Cookin' With The Miles Davis Quintet

COOKIN' WITH THE MILES DAVIS QUINTET documents the last half of the band's final marathon sessions for Prestige, presenting a dynamic portrait of Miles' evolving art. He emerges from the opening tumult of Sonny Rollins' "Airegin", taunting The Rhythm Section (as they were already known) by slowly crafting phrases and marking off wide expanses of space, only to leap back into the maelstrom with long, expressive lines and throttled cries before John Coltrane comes tearing through. Listen to The Rhythm Section's delight in the man-eating tempo of "Tune Up", the big band fills and set-ups that stoke each soloist's furnace, and Philly Joe Jones' electrifying rhythmic exchanges with Miles.
Miles--like Rollins and Monk--had cultivated a vast knowledge of popular songs, with a knack for unearthing those oddballs that lent themselves to a jazz interpretation. The Rhythm Section etches a deliberate, definitive lounge tempo for "When Lights are Low", and their discrete contrapuntal flourishes allow Miles to almost defy gravity (a retrofitted Coltrane does, and Red Garland, with his taciturn phrases and translucent block chords, sounds like he wants to disappear). The tender pang Miles imparts with his Harmon mute on "My Funny Valentine" was to permanently alter the trumpet's popular sound.|