The influence of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," consisting of Davis (trumpet), Wayne Shorter (tenor saxophone), Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass), and Tony Williams (drums) continues to resonate. Jazz musicians, historians, and critics have celebrated the group for its improvisational communication, openness, and its transitional status between hard bop and the emerging free jazz of the 1960s, creating a synthesis described by one quintet member as "controlled freedom." The book provides a critical analytical study of the Davis quintet studio recordings released between 1965-68, including E.S.P., Miles Smiles, Sorcerer, Nefertiti, Miles in the Sky, and Filles de Kilimanjaro. In contrast to the quintet's live recordings, which included performances of older jazz standards, the studio recordings offered an astonishing breadth of original compositions. Many of these compositions have since become jazz standards, and all of them played a central role in the development of contemporary jazz composition. Using transcription and analysis, author Keith Waters illuminates the compositional, improvisational, and collective achievements of the group. With additional sources, such as rehearsal takes, alternate takes, session reels, and copyright deposits of lead sheets, he shows how the group in the studio shaped and altered features of the compositions. Despite the earlier hard bop orientation of the players, the Davis quintet compositions offered different responses to questions of form, melody, and harmonic structure, and they often invited other improvisational paths, ones that relied on an uncanny degree of collective rapport. And given the spontaneity of the recorded performances-often undertaken with a minimum of rehearsal-the players responded with any number of techniques to address formal, harmonic, or metrical discrepancies that arose while the tape was rolling. The book provides an invaluable resource for those interested in Davis and his sidemen, as well as in jazz of the 1960s. It serves as a reference for jazz musicians and educators, with detailed transcriptions and commentary on compositions and improvisations heard on the studio recordings.

Table of Contents

Introduction and Acknowledgements; 1. The Quintet; 2. Analytical Strategies; 3. E.S.P; 4. Miles Smiles; 5. Sorcerer; 6. Nefertiti; 7. Miles in the Sky and Filles de Kilimanjaro; 8. The Quintet and Its Legacies

Reviews

"A welcome addition to the growing number of scholarly publications about jazz. While Waters approaches the topic multilaterally and comprehensively, the scope of his study is remarkable, the analytical tools innovative and penetrating, and the conclusions reflecting points of view of a fine scholar with insightful analytical prowess and a thorough understanding of extremely challenging musical repertory...[A] monumental study." --Association for Recorded Sound Collections

"Session by session, composition by composition, what was once a profound mystery destined for eternal analytical purgatory has been freed...within this text are the keys to immediate and future musicological discoveries and exciting individual artistic developmental possibilities." --Bob Belden, composer and producer

"A major book. For serious listeners, it's a gold mine of information and analysis concerning one of the most important musical ensembles of the 20th century." --Bill Kirchner, musician, producer, historian, educator, and editor of The Oxford Companion to Jazz

"Waters' writing is impeccably clear and avoids needless jargon...This title is part of Oxford University Press' new series of book-length discussions of classic jazz albums (another is Brian Harker's Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings). In this era of audio downloads, such serious studies that dig into the significance of the records that have shaped our world are always welcome." --Downbeat, Editor's Pick

"An excellent resource...Highly recommended." --Choice

"A detailed exploration of those recordings, with interviews, musical analysis and critical
response for both the scholar and fan." --New York City Jazz Record

"Advances the field of jazz analysis through its thporoughness and analytical insight, applying creative approaches to explain music that has often seemed structurally opaque and mysterious and that has often been discussed only in superlatives. The