THE NEW MILES DAVIS QUINTET: ‘Miles’ (Craft Recordings/Prestige)
Though its front cover – a garish, green-tinted, tree-lined river scene photographed in winter – seemed unremittingly bleak and left a lot to be desired artistically, Miles, the 1956 debut album by The New...
THE DAVE BRUBECK QUARTET: ‘Jazz At Oberlin’ (Craft Recordings/Original Jazz Classics)
This groundbreaking jazz group are best remembered for their iconic album, Time Out, recorded for Columbia in 1959, which produced that rare phenomenon in jazz, a hit single in the shape of ‘Take Five,’...
BILL EVANS TRIO: ‘Waltz For Debby’ (OJC/Craft Recordings)
Bill Evans brought a new sensibility and fresh musical conception to jazz piano. Beginning his career in the late 1950s, his distinctive style was defined by delicate crystalline melodies and pastel-hued harmonies, reflecting the...
THELONIOUS MONK and JOHN COLTRANE: ‘Thelonious Monk With John Coltrane’ (OJC/Craft Recordings)
In the spring of 1957, an exasperated Miles Davis reluctantly fired John Coltrane from his band because of the tenor saxophonist’s increasing heroin usage. Shocked by his dismissal, Coltrane went home to Philadelphia with...
