Miles Davis - Love Songs

© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Discovering this CD for the first time, but it sure goes to the heart of something that's often overlooked in the conversation about Miles - he was a heckuva balladeer

Miles Davis Love Songs [Columbia/Legacy CK 65853]

These tracks are from my favorite period of recordings by Miles: ca. 1955 - 1965. As an artist, he was always growing and reflecting and incorporating new trends and styles in his music, and that’s as it should be.

But for my ears, the straight-ahead, metronomic Jazz he created in various group configurations was unsurpassed.

Here’s what the media release had to say about this compilation which I’ve followed with some YouTubes featuring tracks from the recording.

The trumpeter/bandleader/composer Miles Davis was the most musically influential, purposefully protean, cross-generationally charismatic, widely-quoted, often speculated-upon improvising artist of his, or perhaps any, era. He commanded some of the highest fees, surrounded himself with some of the loveliest women, drove the fastest cars, and wore the finest clothes, which more or less mirrored his latest musical direction (from Italian silks during his modal period in the late '50s to British velvets, befitting his breakthrough jazz-rock fusion of the early 70s).

Yet for many in his legion of longtime fans, the Miles Davis presented on the nine tracks herein remains the most compelling side of this famously multi-faceted figure: the ne plus ultra of jazz balladeers.

When he rendered a love song at a slow-dance tempo, tilting his horn (often with trademark Harmon mute in its bell) whisperingly close to the microphone, Davis (1926-1991) spoke his heart, spoke volumes, and spoke directly to millions, and the ages. His smoky, eloquent lyricism in the trumpet's middle register possessed the terseness associated with the Bogart of Casablanca or "Wee Small Hours”/”For Only The Lonely" Sinatra — alone in a bar at closing time and trying to forget, but remembering too much while downing another double, straight. For revealing too much about a love gone wrong would! breach the gentleman's code, and for men of Davis' generation, that was poor form, indeed. Reveling in the beauty of a melody, however, was another story.

In the years covered by this collection, Davis formulated a number of significant changes in his approach, and improvisational music's gestalt. But at the heart of the matter throughout is an acute, transcendent lyricism. It's at center stage, whether playing something from the American Popular Songbook that's pure gold or a golden oldie.

It's America's deep song, and it will go on through countless nights, for endless miles.”