Miles Davis Quintet - Miles Smiles (1973 Japanese CBS/Sony SX68 Mark II Vinyl LP)

The Miles Davis Quintet - Miles Smiles | Vinyl LP - 1973 Japanese CBS/Sony Reissue (SOPL 165, SX68 Mark II series)

Miles Smiles is where Miles Davis's second great quintet came fully into focus. By 1966 he had assembled a band of astonishing talent, Wayne Shorter on tenor, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass and the young Tony Williams on drums, and on this, their second studio album, they arrived at a way of playing that changed jazz. The music is loose and open, built less on fixed chord changes than on mood, motion and constant interaction. Hancock often drops his left hand entirely, leaving the harmony floating and ambiguous, while Williams pushes and pulls at the time and Shorter and Davis trade ideas that feel invented on the spot. "Footprints", Shorter's minor blues in waltz time, is the centrepiece in its definitive version, and it has been played by everyone since. "Circle" is a hushed ballad, "Freedom Jazz Dance" and "Ginger Bread Boy" are angular and funky, and the whole record has a quicksilver, questing quality. It is one of the defining albums of sixties jazz, the sound of five masters thinking as one.

This quintet, often just called the second great quintet to distinguish it from the fifties band with Coltrane, is now regarded as one of the finest groups in the history of the music, and Miles Smiles sits at its heart, alongside E.S.P., Nefertiti and the live recordings. Everyone in it went on to shape jazz for decades.

This copy is the 1973 Japanese reissue on CBS/Sony, part of the SX68 Mark II series, one of the label's better mastering lines, catalogue number SOPL 165.