Miles Davis Sextet - Someday My Prince Will Come (1983 Japanese CBS/Sony Vinyl LP)

Miles Davis Sextet - Someday My Prince Will Come | Vinyl LP - 1983 CBS/Sony Japanese Pressing (23AP 2558, Miles Greatest Collection 25)

Miles Davis recorded Someday My Prince Will Come across three days in March 1961 at Columbia's 30th Street Studio. It was his first small-group studio album since Kind of Blue two years earlier, and the band was in flux. Cannonball Adderley had left. Coltrane had left. Hank Mobley, a former Jazz Messenger with a softer tone than Coltrane's, was the new tenor saxophonist. The rhythm section, Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums, had been together since the Kind of Blue sessions (Kelly played on "Freddie Freeloader" while Bill Evans played the rest). But Coltrane came back for two tracks. On the title track, a waltz arrangement of the Disney standard, both Coltrane and Mobley play, and the contrast between them defines the album: Mobley's warm, measured phrasing against Coltrane's extended harmonics and dense rapid runs. "Teo," a modal piece with a Latin feel named for producer Teo Macero, features Coltrane alone on tenor, and it was the last music he and Davis recorded together. Coltrane was reportedly reluctant to return to the studio, consumed with his own Africa/Brass sessions.

"Pfrancing," a play on dancing, frantic and prancing, was named for Davis's wife Frances Taylor and is also known as "No Blues." "Old Folks" is a ballad that showcases Mobley at his best, and "Drad-Dog" attempts to recapture the atmosphere of Kind of Blue through a slow, deliberate arrangement. Davis had wanted Wayne Shorter for the tenor chair, but Art Blakey had just hired Shorter for the Jazz Messengers. It would be four more years before Shorter joined Davis for E.S.P. The cover photograph of Frances Taylor, taken at the Columbia Records photo studio by Bob Cato, was the result of Davis demanding that Columbia feature Black women on his album covers, a stand he maintained from this point forward. This is the 1983 CBS/Sony Japanese pressing (23AP 2558), from the Miles Greatest Collection 25 series.