Miles Davis – ‘Miles ‘55 The Prestige Recordings’ review: A pivotal moment in the story of jazz’s greatest innovator
“When you’re creating your own shit, man, even the sky ain’t the limit.”
—Miles Davis
Every fibre of Miles Davis’ being was dedicated to music; from his early bebop days with Charlie Parker to the profound psychedelic exploration in Bitches Brew, the jazz icon had an unparalleled appetite for artistic innovation. Up there with the most important and influential musicians of all time, there is an unending fascination surrounding the life and work of Davis, and that path was first carved out back in 1955.
Tireless and ultimately devoted to his craft, he had already established himself among the brightest sparks of the new jazz generation by the time the 1950s rolled around. His Birth of the Cool recordings with Capitol during the tail-end of the previous decade were utterly monumental, setting the standard for modern jazz expression and inspiring countless musicians to follow in his wake, but Davis didn’t wait around to wallow in that success.
Instead, the trumpeter abandoned his New York hub for a self-imposed exile in the hopes of kicking the crippling heroin habit he had picked up after leaving Charlie Parker’s outfit. It wasn’t until 1954 that he would return to his old stomping ground with a vengeance. He was a changed man: renewed, inspired, and ready to exercise the intensity of his artistic ambitions, kicking into high gear.
This pivotal year cemented his position as one of the most recognisable figures of the jazz movement, with a leg-up from contemporaries like Charles Mingus or Max Roach. If 1954 was the year that Miles Davis was reborn, then 1955 was the year that he became a jazz behemoth, honing his skills, not just as a musician in his own right, but as the bandleader of the greatest jazz quintet to have ever graced the airwaves.
Davis could easily have recruited a crack team of the jazz icons he had already worked alongside, but then the trumpeter never chose the easy option. Instead, he recruited virtual unknowns, which now read like a who’s who of the 20th century’s greatest jazz musicians: John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones, as well as Milt Jackson, Ray Bryant, and Oscar Pettiford. With these new recruits, Davis would establish a bold, innovative new sound, creating some of the strongest recordings of his career.
Now, thanks to the folks at Craft Recordings, listeners have the chance to immerse themselves fully in that transformative year in Davis’ life, in the form of a new three-LP boxset, Miles ’55: The Prestige Recordings. Compiling multiple key 1955 recording sessions, hosted at Van Gelder studios in New Jersey, the set provides an incredible portrait of the man with a purpose, both as a bandleader and as a true musical innovator.
For jazz aficionados it is, of course, worth noting that these recordings are not new discoveries. However, the sessions were previously split into multiple different releases, including The Musings of Miles, The New Miles Davis Quintet, and Miles Davis and Milt Jackson Quintet/Sextet. Now, Craft’s new release houses these seminal recordings in one set, allowing for an entirely new listening experience, which is helped along by the audiophile quality of the vinyl, and the faithful remastering of the original tapes by Paul Blakemore.
The release is said to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the recordings, and the 75th anniversary of Prestige Records, the legendary jazz label which Davis called home during that part of his career. But, in truth, the remastering and re-release was long overdue. What’s more, as we have come to expect from Craft Recordings, the Miles ‘55 set is presented beautifully, with an obvious respect and adoration for the music at the core of the release; this is not merely a cash-in anniversary release.
With every week that passes, more box set releases seem to hit the shelves. A cynical mind might deduce that these releases are merely cashing-in on big name artists and the increasingly consumerist, completist nature of the vinyl market. However, this is not the case when it comes to Miles ‘55. There are no gimmicks and no unnecessary tat thrown into the mix, the focus is placed entirely upon the music, just as Davis would have intended.
