Thursday, January 23, 2025

Album Review: Miles Davis - Miles '54: The Prestige Recordings Box Set

Miles Davis
Miles '54: The Prestige Recordings Box Set
**** out of *****


Miles '54: The Prestige Recordings Box Set was released in December 2024 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of these recordings on the Prestige label, which capture Miles Davis in a transitional year of his career.  Remastered from the original recordings the sound is crisp and lively as Davis and a rotating cast of players still sound fresh all these years later. 

Miles Davis is tied to the Prestige label through his four amazing records, Relaxin’, Steamin’, Workin’, and Cookin’ that were recorded with his first great quintet, John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones. Those albums were huge for Davis, proving he was able to play great music and lead great bands. That however was all in 1956, the Miles '54 box set comes a few years prior as Davis was searching for his sound.

Having recently kicked his heroin habit he looked to record in '54 and he began the year (and this collection) by recording a few standards like "Old Devil Moon" and an excellent rendition of "“I’ll Remember April”, but as the year went on he really found his voice through the trumpet.  

While the whole release is solid, the real standouts of the collection come from the April 29th recording sessions which found Davis playing with J. J. Johnson (trombone), Lucky Thompson (tenor sax), Percy Heath (bass),  Horace Silver (piano) and Kenny Clarke (drums). The collective got together and delivered two extended offerings Dizzy Gillespie's “Blue ’n’ Boogie” and the blues classic “Walkin’.” 

These two tracks are staggering and show Miles playing with passion, as the group move in different energetic ("Blue Boogie") and smooth ("Walkin'") directions that would come to represent the 'hard bop' style of playing. These sessions are a real breakthrough for Davis and are still a thrill to listen to in such pristine fashion. 

Miles later in '54 paired with Sonny Rollins to record three of his offerings “Oleo,” “Airegin,” and “Doxy,” as well as the Gershwin classic, “But Not for Me.” He also closed the year with his most famous session from '54, playing with Thelonious Monk (piano) and Milt Jackson (vibraphone) along with Heath and Clark. The band does two passes of the soon to be standard "Bag's Groove" with Jackson leading the way, and also deliver a cool version of Monk's "Bemsha Swing" and Davis' original "Swing Spring". 

The range of sound here would coalesce into those first great quintet recordings, defining 'hard-bop' in a few years, but it is nice to have this collection to hear Davis' impressive growth through the year. While all of these sessions have been released before, and nothing is seeing the light of the day for the first time, having them all in one chronologic gathering is worth seeking out for fans who don't own the original releases.  
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Support the artist, buy the box set, or get it digitally through bandcamp and peep some video below:

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