The second half of the sixties was a period of intense creativity for Miles Davis. In collaboration with the other members of his new quintet: Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, a succession of brilliantly original albums were released beginning with ESP in '65 and culminating in Filles de Kilimanjaro in '68. Also competing for attention at this time was the meteoric rise of the Beatles and Rock in general on the one hand, and the wilder excesses of `Free Jazz' on the other, with the result that a sort of `jazz-fatigue' set in. Miles' record sales didn't recover until the electric rock-influenced Bitches Brew stopped the jazz-world in its tracks in 1970.
Sorcerer, released in '67, represents the quintessential Davis quintet work from that `fatigued' time, and now that the competition has lost some of its lustre (how often do we listen to The White Album these days?), sounds better than ever. Not only is it the inspired collaboration of five outstanding musicians - who, as Davis tells it in his autobiography, empathized totally and enjoyed each others' company - it also hangs together as a suite, full of variety and contrasting moods in the Ellington or Gil Evans sense; though here the textures are so much lighter - and more startling. There are breathtaking passages where Herbie Hancock appears to withdraw and the horns are left riding on the subtle polyrhythms of Williams' percussion and Carter's agile chording base. Hancock's solos are masterpieces of spacious understatement - sometimes seemingly floating off into three-fingered haikus - and Miles and Wayne are both at the top of their game here.
Everything about this album satisfies: Subtle modal compositions (four out of the seven by Shorter), inventive musicianship of the highest calibre, impeccable style - not least the classic cover image of Cicely Tyson and the surreal afterthought of Bob Dorough's wry Gil Evans-arranged "Nothing like you has ever been seen before!" Somehow missed in the 60s, Sorcerer now gets as many plays as Kind of Blue.