June 2026
Craft Recordings / Prestige Records—CR00693
Format: LP
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
Miles Davis would have turned 100 on May 26 of this year, and there will be many events celebrating the occasion. Bassist Marcus Miller, who played with Davis in the 1980s, is just kicking off a tribute tour in Davis’s honor, and various jazz festivals and concerts through the end of the year will honor the great trumpeter, composer, and cultural icon.
Davis dropped out of the Juilliard School of Music to play music full time and first entered a recording studio in early 1945, as a sideman. He began playing on Charlie Parker recordings soon after, and over the next several years appeared on sides by other prominent jazz musicians. In 1949, he led the first of three nonet sessions that resulted in a series of 78-rpm singles. Capitol Records gathered them together on LP in 1957 as Birth of the Cool.
Davis signed a contract with Prestige Records in 1951, and over the next several years the label released 10″ and 12″ LPs of sessions he led. Today, Craft Recordings owns the Prestige catalog and has done a good job of keeping Davis’s recordings for Prestige in circulation. Many of his albums from that period remain in print on vinyl, including four currently available in handsome audiophile Original Jazz Classics editions.
In addition, Craft has issued complete sets of recordings Davis made for Prestige during specific years, including Miles ’54: The Prestige Recordings (released in 2024) and Miles ’55: The Prestige Recordings (released in 2025). A newly released third set, Miles ’56: The Prestige Recordings, consists of Davis’s final recordings for the label. For the sake of brevity, further references to these titles will omit the subtitle, so Miles ’54 and so on.
Davis signed with Columbia Records in 1955, but he had a year remaining on his contract with Prestige and owed the label several more LPs. He had assembled a quintet in 1955 that was playing regularly at the Café Bohemia in New York and appearing in other clubs throughout the US. John Coltrane was on saxophone, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums.
The quartet recorded music in November 1955 for Prestige, released as Miles in April 1956. That session is part of the Miles ’55 set.
Bob Weinstock, who owned Prestige and was its primary producer, suggested that the quintet record enough material to fulfill Davis’s contract. They went into Rudy Van Gelder’s studio on May 11 and October 26, 1956, and in two long sessions recorded enough music to fill four complete albums, which Prestige would release over the next few years. Cookin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet appeared in 1957, followed by Relaxin’ in 1958, Workin’ in 1960, and Steamin’ in 1961. One track from the second session appeared on Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants (1959).
Davis also led an earlier session on March 16, 1956, with a different quintet featuring Sonny Rollins on sax, Chambers on bass, Tommy Flanagan on piano, and Art Taylor on drums. The resulting three songs appeared as side 2 on Collectors’ Items, a late-1956 release on Prestige.
Miles ’56 pulls together all three 1956 sessions and is available as a four-LP or three-CD set, or as a download. Jamie Howarth and John Chester at Plangent Processes handled the tape transfers and audio restoration. Paul Blakemore mastered the resulting Plangent file, and Kevin Gray cut the vinyl from Blakemore’s master. I’m reviewing the four-LP set, which Optimal Media pressed in Germany.
The selections on Miles ’56 are arranged chronologically, and for the most part I’ll be evaluating them in the order in which they appear there. Side A of the first LP opens with an arrangement of Dave Brubeck’s “In Your Own Sweet Way” from the March session with Sonny Rollins. I have the 1987 CD reissue of Collectors’ Items, mastered by Joe Tarantino.
When I went from the CD to the new pressing, the music opened up dramatically. These recordings are mono, but a well-mastered mono recording can provide a tremendous sense of space. Switching back and forth between the CD and the new LP, I didn’t notice a wider soundstage, but I did hear one that was deeper. Instruments were more clearly presented and there was more space between them. The CD sounded utterly flat by comparison.
Tommy Flanagan’s piano sounded fuller and more resonant on the LP, and Paul Chambers’s bass, which felt indistinct and distant on the CD, was more pronounced, with each note sounding out cleanly. Davis used a Harmon mute on his trumpet on the tune, and the tone and texture of the instrument were more convincing on the LP. The subtleties of Davis’s phrasing were also much more audible. Rollins’s solo had more verve and muscle, and Art Taylor’s brushwork on the snare was more focused—I could actually hear that the brushes were going over a drum head.
“No Line,” another track from the session, moves quickly, and the pacing felt more confident on the LP. Taylor’s hi-hat and cymbal work was crisper, and the notes on Flanagan’s solo carried a pleasing reverberation that allowed them to sustain longer and decay more naturally.
When Davis went into Van Gelder’s studio on May 11 with his regular quintet, he took another run at “In Your Own Sweet Way.” That track was one of seven from the May date that ended up on Workin’. I compared the 1987 CD release of the album, mastered by Kirk Felton, with the new LP.
Although Felton’s mastering on Workin’ gave the music a slightly deeper presentation than Tarantino’s had on Collectors’ Items, instruments on the new LP were more detailed and better separated. Philly Joe Jones’s cymbals sometimes receded on the CD but held firm on the vinyl. Chords on Red Garland’s piano were more fleshed-out, and Chambers’s bass had a more pronounced attack. The song was played at roughly the same tempo as on the earlier session with Rollins, but there were significant differences in the arrangement. In the passages on the May recording when Davis and Coltrane play in tandem, I could follow each instrument’s lines more easily on the LP.
I compared “Trane’s Blues,” another track from the session that appeared on Workin’, with the new master on side B of the set. Jones’s cymbals sparkled and sustained better on the LP, and his snare drum had more snap. Coltrane’s solo had somewhat more force on the CD, but its timbre sounded more correct to me on the LP, and Chambers’s bass, especially during his solo, was more three-dimensional.
