Sixty five years ago, on October 26, the Miles Davis Quintet assembled for a recording session that yielded most of the Cookin' and Relaxin' albums and a tune apiece that appeared on the Workin' and Steamin'  discs. The other tracks on those albums were recorded in a one day session earlier that year. Four quality albums, not bad for two days of work.

On this night in 1958, Riverside Records producer Orrin Keepnews dragged bis recording equipment across the Hudson to the Five Spot Cafe. To record Thelonious Monk for a live album. With the restoration of his cabaret card, Monk had been playing at the Five Spot for about a year and was in the midst of a second residency there.  For some reason, the recordings were deemed lacking. They sound good to me, but I am partial to Monk's work with Griffin on sax. Keepnews returned a month  later  an recorded two sets, from which the albums Thelonious in Action and Misterioso were released. This set shares "Blues Five Spot", "Evidence", "In Walked Bud"*, and "Epistrophy (Theme)" with those two albums. It adds "'Round Midnight", "Bye-Ya", and "Unidentified Piano Solo" - which some identify as "Sweet Stranger"- the sources are unclear. *Bud Powell: it was probably Bud's packet of heroin that police found...

On this day in 1956, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones - the Miles Davis Quintet - went into the Rudy Van Gelder Studio and recorded fourteen tracks to help meet Miles's contractural obligations with Prestige.   Twelve of those tracks would later comprise the better parts of the  Workin'   and   Steamin' With the Miles Davis Quintet  albums, the other two rounded out the   Relaxin'  album. Pretty good for a day's work.

Miles released A Tribute to Jack Johnson fifty years ago . The first track - of two - " Right Off ", stands as his fullest excursion into straight ahead rock, while the second " Yesternow ," is a gritty, bluesy funky vamp. Who knew Willie Nelson could be so funky? It is the "Rock" part of his "Jazz-Rock" fusion that concerns us with this playlist. Some of the tunes here, "Right Off" and "Red China Blues", are straight ahead blues based rock. The pieces from the Bitches Brew sessions are spacier....almost prog...with "Great Expectations" never quite resolving into the implied quote of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade.  There's plenty for a rock fan to enjoy, and some jazz too. When writing about this period of Miles' work, Stanley Crouch said that listening to it was like having nails driven into his forehead. We've got that covered too.

When I heard of Chick Corea's passing, I listened to Return to Forever and the follow up,  Light as a Feather , my two favorites by both the man and the band. A friend of mine, who has much better taste than I, prefers the ensemble's second incarnation of Return to Forever, citing a concert at Central Park as one of the best shows he's ever seen. Like the Mahavishnu Orchestra and others, it is a jazz-rock fusion that features a jazz group using rock instrumentation.  The first lineup - Chick, Stanley Clarke (primarily on double bass), Joe Farrell (flute, sax), Airto Moreira (drum set), and Flora Purim (vocals) plays on both Return to Forever and  Light as a Feather.  In between, Chick, Clarke, and Airto joined with Tony Williams to back Stan Getz on Captain Marvel . All three are included on the playlist. Is it fusion? I guess so, although save for the electric piano. The instrumentation is fairly traditional, but Chick's Rhodes floats in an out, bubbles on top. It...

After Ginger Baker died last year I watched the documentary Beware of Mr. Baker . It's great, with a surprise ending that should surprise no one. The film led me to look into his jazz recordings, including two albums recorded with Bill Frisell: Going Back Home and Falling Off the Roof . Excellent albums, both of them, not only for the drumming but for Frisell's guitar. He has a great tone, and an ability to play a melody line without it sounding like Muzak. Because the two Thelonious Monk covers that lead off this playlist caught my ear, I looked through Frisell's catalog, both as leader and sideman, and found about an album's worth of other covers. A wider-ranging search yielded albums by both Andy Summers and the Kronos Quartet (with Ron Carter) and tracks by Charlie Hunter, NRBQ, and a tribute album by reggae pianist Monty Alexander. So, to mark Ginger's passing, and Monk's 103rd birthday later this week...

Which is not to say, Workin', nor -again- is it with his quartet. Instead, we have largely the same players as featured in last week's Chillin' post. Most of Miles's studio output from the period 1970-1974 comes from a series of sessions - Bitches Brew , Jack Johnson , Cellar Door (Live Evil) , and On the Corner - that largely ended by mid '72. In addition to the main albums that came from each session, the albums Live Evil , Big Fun and Get Up With It were also compiled from the sessions. With regard to his fusion period, the story goes that Miles was impressed with a Sly and the Family Stone show and tried to incorporate those sounds into his music. These tracks are in line with that story. We have here the gritty funk of There's a Riot Goin' On rather than the slick sounds of Fresh . It's a sound like early Funkadelic more than Parliament.... ...and the On the Corner outtakes somehow catch the vibe of the cover more than that album did.

Which is not to say, Relaxin'....nor with his quintet. On this day in 1969, Miles Davis released his first fusion album, In a Silent Way.  He'd started to go electric the previous year, on initially on Miles in the Sky and more so on Filles de Kilimanjaro. While it has some grooves and uptempo material, Silent Way is a fairly quiet album that doesn't feature any of the more jarring work that one finds on Bitches Brew , Live Evil , On the Corner or Get Up With It , nor does it rock like Jack Johnson . Today's playlist features the mellow cuts from Miles during 1969-1975 his early fusion period. The complete sessions boxed sets (Silent Way, BB, JJ, Corner) from allow for the undoing of some of Teo Macero's edits. For instance, "Orange Lady", with its sitars and tablas can be disaggregated from "Great Expectations" off of  Big Fun . Likewise, the blues vamp from the middle of "Go Ahead John" can stand on its own, although it s...

The clubs have yet to reopen. For this week's concert, I suggest we visit the original Five Spot Cafe'  - which was demolished in 1962 - to catch the Thelonious Monk Quartet on August 7, 1958 . Get a bottle of something nice, and make plans for dinner. It is serious jazz, but of the type that can serve as background music. Last week's jazz offering, from It's About That Time: Miles Davis at the Filmore East , was the type of jazz that elicits "the question" from The Wife: "Honey...what are we listening to?" It's not really a question...she's actually telling me to turn this shit off...and during OUR time I actively choose music with an aim toward avoiding it. The things we do for love. This week's show was recorded during Monk's second six-month residency at the club. The band included Roy Haynes on drums, Ahmed Abdul-Malik on bass and Johnny Griffin on tenor sax. Griffin had played several of the tunes on Art Blakey's Ja...