MILES DAVIS - MILES SMILES

*****ALBUMS: 7) MILES DAVIS: MILES SMILES (1967)

“A classic post bop album that pushes the boundaries of hard bop and flirts with the avant-garde.”

MILES SMILES was recorded in two sessions on 24^th and 25^th October 1966 at the Columbia 30^th Street Studio, New York

TRACKS: Orbits, Circle, Footprints, Dolores, Freedom Jazz Dance, Ginger Bread Boy.

MUSICIANS: Miles Davis, trumpet, Wayne Shorter, tenor sax, Herbie Hancock, acoustic and electric piano, Ron Carter, bass and Tony Williams, drums.

NOTES: Wayne Shorter’s Orbits is a fine start, fast walking bass with clever variations, swishing off-beat drums, fluid trumpet, soloing followed by sax, mazy piano runs- this is the second great Miles Davis Quintet strutting their stuff, following Orbits with Circle, a gentle ballad with a pensive piano solo by Herbie Hancock, the only Davis composition on the album. It is interesting to note that, on Orbits, Gingerbread Boy and the much admired jazz waltz number Dolores Herbie Hancock dispenses with left hand chords and plays only right hand lines. Shorter’s Footprints is a highlight, another marvellous ostinato bass motif underpinning its fragile chassis, a glorious trumpet melody, spare, twinkling  piano notes with stabbed chords, an imaginative tenor sax solo from the composer. At base Footprints is a blues taken somewhere else. The much covered Eddie Harris composition Freedom Jazz Dance is next with its memorable melody line. Another notable piece is Gingerbread Boy, the Jimmy Heath number, as the standard of the album is maintained right to the end and this and Footprints were played regularly live. The significance of Miles Smiles lies in the fact that Davis is not quite prepared to head off into Ornette Coleman territory but does touch upon free jazz, a toe dipped in the atonal water so to speak. Davis never goes that far but he and his band’s explorations of modal forms of improvisation give his creative flow a fresh impetus and offer an alternative to pure bop- indeed the music on

*The original version of Footprints had appeared on a highly rated album Wayne Shorter made for Blue Note with Herbie Hancock, Reggie Workman and Joe Chambers entitled Adam’s Apple.

**Philadelphia man Jimmy Heath (1926-2020) was a saxophonist, composer, arranger and band leader known as ‘Little Bird’ (He was 5’3” tall). In 1955 he was arrested for selling heroin and served a four year prison sentence during which time he composed most of the Chet Baker- Art Pepper album Playboys (1956). Heath played with most of the jazz greats and was a member of the Miles Davis band briefly before he was replaced by John Coltrane. Among his most famous compositions are For Minors Only and CTA . In 2010 his autobiography, ‘I Walked with Giants’ was published and he played at the White House, President Bill Clinton borrowing his sax for a blow

Miles Smiles has been classified as ‘post-bop’ or, to put it another way, pushing the boundaries of hard bop and flirting with the avant-garde. Miles Davis and Charles Mingus were trailblazers in this respect. Also, Shorter’s mature compositions brought another aspect to the prevailing group ethic that Davis could revel in his company without having to keep coming up with new ideas.