The Miles Davis Quintet - Relaxin' With The Miles Davis Quintet (1973 Japanese Prestige Vinyl LP Mono)

Vinyl: EX
Sleeve: EX
Obi: None

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The Miles Davis Quintet - Relaxin' With The Miles Davis Quintet | Vinyl LP Mono - 1973 Japanese Prestige Reissue (LPR-88001, Toshiba EMI)

Davis wanted out of Prestige. Columbia had offered him a contract, but Weinstock still had him under obligation for more recordings. The solution was to bring the quintet into Van Gelder's studio, play the live book, and record everything in two sessions with minimal takes. The result was enough material for four albums: Cookin', Relaxin', Workin' and Steamin', released piecemeal between 1957 and 1961. Relaxin' draws almost entirely from the Great American Songbook. "If I Were A Bell" (from Guys and Dolls) and "I Could Write A Book" (from Pal Joey) get the muted trumpet treatment Davis was perfecting, the Harmon mute close to the microphone, the tone thin and dry and intimate. "You're My Everything" is a ballad where Garland's block chords carry the middle of the arrangement and Coltrane's solo pushes into the harmonically searching territory he was developing away from the bandstand. "It Could Happen To You" stretches past six minutes with some of the most relaxed playing on any of the marathon session albums.

"Oleo," the Sonny Rollins contrafact on "I Got Rhythm" changes, is the only jazz original on the album and the one track that pushes the tempo. Philly Joe's drumming on it is sharp and insistent, and Coltrane's solo builds through rapid runs that would, within two years, become the "sheets of sound" Ira Gitler described. "Woody'n You," Gillespie's bebop standard, closes the album at a brisk clip. What makes these marathon sessions exceptional is how little effort the quintet appears to be making. The group had been playing these pieces live for months, and the studio performances sound like a particularly good club set captured by accident.

This is the 1973 Japanese mono reissue on Prestige LPR-88001, from the Jazz Right Now series, manufactured by Toshiba EMI.