Ruth Leon recommends… Miles Davis and the ‘Lost Quintet’ – Newport Jazz Festival Paris
UncategorizedMiles Davis and the ‘Lost Quintet’ – Newport Jazz Festival Paris
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Everyone has their own list of ‘Desert Island Discs’, the music they would choose to take to a desert island if no other entertainment was available. My list includes not one but two selections from the great jazz trumpeter, Miles Davis. They both come from his most fecund period, the late 1960s and, by chance, they are both on this concert from the Newport Jazz Festival Paris. Choose your own Desert Island numbers here.
This fantastic footage shows Miles Davis – jazz’ greatest and most-recognizable face – at a very particular moment in his career. Journalists and writers like to split his musical life up into different segments, with each one representing what is essentially a new era in the direction of American music: The Bebop Years, The Birth of Cool, Hard Bop, The First Quintet (alongside John Coltrane), Kind of Blue, The Second Quintet (with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams) … it is the most impressive résumé in jazz.
Yet, at this point, in 1969, Miles was leading the so-called “Lost Quintet,” named because this particular formation only performed together, never setting down their sound in a studio.
It is a staggering line-up: Miles Davis on trumpet, Chick Corea on electric piano, Jack DeJohnette on drums, Wayne Shorter on saxophone and Dave Holland on bass. All of them were fusion masters, boundary-pushing auteurs with vision and daring in the new musical space of the late 60s/ early 70s. They only toured together for a year and, as such, this concert is a precious document for lovers of jazz.
I heard them in L.A., in 1969, at Shelly’s Manne Hole. Very disappointing. Chick was playing that horrible Fender Rhodes keyboard and Tony was so loud that I could barely hear Dave Holland. Hopefully, this recording is better than what I heard live.