Miles Davis, Winter In Europe 1967
It's been forty years, and jazz hasn't advanced beyond this point yet.
Can there be such a thing as "collective" genius? I think there can. Miles Davis's quintet with Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Herbie Hancock playing piano, bassist Ron Carter and the magnificent drummer Tony Williams proves it.
It's been forty years, and jazz hasn't advanced beyond this point yet. Winter in Europe 1967 captures the group at its incandescent best — the most vital, protean and restless jazz group ever. Tony Williams 'drum figures during the opening to the Stockholm performance of "Footprints" are alone worth the price of admission. If his jarring accents or the tempo he sets on "Gingerbread Boy" don't give you chills, don't bother listening to jazz; it's not for you.
The prizes on this album are endless. Wayne Shorter's cryptic discursions (the Stockholm version "Footprints" or the Karlsruhe "Walkin'"), Herbie Hancock's trend-setting amalgam of advanced harmony and funkiness (the Karlsruhe take of "Gingerbread Boy"), Ron Carter's unerring ability to anchor the disparate impulses of the others (every track), and Miles's own get-to-the heart-of-things solos ("Walkin'") are all inimitable, stunningly forward-thinking and dizzyingly interactive. "Round Midnight" — the most beautiful version I've ever heard — is a near-miracle of group telepathy.
Miles Davis had great bands before this one, and he had great bands after it. But this was the band. We'll never hear its like again. Winter in Europe 1967 is required listening.
