'Round About Midnight [Original recording remastered]

This is Miles Davis' debut with Columbia records, and since 1955, the year in which "Round About Midnight" was released, neither Columbia nor the world of jazz would remain the same. While others point to "Kind of Blue" as his classic, some of Davis' most thrilling work can be found here. On this album, Davis ropes in John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones to form a quintet that would stand as a tremendous force to be reckoned with. "Ah-Leu-Cha" bristles with energy, and it brilliantly shows the interplay between Davis and Coltrane throughout the track. There's also the relaxed cool of "Bye Bye Blackbird" and the uptempo bounce of "Tadd's Delight," which has nice piano work from Red Garland and head-bobbing bass from Paul Chambers. But, of course, the CD's towering moment is the title track, brilliantly adapted by the quintet. It would serve as one of THE greatest pieces of work in Miles' catalogue. I can seriously listen to this CD fifty gazillion times and never tire of it. And that's the way all great albums should be. After each listen, "Round About Midnight" reveals something new that I didn't catch before. This is the remastered version, and while the term "remastered" gets bandied about very casually when marketing releases, I can assure you that the folks at Sony did a great job here. The bass projects more fully, the drums sound crisp, and Davis sounds like he entered the studio last year. Very little of the recording sounds like it was done in the 1950s. The disc also has 4 bonus tracks; my personal favorite is the terrific 7-minute "8 Little Melonae." Those who are new to jazz or Miles Davis should definitely make this historic masterpiece among their first purchases.

'Round About Midnight' is the first album Miles Davis would record during his long tenure at Columbia, and is the beginning of the most prolific and consistentally impressive output in jazz music history. You can see where the level of sophistication and innovation is flourishing in these recordings, even though this is still more or less considered "traditional" jazz. But the improvised lines, and the cool, muted playing are already becoming apparent as a Miles standard. The album opens up with 'Round Midnight', which is a rich and stirring late-night ballad, starting out with Miles' brooding, muted trumpet playing over Paul Chambers' slowly rolling basslines, then changing pace slight with Coltrane's reflective tenor sax smoothing out the edges, and making it into a smoky nightclub classic. Truly a work of art. 'Ah-Leu-Cha' is a throwback to the classic bebop style of jazz, and is more uptempo, with some impressive soloing from Coltrane and Davis. Red Garland's piano work is great here as well, as he manages to keep up with every chord change being thrown at him. 'All of You' is an old pop standard that the quintet plays through easy and relaxed. The same goes for the cool and subdued interpretation of 'Bye Bye Blackbird'. This is one of the best renderings of this old standard that you will find, and Davis varies his playing softly and then brings it back up to higher notes to compilment Coltrane's tenor sax. The musicianship all blends together seamlessly on this song as Garland's excellent piano solo brings Davis back in to close it out with a final sweet, muted refrain; just beautiful. 'Tadd's Delight' is another nice throwback to hard bop, with rollicking drumming from Philly Joe Jones, and more impressive piano playing from Garland. The final song on the original album 'Dear Old Stockholm' is a strange and haunting number, particularly Paul Chambers' long bass solo, which is low enough to get your heart racing. This reissue contains four titles from these sessions that were not featured on the original album, but all of them are slighty subpar in comparison, the only real standout, to me, being the slightly upbeat interpretation of 'Little Melonae', with its interesting arrangements and Davis' cool and perfectly-timed trumpet interjections.

This is one of the essential recordings from Miles Davis' Columbia Years and anyone who is only familiar with the cool and stylish sophistication of 'Kind of Blue' and wants to know where to go next in Miles' HUGE catalog should check this album out. This quintet's musicianship are the perfect compliment to each other and smooths out all the rough edges that had previously marred some of Miles' work prior to this. It is especially interesting to note that this is the only album that was recorded by the quintet who would break up this same year over inner tensions. But the beauty is, they would reform a year later in 1957 with Cannonball Adderly as a sextet, and then would continue on an uphill journey making some of the greatest and most reputed recordings in jazz history.

This is my personal favorite of Miles' small group records, and his first for Columbia. It's simply a matter of taste whether you prefer the first quintet or the second. Those who tend a little more towards the free jazz choose the second, but I prefer the delicate swing of the earlier one, even though Coltrane was not yet fully formed as a sax player. Still, their rendition of Cole Porter's "All of You" has to be one of Davis' most perfect recordings, where Red Garland's piano block chords work to irresistible effect (as they do on "Bye Bye Blackbird"). Miles told Red that he wanted Ahmad Jamal's style transplanted into his band, and a good argument could be made that it was Garland's swing that set the tone for the direction of the band. At the very least, Miles always turned to Red for suggestions of which standards to play. The other highlight is the downright otherworldly performance of Monk's "Round Midnight" (of which Monk apparently did not approve), where Coltrane shows early signs of breaking through. Not very surprising that it was Coltrane's brief stint with Monk that finally set him loose for good. Also worth noting is a fantastic version of "Dear Old Stockholm" which features an extended and brilliant bass solo by Paul Chambers, who very rarely got any soloing time on Miles' studio records. Great, great music.