By 1965
Miles Davis had gone through a handful of stages, from the
Birth of the Cool
nonet's multihued orchestrations to the development of a hard-bop sound
keeled on Davis's midregister wooziness and the band's driving backbone
in the "first" great quintet (featuring John Coltrane), to the modal
freedom of
Kind of Blue. So when the solidly established Davis
convened a new quintet, known as his "second" great one, and hired
youngsters Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams,
it seemed a skewed move.
These six CDs show just how creatively and
intelligently skewed the move really was. The material here, which has
also been reissued on expanded single CDs of the main full-length
original LPs (E.S.P., Miles Smiles, Sorcerer, Nefertiti, Miles in the Sky),
is immediately and unceasingly startling. Davis & Co. were quickly
discarding their live performance practice of playing loads of standards
and were further discarding traditional melodic structures for more
rigorous harmonic exercises. Shorter in particular, at times the most
prolific composer in the band, was advancing his tunes and his
solos in equal proportion. The tunes are increasingly sharp-edged and,
with Williams driving the band with a categorical balance of abandon and
control, loopily energized. Miles blows with tighter and tighter
control of his tone even while the band seems to be finding all kinds of
expressive freedoms that easily elongate into lengthier studies. Toward
the end of this box, you'll hear the seeds of the Miles that went on to
unloose Bitches Brew. Even though the roots of the aggressively
electric Miles are in these sessions, there are uncategorizable points
of beauty strewn all over the tunes.
