Milestones

Description

"It is, put simply, one of the very greatest modern jazz albums. Play it back-to-back with the fabled 'Kind of Blue' and to an entirely unprejudiced audience, if you can find one, and it yields not a whit in quality or musical depth. Miles was beginning to explore the deeper implications of modality, which freed jazz from the tyranny, as it had begun to seem, of harmonic "changes." - Penguin Guide To Jazz

"Milestones is a revealing title! In addition to a clever pun on a first name that is enough to recognize the monumental trumpeter, it also says a lot about what this essential album represents: a milestone, a decisive step in a journey of which he was about to reach one of its peaks." - Jazz Magazine

Description

"Positioned after his ear-opening trip to Paris, with a well-again John Coltrane and the buoyant Cannonball Adderley in the group, Miles' men were already beyond the foothills of greatness. Milestones may never overtake Kind of Blue in public affection, but nor does it perish in its shade."
- Penguin Guide To Jazz

"The leader is flamboyant throughout, at times lyrical and passionate, while at others he appears to surf unhindered over the fastest tempos. What immense happiness!" - Jazz Magazine

Description

'Milestones' represents what many consider to be Miles Davis' first great quintet. Released in 1958 on Columbia, the five-star review by AllMusic's Thom Jurek called it ".. a classic album with blues material in both bebop and post-bop veins…….which introduced modalism in jazz and defined Davis' subsequent music in the years to follow."

A precursor to 'Kind of Blue', 'Milestones' was the first session to feature John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley.

"Davis' statements here are genuinely eloquent. Coltrane's efforts here do indicate that he is rapidly moving toward a niche of his own, absorbing influences but not being obsessed by them. Adderley is less than individualist but is performing on a level of fluency which will make the discovery of a self-sustaining role less difficult in time." - Don Gold, DownBeat (1958)

Description

Milestones is Davis's recording in a sextet configuration with John Coltrane, Paul Chambers, Cannonball Adderley, Philly Joe Jones and Red Garland. This 1958 masterpiece captured Davis's modalism that introduced on this album continues to influence the genre globally. It's the last studio session saw the rhythm section of Garland, Chambers and Jones assembled (Jones was both Garland left the line-up shortly after signing up). In this album, Davis start to study (particularly in the song that gives the album its title) the type of modal jazz that eventually adopted and popularized in the album Kind of Blue.

This release is part of the New Ermitage collection available from January 2024: 18 jazz and soul titles reissued on yellow vinyl with new codes and renewed graphics.