THE MUSINGS OF MILES [AKA: THE BEGINNING]

Although I wouldn't call THE MUSINGS OF MILES the most essential of releases by one of the greatest musical entities of the jazz world, namely MILES DAVIS, I really love to dig deep into the vaults to hear the evolution of his music since he was one of the greatest innovators of constantly changing it up from one album to the next. At this point in his career he was not quite as eclectic as he would become a few short years down the road but at this juncture in his still fairly nascent career he still offers some well played bop of the mid-50s which finds him developing his own techniques as well as worshiping his own heroes in the form of Dizzy Gillespie on his version of "A Night In Tunisia" as well as "I See Your Face Before Me" and "A Gal In Calico" by Arthur Schwartz. In fact only the two tracks "I Didn't" and "Green Haze" were written by DAVIS.

This album finds him at the point before he would form his first classic quintet which would be created shortly after the recording of this album and this is one of the few albums where MILES is the only horn player. It is he alone on trumpet delivering the one and only horn section accompanied by Oscar Pettiford on bass, Red Garland on piano and Philly Joe Jones on drums. For this reason MILES stands out more than on his other albums where he usually trades off and weaves the brass sections together. The music here is a mix of mid-tempo bop jazz alternating with slower numbers taking you on a fairly standard jazz ride of the era but with MILES DAVIS even a standard ride has a slight edge to it that keeps my attention. Also this is one of the earliest of recordings that has found a home on a the somewhat recent Rudy Van Gelder Remasters. Although this is hardly the peak of his lengthy and diverse output I still find this a wonderful listen for its stripped down quartet sound that allows MILES to steal the limelight as sole horn master. 3.5 rounded up