Steamin'/The New Miles Davis Quintet

This is a terrific two-fer that combines a pair of back-to-back albums by Miles Davis' first great quintet featuring pianist Red Garland, saxophonist John Coltrane, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones. Since Steamin' is the better known of the two albums it is included here first, with The New Miles Davis Quintet album, which was cut the previous year, tagged on as a bonus -- but there are no alternate takes or extra material as on separate releases of these albums. While Steamin', recorded in two sessions in 1956 with Rudy Van Gelder, is sequenced first and is a bona fide hard bop classic, the "bonus album" here is beautiful for the contrast it provides in its execution of ballads, and was actually recorded a year earlier. This is essential '50s jazz. ~ Thom Jurek