THE NEW MILES DAVIS QUINTET

Miles Davis, trumpet; John Coltrane, tenor sax; Red Garland, piano;
Paul Chambers, bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums

JUST SQUEEZE ME * THERE IS NO GREATER LOVE * HOW AM I TO KNOW?
S'POSIN * THE THEME * STABLEMATES

Miles Davis concluded a most successful year in 1955 from many standpoints. His playing was sharper than it had been in some time and as lyrical and probing as ever. Critics and fans alike reacclaimed him as the leading trumpeter in numerous articles and several polls. As the year drew to a close amid these tributes, Miles formed a new group. He had been fronting quartets and quintets intermittently throughout the year and the personnel had been a shifting one. When his current group was formed on a regular basis it needed differentiation from the previous transitory fives. Hence, the new Miles Davis quintet which translated means Miles Davis' new quintet. Without revision the ambiguity contains valid meaning in each of its members.

The New Miles Davis Quintet actually had its forerunner in Miles' last LP, The Musings Of Miles (PRLP 7007). Cut prior to the actual formation of the new group, this recording date had Red Garland and "Philly" Joe Jones on board. Using these two Philadelphians as a nucleus, Miles added tenorman John Coltrane, also from the Quaker City, and the youthful bass star from Detroit, Paul Chambers.

Jones has been with Tadd Dameron and Tony Scott and is one of the hardest swinging drummers right down to his powerful brush work.

Garland is an ex-boxer (he fought Sugar Ray Robinson in the '40s) whose leaping, happy single line style is sometimes joined by his locked hands chordal method.

Coltrane's style is a mixture of Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt. "Trane" previously was with Dizzy Gillespie in Diz's last big band of 1949.

Chambers, who made a tremendous impression on New Yorkers at the Cafe Bohemia during 1955 with George Wallington, is one of the most facile soloists to come along in many a how high the moon.

This LP consists of four standards and two originals. In choosing the standards, Miles has come up with two rarely done in How Am I To Know? and There Is No Greater Love and two done not much more often in S'posin and Just Squeeze Me. The originals are the highly intriguing Stablemates by Benny Golson (another Philadelphian) which has Miles at his searching best, and The Theme so called because the group uses it as a sign-off. This tune is also used as a sign-off theme by the Messengers. Here it gets a sendoff from a fine Paul Chambers solo.

Squeeze Me finds Miles in a delicate mood and he continues this, becoming more tender and caressing on There Is No Greater Love with a complementary locked hands bit by Garland.

How Am I To Know? features a driving Miles with Chambers and Jones laying down a rock ribbed beat.

S'posin finds Miles muted as he is on all the standards, (he's open on the originals) and still swinging but in a more insinuating way.

notes by IRA GITLER
photo, supervision by Bob Weinstock
engineering by Van Gelder