Miles Ahead

Wikipedia:

Miles Ahead is a jazz album by Miles Davis that was released in 1957 on Columbia CL 1041. This was the first album following Birth of the Cool that Davis recorded with Gil Evans, with whom he would go on to release albums such as Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain. Gil Evans combined the ten pieces that make up the album in a kind of suite, each following the preceding one without interruption; the only exception to this rule was on the title track since it was placed last on side A. Davis is the only soloist on Miles Ahead, which also features a prominent horn section of 16 players. Art Taylor played drums on the sessions and current Miles Davis Quintet member Paul Chambers was the bassist.

A fifth recording date involved Davis alone (re-)recording material to cover or patch mistakes or omissions in his solos using overdubbing. The fact that this album originally was produced in mono makes these inserted over-dubbings rather obvious in the new stereo setting.

Reception

The Penguin Guide to Jazz gave Miles Ahead a four-star rating out of a possible four stars, and called the album "a quiet masterpiece... with a guaranteed place in the top flight of Miles albums." Of Davis' flugelhorn, Kevin Whitehead of Cadence wrote that it "seemed to suit [Davis] better than trumpet: more full-bodied, less shrill, it glosses over his technical deficiencies." The Penguin Guide, on the other hand, opined that "the flugelhorn's sound isn't so very different from his trumpet soloing, though palpably softer-edged.... [S]ome of the burnish seems to be lost."

Album cover

Miles reportedly was unhappy about the album's original cover, which featured a photograph of a young white woman and child aboard a sailboat. He made his displeasure known to Columbia executive George Avakian, asking, "Why'd you put that white bitch on there?" Avakian later stated that the question was made in jest. For later releases of the record, however, the original cover-photo has been substituted by a photograph of Miles Davis.

Track listing

A current CD reissue contains alternate takes of "Springsville", "Miles Ahead" (incorrectly labeled as being one of "Blues for Pablo"), a complete rehearsal take of "The Meaning of the Blues," and "Lament" (recorded as a continuous track by Avakian as a contingency plan) and "I Don't Wanna Be Kissed (By Anyone But You)".

Personnel