Miles Davis

HIGH-DEFINITION PREMIUM VINYL PRESSING FOR SUPER FIDELITY

5 STARS DOWNBEAT MAGAZINE

Porgy and Bess was Miles Davis and Gil Evans’ second conceptual album (they had worked together back in the late 1940s on the celebrated “Birth of the Cool” nonet sessions and would record their first conceptual LP Miles Ahead in 1957). A truly beautiful work, this wasn’t the only jazz version of the celebrated Gershwin folk-opera Porgy and Bess recorded during the period. Along with the Davis-Evans collaboration, the most famous versions included the 1957 LP produced by Norman Granz pairing Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald in a brilliant vocal selection of tunes from the play, and the instrumental LPs by the Oscar Peterson Trio (1959) and the Modern Jazz Quartet (1964). Individual tunes from Porgy and Bess were continually recorded by jazz musicians since its first opening and continue to be recorded to this day.

MILES DAVIS, trumpet & flugelhorn:

Orchestra under the direction of GIL EVANS:

• Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow, Ernie Royal, Louis Mucci (tp),
• Joe Bennett, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Dick Hixson (tb),
• Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller (fhr),
• Bill Barber (tu), Phil Bodner or Jerome Richardson, Romeo Penque (fl, cl),
• Danny Bank (b-cl, fl), Julian “Cannonball” Adderley (as), Paul Chambers (b),
• Philly Joe Jones or Jimmy Cobb (d), Gil Evans (arr, cond).

New York, July-August, 1958.

SIDE A:

• 01. THE BUZZARD SONG
• 02. BESS, YOU IS MY WOMAN NOW
• 03. GONE
• 04. GONE, GONE, GONE
• 05. SUMMERTIME
• 06. BESS, OH, WHERE’S MY BESS

SIDE B:

• 01. PRAYER (OH, DOCTOR JESUS)
• 02. FISHERMEN, STRAWBERRY AND DEVIL CRAB
• 03. MY MAN’S GONE NOW
• 04. IT AIN’T NECESSARILY SO
• 05. HERE COME DE HONEY MAN
• 06. I LOVES YOU, PORGY
• 07. THERE’S A BOAT THAT’S LEAVING SOON FOR NEW YORK