Miles Davis with John Coltrane- September 15, 1956 Café Bohemia, NYC | REMASTERED
The 1st Great Quintet captured in a live radio broadcast September 15, 1956 Café Bohemia, New York City, New York MILES DAVIS QUINTET Miles Davis- trumpet John Coltrane- tenor saxophone Red Garland- piano Paul Chambers- bass Philly Joe Jones- drums unidentfied theme music and announcement 0:00 Well, You Needn't (Thelonious Monk) 2:01 It Never Entered My Mind (Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart) 7:53 closing titles 13:00 From Bandstand U.S.A. Presented by Guy Wallace A Mutual Network radio broadcast 1956 saw Miles Davis building on the successes of the previous year. After his career reviving performance at the 1955 Newport Jazz Festival he signed a recording contract with the major Columbia Records label. He was finally in a position to recruit a regular working band. John Coltrane was a distinctive but then somewhat raw tenor player who had worked with the bands of Earl Bostic and Dizzy Gillespie; pianist Red Garland had the same swinging elegance and sophisticated chord voicings that Miles admired in Ahmad Jamal; Paul Chambers, with his surefooted harmonic sense and supple rhythm, was one of the great bassists in jazz; finally, Philly Joe Jones was a driving, propulsive drummer that could push the band hard, or calm the waters with subtle brush work. Together, they were quickly established as one of the greatest outfits in jazz, a reputation that continues to this day. In May and October there were two marathon recording sessions to complete Miles's obligations to Prestige Records, producing enough material for more than four albums. Five days before this broadcast the quintet recorded the third and final session for Miles's debut Columbia LP, 'Round About Midnight. And, a sign of Davis's new maturity as a soloist, the following month he fronted a session of Third Stream recordings with John Lewis & Gunther Schuller's Jazz And Classical Music Society (they can be found here: • Miles Davis & The Jazz and Classical Music... ) Jimmy Garofolo bought the Café Bohemia at 15 Barrow Street in Greenwich Village in 1949. In early 1955 he was approached by Charlie Parker, offering to play at the club as settlement for an unpaid bar bill. Garofolo agreed, although Bird passed away before fulfilling the commitment. But the idea stuck and for the next five years the Bohemia became a thriving jazz venue, hosting Charles Mingus, Kenny Dorham, George Wallington, and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, who recorded a two volume live album for Blue Note that included future Davis saxophonist Hank Mobley in the line up. Before the original venue closed its doors in 1960 (a revamped Bohemia reopened at the same location in 1990) the Miles Davis quintet played the Bohemia often, occasionally being broadcast from the club by the Bandstand U.S.A. program on the Mutual Network, the source for a number of recordings. There were also some famous photographs taken by Marvin Koner, tinted by the distinctive red strip light that ran across the stage ceiling, one of which ended up on the cover of 'Round About Midnight. This version of Monk's Well You Needn't predates the version recorded for Prestige by six weeks, but has the same arrangement with the melody staggered amongst the horns and piano. Miles blows two strong choruses, Coltrane's confidence has clearly grown since the earliest days of the quintet, Garland's sparkling single note lines and block chords swing mightily and a shout chorus from the horns gives Chambers a spot to shine- he plays a pizzicato solo, instead of the arco solo on the studio version. Trane sits out for all but the final chord of It Never Entered My Mind, which Miles had recorded at the May Prestige session. This version is very similar, right down to Garland's In An English Country Garden quote, but it's mainly a vehicle for Miles's now signature Harmon muted ballad style. The studio recordings were released on the classic Prestige albums Workin' and Steamin' respectively. These radio broadcast recordings are in pretty decent sound, albeit lacking any extreme high end, which makes them sound a little dusty. I did some extensive re-EQing which has helped restore the dynamics somewhat. Brief though these broadcasts are, they offer a fascinating glimpse of the quintet in a club setting and vital documentation of what was a superb year for Miles.
