfilled his remaining duty to Prestige.[8] Davis took the quintet into the studio for a session in 1955 followed by two marathon dates in 1956, meeting his contractual obligations efficiently.[9] Prestige released the results of the first date for the album Miles in 1956, his second specifically for the twelve-inch LP format.[10]

Content

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Recording sessions took place at the studio of Rudy Van Gelder in Hackensack, New Jersey, three over a twelve-month period 1955 to 1956. Discs one, two, and three contain selections in the order they were taped, all five Prestige LPs assembled from this material. The songs were mostly pop standards, mixed with jazz standards that would have been commonly played by hard bop groups during the 1950s. Disc one, tracks one through six, were recorded on November 16, 1955; disc one, tracks seven through ten, and disc two, tracks one through ten, were recorded on May 11, 1956; and disc two, tracks eleven and twelve, and disc three were recorded on October 26, 1956.[11]

Disc four contains previously unreleased live performances. Tracks one through four are from the first iteration of The Tonight Show, taped on November 17, 1955, the day after the first studio session.[12] Tracks five and six derive from a radio broadcast at the now-defunct Blue Note club in Philadelphia on December 8, 1956.[13] Tracks seven through ten derive from a show at the also defunct Café Bohemia in New York City on May 17, 1958, with Bill Evans in place of Garland. The show was broadcast on the Bandstand USA radio program.[14]

Track listing

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Disc one

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No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Stablemates" (originally released on Miles)Benny Golson4:51
2."How Am I to Know?" (originally released on Miles)Dorothy Parker, Jack King4:38
3."Just Squeeze Me" (originally released on Miles)Duke Ellington, Lee Gaines6:31
4."There Is No Greater Love" (originally released on Miles)Isham Jones, Marty Symes5:18
5."The Theme" (originally released on Miles)Miles Davis5:45
6."S'posin'" (originally released on Miles)Paul Denniker, Andy Razaf6:09
7."In Your Own Sweet Way" (originally released on Workin' )Dave Brubeck5:42
8."Diane" (originally released on Steamin' )Lew Pollack, Erno Rapee7:49
9."Trane's Blues" (originally released on Workin' )John Coltrane8:33
10."Something I Dreamed Last Night" (originally released on Steamin' )Sammy Fain, Jack Yellen, Herbert Magidson6:13

Disc two

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No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."It Could Happen to You" (originally released on Relaxin' )Johnny Burke, Jimmy Van Heusen6:37
2."Woody 'n' You" (originally released on Relaxin' )Dizzy Gillespie5:01
3."Ahmad's Blues" (originally released on Workin' )Ahmad Jamal7:24
4."Surrey with the Fringe on Top" (originally released on Steamin' )Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein5:27
5."It Never Entered My Mind" (originally released on Workin' )Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart5:22
6."When I Fall in Love" (originally released on Steamin' )Edward Heyman, Victor Young4:21
7."Salt Peanuts" (originally released on Steamin' )Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Clarke6:07
8."Four" (originally released on Workin' )Miles Davis4:23
9."The Theme" (take 1; originally released on Workin' )Miles Davis2:01
10."The Theme" (take 2; originally released on Workin' )Miles Davis1:05
11."If I Were a Bell" (originally released on Relaxin' )Frank Loesser8:15
12."Well You Needn't" (originally released on Steamin' )Thelonious Monk6:18

Disc three

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No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."'Round Midnight" (originally released on Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants)Thelonious Monk5:25
2."Half Nelson" (originally released on Workin' )Miles Davis4:45
3."You're My Everything" (originally released on Relaxin' )Harry Warren, Mort Dixon, Joe Young5:18
4."I Could Write a Book" (originally released on Relaxin' )Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart5:11
5."Oleo" (originally released on Relaxin' )Sonny Rollins6:22
6."Airegin" (originally released on Cookin' )Sonny Rollins4:24
7."Tune Up" (originally released on Cookin' )Miles Davis5:41
8."When Lights Are Low" (originally released on Cookin' )Benny Carter, Spencer Williams7:30
9."Blues by Five" (originally released on Cookin' )Red Garland10:23
10."My Funny Valentine" (originally released on Cookin' )Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart6:04

Disc four

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No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Steve Allen Intro" 1:52
2."Max Is Making Wax" (Tonight Starring Steve Allen performance)Oscar Pettiford3:01
3."Steve Allen Intro 2" 2:06
4."It Never Entered My Mind" (Tonight Starring Steve Allen performance)Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart2:56
5."Tune Up" (live at the Blue Note, Philadelphia)Miles Davis4:25
6."Walkin'" (live at the Blue Note, Philadelphia)Richard Carpenter5:21
7."Four" (live at the Café Bohemia)Miles Davis4:52
8."Bye Bye Blackbird" (live at the Café Bohemia)Ray Henderson, Mort Dixon6:55
9."Walkin'" (live at the Café Bohemia)Richard Carpenter6:34
10."Two Bass Hit" (live at the Café Bohemia)Dizzy Gillespie, John Lewis3:17

Personnel

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Production personnel

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References

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  1. ^ The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions at AllMusic
  2. ^ Richard Cook. It's About That Time: Miles Davis On and Off Record. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-19-532266-8, pp. 44-45.
  3. ^ Cook, p. 45.
  4. ^ Cook, p. 46.
  5. ^ Cook, p. 25.
  6. ^ Farah Jasmine Griffin and Salim Washington. Clawing at the Limits of Cool: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and the Greatest Jazz Collaboration Ever. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2008. ISBN 978-0-312-32785-9, pp. 85-86, 160.
  7. ^ Griffin and Washington, p. 86.
  8. ^ Cook, p. 47.
  9. ^ Cook, p. 50.
  10. ^ Both Sides Now discography retrieved 31 December 2016
  11. ^ The Jazz Discography website retrieved 10 August 2011.
  12. ^ Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions liner notes, Concord Music Group PRS500038, 2016.
  13. ^ The Jazz Discography website retrieved 10 August 2011.
  14. ^ The Jazz Discography website retrieved 10 August 2011.