MILES DAVIS: THE MUSINGS OF MILES (SERIE ORIGINAL JAZZ CLASSICS)

Performer: Miles Davis, trumpet; Red Garland, piano; Oscar Pettiford, double bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums
Composer: Miles Davis
Number of discs: 1
Barcode: 0888072662643
Label: Craft Recordings
Format: LP
Genre: Jazz
Year: 2025

A new title in the Original Jazz Classics Series by Craft Recordings.

Audiophile 180-gram LP produced by Craft Recordings.

Strictly analog remastering carried out by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio from the original analogue master tapes.

Pressed at RTI.

Tip-on sleeve with OBI strip.

Originally released in 1955 on Prestige Records, The Musings of Miles was the trumpeter’s first 12-inch album, following several earlier 10-inch LP releases issued by Prestige in previous years.

The recordings, made on June 7, 1955 at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio, feature a lineup that represents an early formation of what would soon become Miles Davis’s famous quintet (later completed by John Coltrane and Paul Chambers in the autumn of that year). For this session, Davis assembled a new rhythm section with pianist Red Garland and his close friend Philly Joe Jones on drums, while veteran bassist Oscar Pettiford completed the quartet. For the first time during his Prestige period, Davis recorded as a leader without relying on a rotating cast of high-profile sidemen such as Art Blakey or Kenny Clarke on drums, Percy Heath on bass, Horace Silver or Thelonious Monk on piano, or Milt Jackson and Sonny Rollins, instead working with a more stable group that he would also perform with live.

Unlike previous recordings and the later celebrated quintets, Davis is the only horn soloist on these sessions, leaving significant space for pianist Red Garland. Davis encouraged him to adopt a style influenced by Ahmad Jamal, a pianist greatly admired by the trumpeter, whose repertoire provided inspiration for two of the recorded tracks: “Will You Still Be Mine?”, an uptempo hard bop piece, and the standard “A Gal in Calico”.

“I See Your Face Before Me” is a slow ballad performed in the intimate, understated style that would later define Davis’s quintet recordings, introduced by Garland’s block chords. “I Didn’t” is a Miles Davis composition often considered a response to Thelonious Monk’s “Well, You Needn’t,” a piece Davis had previously recorded for Blue Note Records earlier that year and whose harmonic structure it partly echoes. Monk reportedly criticized Davis’s interpretation of the tune, prompting Davis to record his own version under a different title, omitting the original’s difficult opening theme. “Well, You Needn’t” would later become a standard in Davis’s repertoire, which he re-recorded in October 1956 with his quintet featuring John Coltrane.

This session also marks the first recorded appearance of Philly Joe Jones’s distinctive rim-shot style, later known as “Philly Licks,” which would become a defining feature of his collaboration with Davis in the following years.

Alongside the bebop standard “A Night in Tunisia” by Gillespie, the June 7 session also included “Green Haze,” a blues whose title references Davis’s earlier composition and recording “Blue Haze” from March of the same year.

The Musings of Miles remained in the Prestige catalog alongside other 12-inch albums released in subsequent years, which largely contained previously issued 10-inch material. In 1962 it was reissued under the title The Beginning, and later in 1989 it was released on CD with digital remastering by Fantasy Records (which had acquired the Prestige catalog) as part of the Original Jazz Classics line. In 2008 a further remastered edition was produced by Rudy Van Gelder for Concord Records, which had owned the Prestige catalog since 2005.

This reissue, part of the Original Jazz Classics Series, has been carefully remastered from the original analogue tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, pressed on 180-gram vinyl at RTI, and presented in a deluxe tip-on sleeve manufactured by Stoughton Printing.

Miles Davis, trumpet; Red Garland, piano; Oscar Pettiford, double bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums

Side A

Will You Still Be Mine?
I See Your Face Before Me
I Didn’t

Side B

A Gal in Calico
A Night in Tunisia
Green Haze