MILES DAVIS Miles Davis & John Coltrane (2000 US deluxe 58-track digitally remastered SIX CD box set which includes the complete Columbia recordings made between 1955 & 1961 including eighteen previously unreleased tracks & also featuringCannonball Adderley Hank Mobley Bill Evans Red Garland Wynton Kelly Paul Chambers Philly Joe Jones & Jimmy Cobb. Also including a 116-page integral booklet with extensive liner notes full discography of the time period and many rare photographs of all the musicians. This superb set is housed inside a hard back die cut hessian book pack with an etched metal spine inside an outer metal slipcase box K65833-S2)

Average Customer Review: ( 31 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.

Probably the question for a potential buyer is: do I need ninety minutes of alternate takes? Often successive takes are difficult to distinguish (such as on Billie Holiday's COMPLETE COMMODORE RECORDINGS), and thus a bit of a chore to sit through even if the music itself is outstanding. However, here the improvisations differ significantly from cut to cut, and the opportunity to hear such peerless musicians as Miles and Trane getting additional opportunities to put their musically-inquisitive minds and deeper-than-deep emotions on display overrides the fact that you're often hearing the "same song" two-plus times in a row. If ever you might opt to splurge for the extras, Miles Davis' music would be it. Actually, it's not much of a splurge, because to get the individual CDs if/when they are reissued--KIND OF BLUE is already available--will cost insignificantly less than to purchase this collection! And here you always have the option to skip over the extras and listen only to the original album tracks (which are noted in the liner notes).

17 of 17 found the following review helpful:

Music that is pricelessApr 21, 2000
By Ian Muldoon
It is true that Columbia are milking the cow for all it's worth in regard to recycling the music of Mr Davis - on the other hand when we're talking about some of the best music of the 20th century regardless of genre then I'm not one to complain. I presently have a Mastersound edition of both KIND OF BLUE and MILESTONES courtesy Japan which is the sixth edition of the former and the fourth edition of the latter I have owned. Of all the music I have, KIND OF BLUE and MILESTONES (BILLY BOY is a ring in I reckon) are the albums I have most frequently played over the past 40 years. Still they sound as fresh and wondrous as the day I first heard them. I've bought this present reincarnation of them because: a) the music is placed in context b) MILESTONES is in stereo for the first time; c)I have never heard AT THE PLAZA; d)I'm partial to the husky, minimalist,croakings of Mr Davis himself, his scratchy, gasping TEO at the end of one piece of music echoes in one's head; e) there are two versions of FLAMENCO SKETCHES one of the masterpieces of Modern Music. Mr Davis IS modern jazz. This is "can't live without" music. Genius.

16 of 16 found the following review helpful:

The giants of jazz at a special peak.Nov 14, 2000
By Ed Brickell
What I'm struck by most after listening to this incredible brick of classic jazz is how happy the music sounds: Davis and Coltrane may have gone on to even greater challenges, but I don't think either of them ever played with such unbridled joy again. As just one example, listen to the alternate take of "Tadd's Delight" at the end of CD #1: loose, swinging like mad, it's one of the most carefree-sounding four minutes and 18 seconds of music you could ever hope to hear. But the energy and enthusiasm are only part of the story: the solos are highly demanding, endlessly inventive, and seem to change every time you hear them.

The whole set documents two of the best musicians ever to walk the earth at a special time in their development -- when they were continuing to push the envelope but were still playing in a more traditional context than they would even just a few years later. While Coltrane eventually shot beyond the confines of earth into interstellar space and Miles The Sorcerer would churn up much darker brews, these CDs still stand among the best jazz ever recorded.

Buy it and be enriched.

10 of 10 found the following review helpful:

Great music, flawed packageFeb 02, 2001
By Hank Schwab
As music goes, this is of course great stuff. Of particular interest is hearing how quickly Coltrane's style changed and grew during these short years. The Davis-Coltrane partnership deserves to be preserved, no doubt. As a box-set, it comes across as bloated and poorly organized. The multiple takes (five versions of "Two-Bass Hit" alone) start to grate on your nerves after the first listen, and the live set from the Persian Room is nothing outstanding. The documentation is also poor; you have to do a lot of searching and cross-referencing to see what tracks are on the CD's in the set, what albums they originally appeared on, and who played during the sessions.

11 of 12 found the following review helpful:

There is a reason every reviewer gave five starsJun 28, 2000
By Eric V. Moye
There are a few box sets which every fan of music must have. This is one of them. It is too hard to come up with superlatives which adequately describe this set of music. Simply put, this is one of the finest collections of music there is available. Miles Davis put together one of the sweetest sounding group of jazz musicians ever: with Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Philly Joe Jones, Bill Evans, and a few notable others. I think that the era these six discs covers is the zenith of jazz music.

Included are the essential cuts which made up "Milesstones"', "Round About Midnight" and other classic music. Whether your tasts run to the be-bop of "budo" or "Two Bass Hits" or the smooth, cool jazz typified by "So What" or "All Blues" (or the whole "Kind of Blue" album for that matter) THIS IS THE PLACE TO BE.

Somewhere, someone has created better jazz music. I just have not heard it yet. Until I do, this will more than suffice.

See all 31 customer reviews on Amazon.com