Miles Davis Quintet - Workin' With The Miles Davis Quintet (1960/2023) [Official Digital Download 24/192]

Contractual obligations never sounded so good. When Miles Davis signed his first contract with Prestige Records in 1951, he was a heroin-addicted pariah of the New York jazz scene, barely able to get enough work to fund his habits. That first deal produced a couple of sessions with only one album,The New Sound, which was Davis' debut as a leader, released during that time. The next few years found Davis scrounging for pickup work on the road and in his hometown of St. Louis as his addiction worsened. While he would record for Prestige here and there during this time, the output was inconsistent in both quality and quantity. However, when he returned to New York in 1954 he was sober and his next stint with Prestige would produce a number of incredible records. The final four of those albums—Workin', Steamin', Relaxin', and Cookin'—were recorded over two breakneck sessions in May and October 1956 in order for Davis to fulfill his obligation to the label and move on to Columbia Records, which had signed him after his triumphant comeback performance at the 1955 Newport Jazz festival. To be sure, Davis was wholly unconcerned with the quality of these sessions, and had directed his group to basically just improvise their way through them as quickly as possible, as if they were playing live. But here's the thing: This group was Davis' first classic quintet, with John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones, and while he was in triumphant comeback mode, the other four players were absolutely hungry and on fire. Combine that with new LP technology that allowed the group's riffing to expand and contract naturally, without the three-minute time constraints of a 78 side, and, well, you accidentally end up with some classic albums. And, even though it was released four years after it was recorded, Workin' may have been the most consequential, standing alongside the contemporaneous work of Art Blakey and Clifford Brown as one of the foundational documents of the hard bop sound that defined mainstream jazz from the mid-'50s through the mid-'60s.

TRACKLIST

1. Miles Davis Quintet - It Never Entered My Mind
2. Miles Davis Quintet - Four
3. Miles Davis Quintet - In Your Own Sweet Way
4. Miles Davis Quintet - The Theme
5. Miles Davis Quintet - Trane's Blues
6. Miles Davis Quintet - Ahmad's Blues
7. Miles Davis Quintet - Half Nelson
8. Miles Davis Quintet - The Theme (Take 2)



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