MILES DAVIS — Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants (1959) (review)

MILES DAVIS — Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants (1959) album cover Boxset / Compilation · 1959 · Bop Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
js
Despite the great music on here, this album will always be known as ‘When Miles met Monk’ and lets just say there was some tension in the air. Its always fun to listen to the argument at the beginning of ‘The Man I Love’ (Take 1) and Miles’ insistence that Monk’s wayward comments be left on the recording. Its also well known that on many of the tunes Miles told Monk not to comp behind his solos, yet on ‘Bemsha Swing’ Miles starts playing the kind of crude riffs that are right down Monk’s alley and Monk responds with some very inspired out there comping. No doubt about it, despite the friction, both knew each other’s musical language and you have to respect someone to take that strong of an interest in their music.

Anyway, while the lyrical Miles and the abstract Monk seem to offer competing musical visions for these tunes, the other three musicians turn in stellar performances. of their own. Vibraphonist Milt Jackson in particular swings hard on his solos and channels the frustrated energy of the session into his energetic playing. Being the Monk fan I am, my favorite moments on the album are his way out minimal solos on both versions of ‘The Man I Love’ and his hyper fast abstractions on ‘Swing Spring’.

For some reason this album contains a version of ‘Round Midnight’ from a totally different Miles ensemble that features Coltrane on tenor. This song is nice and both Coltrane and Miles turn in excellent solos, but this song is out of character with the rest of the more quirky tunes of the Monk ensemble. This is a really interesting album and highly recommended for its great music, the odd pairing of Miles and Monk and a live recording of some jazz giants having a ‘Spinal Tap’ moment.
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