Miles Davis

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PERSONNEL:

MILES DAVIS, trumpet
JOHN COLTRANE, tenor sax
JULIAN “CANNONBALL” ADDERLEY, alto sax
RED GARLAND, piano
PAUL CHAMBERS, bass
PHILLY JOE JONES, drums

Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York, February 4 (A3, B1-B3) & March 4 (A1-A2), 1958.

NOTES: *Red Garland out and Miles Davis plays piano on “Sid’s Ahead”. *Only the rhythm section plays on “Billy Boy”.

SIDE A:

01. DR. JEKYLL
02. SID’S AHEAD
03. TWO BASS HIT

SIDE B

01. MILESTONES
02.BILLY BOY
03.STRAIGHT NO CHASER

The 1958 Miles Davis group wasn’t a quintet but a sextet, with the addition of Julian “Cannonball” Adderley on alto sax. “In this group”, explained Miles years later, “everybody had played together for over two years, except for Cannonball. But one voice can change the entire way a band hears itself, can change the whole rhythm, the whole timing of a band, even if everyone else had been playing together forever. It’s a whole new thing when you add or take away a voice.” Milestones was the first studio album made by the sextet. It was recorded on February 4 and March 4, 1958, and the rhythm section was the same as the classic 1956 quintet, with Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums, plus Miles, Cannonball and John Coltrane. In his autobiography, Miles referred to the making of the album in these terms: “I wanted to get my group into the studio, and in April [this recording date is incorrect], we recorded ‘Billy Boy’, ‘Straight, No Chaser’, ‘Milestones’, ‘Two Bass Hit’, ‘Sid’s Ahead’, and ‘Dr. Jackle’ (listed as ‘Dr. Jekyll’) for the album Milestones. I played piano on ‘Sid’s Ahead’ because Red got mad at me when I was trying to tell him something and left. But I loved the way the band sounded on this record and I knew that we had something special. Trane and Cannon were really playing their asses off and by then were really used to each other.