(Press release)
Miles Davis’ 20-year association as an artist at impresario George Wein’s
renowned Newport Jazz Festival is a thriving tradition that will be celebrated
with the release of MILES DAVIS AT NEWPORT 1955-1975: THE BOOTLEG
SERIES VOL. 4. The four-CD box set, comprised of live
performances by Miles’ stellar band line-ups in 1955, 1958, 1966, 1967, 1969,
1971, 1973, and 1975, in Newport, Rhode Island, New York City, Berlin, and Switzerland,
will be the lynchpin for a 60th anniversary commemorative
weekend of events at this summer’s annual Newport Jazz Festival (July 31,
August 1 & 2). Ahead of the festival, MILES DAVIS AT
NEWPORT 1955-1975will be available everywhere on Friday, July 17 -- 60
years to the date since Davis’ breakthrough performance at Newport in 1955 -- through
Columbia/Legacy Recordings, a division of Sony Music Entertainment.
The newest entry in Columbia/Legacy Recordings’ critically-acclaimed
Miles Davis Bootleg Series, NEWPORT 1955-1975 clocks
in at 296 minutes, nearly four hours of which is previously
unreleased. From Miles’ debut performance at NJF in 1955 (a
hastily arranged jam session featuring Thelonious Monk and Gerry Mulligan, that
immediately led to the trumpeter’s Columbia signing), to his final public
performance of the ’70s in 1975 (at Lincoln Center during NJF-NY, the singular
“Mtume” named for Miles’ favoured percussionist of that decade), the box set
traces the ascendance of Miles’ music as the ne plus ultra of
jazz. The full-length concert performances alone of
Miles’ famed “Kind Of Blue” Sextet (with Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane,
Bill Evans, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb), and ‘second great quintet in ’66
and ’67 (with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams)
represent templates that reverberate in jazz and popular music to this day.
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(Editor’s note): With
five hours of playing time I’ve yet to find an opportunity to listen to the
full collection (received via download) but what I’ve heard so far – the jam
sessions with Zoot, Gerry, Monk etc. - is great stuff and with the sessions by
the Kind of Blue band and the later groups to look forward to this one of the classic
collections worthy of inclusion in anyone’s collection.
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