Six other tracks from the May 11 session comprise Steamin’. I have the 1989 CD and vinyl reissues of the album, both remastered by Phil De Lancie. De Lancie has noted that he cut the vinyl reissues he did for Fantasy Records, which owned Prestige at that point, directly from the original analog tapes. I chose the 1989 vinyl release for my comparison with the new LP.
I played the opening track on Steamin’, “Surrey with the Fringe on Top.” De Lancie’s mastering tends to be lively and bright, and his cut of the LP was slightly louder than the new one. When I switched to the new LP, I thought it sounded reserved, but during a second play of each LP, I found that the new pressing felt more natural. Garland’s chord strikes were occasionally more emphatic in De Lancie’s mastering, but they had more room to linger on the new LP without sacrificing their impact.
Jones’s hi-hat behind Garland’s opening chord sequence was less aggressive on the new release, giving more space to the piano. His drumming was lively and responsive on both LPs, but on the new one he was behind and in support of the other instruments. Davis again used the Harmon mute; his playing unfolded warmly on the new LP, and I could discern his use of dynamics better. Coltrane’s sax solo showed a similar improvement in nuance and musicality, and both horns sounded more lifelike.
“Salt Peanuts” shows how much skill and wit this quintet brought to its music. The Dizzy Gillespie / Kenny Clark tune moves fast, and the quintet smoothly negotiates its complexities. The new LP was markedly better on this track. Davis and Coltrane announce the opening theme, and the melody lines of each horn, as well as the close interaction between them, came through more clearly. Garland’s solo unfolds at impressive speed, but he is unfazed and inventive. His solo felt more relaxed and less rushed on the new release.
Philly Joe Jones is featured throughout “Salt Peanuts.” In the original, Gillespie calls out “Salt Peanuts! Salt Peanuts!” at various points. Jones instead injects short drum bursts that evoke the enthusiasm and humor of Gillespie’s interjections. He plays a lengthy drum solo, and the tone of each drum was more clearly rendered on the new pressing, as was the faint sound of a light hi-hat kick that helps anchor the solo.
The four tracks released on Cookin’ came from the October 26 session. I have two copies of Cookin’: one that was part of a two-LP set Prestige released as Miles Davis in 1972, and one a 1982 reissue of the original album. The later reissue, mastered by Gary Hobish, is still in print, so I used it to compare with the same tracks on Miles ’56.
The Davis quintet’s version of “My Funny Valentine” is perhaps the finest of the many instrumental renditions of the song available. Since it is the final track on Miles ’56, it must have been the last tune the group recorded for Prestige. Garland’s piano intro sounded warmer and more natural on the new pressing, and Miles’s trumpet lines flowed more easily.
A quick-tempo arrangement of Sonny Rollins’s “Airegen” was more cohesive on the new master. Jones’s drums were every bit as energetic as on the earlier pressing, but they were less edgy and bright. Coltrane’s sax was also more balanced, without losing its intensity.
The two-LP Miles Davis set I referred to earlier includes Relaxin’ as the second LP, and it’s the only vinyl copy of the album that I own. Rudy Van Gelder remastered and cut the lacquer for the 1972 reissue. Since Van Gelder was the recording engineer for the original sessions, I assume his work on the reissue reflects his wishes for how the tunes should sound.
I wasn’t surprised to find that I liked Van Gelder’s cut of the record. I listened to “If I Were a Bell” and “I Could Write a Book,” and the bass on both tracks had plenty of presence and definition, while the horns sparkled with excitement and clarity. Overall, though, I preferred the sound of those tracks on Miles ’56. Garland’s chords had more overtones and sounded more complete, and Jones’s drums were part of the ensemble, whereas they were just a little too forward on the 1972 pressing.
The four 180g LPs in my vinyl copy of Miles ’56 were flat and exceptionally quiet during playback and between tracks. Each LP is housed in a medium-weight cardboard cover, with a good-quality anti-static inner sleeve. The box housing the entire set is made of heavy cardboard, and I had to remove the top section to get to the LPs themselves.
Don’t make the mistake I did of removing all four LPs in their covers and then trying to put them all back in at once. The outer case holds them snugly, and I ended up returning them to their home one at a time.
The set includes a booklet, which rests in a slot at the front of the box. It includes excellent liner notes by Ashley Kahn that give the music both historical and geographical context—New York City was the only place at that point in history where this music could have developed as it did. The booklet also reprints excerpts from session notes the late Dan Morgenstern originally wrote for the 1988 CD release of Chronicle: The Complete Prestige Recordings.
A helpful page near the end of the booklet shows where the tunes appeared on each of the Prestige album releases. I thought I might be thrown off by the fact that Miles ’56 presents the tunes in chronological recording order, rather than in the LP sequences. But the variety of arrangements and tempos makes for an enjoyably paced set, and I can always return to the albums as originally released.
As I noted earlier, three processes led to the sonic results on Miles ’56: tape transfers and restoration by Jamie Howarth and John Chester at Plangent Processes, mastering by Paul Blakemore, and lacquer cutting by Kevin Gray. Assessing the division of labor would make for an interesting article, but it’s beyond the scope of this review.
Months of playing together contributed to the Miles Davis Quintet’s tightly arranged, confident ensemble playing in the studio. Tiny shifts on the part of each soloist led to adjustments from the other players that added to the excitement and spontaneity of the improvisations. Those elements are the essence of jazz.
Miles ’56 allowed me to hear with astonishing clarity what occurred in the studio during the sessions brought together in the set. Instruments sounded more detailed and realistic than they did on my other copies of the music. In addition, the better sense of space and the immediacy of the sound allowed me to appreciate more deeply the subtle interactions of the musicians.
The packaging of Miles ’56: The Prestige Years is first-rate and part of the pleasure of owning the set. And the music itself is sublime beyond description.
. . . Joseph Taylor
josepht@soundstagenetwork.com
