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Turning up the heat on the cool

Matthew Watters | Vietnam | 07/24/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It's hard to understand all the talk about Miles's drug habit causing his playing to be inferior during the early 1950s. This is, after all, the period during which Miles was cementing his status as a major star in jazz, and the aural evidence simply doesn't support the conclusion that he was off his game somehow. On this lovely album, for instance, Miles is still developing his mature approach, and it's great to hear him playing these long, lyric lines in the style of Kenny Dorham, all on an open horn with a brassy tonality. In a few short years, he wouldn't be playing like this anymore, but you can still hear that melancholy, introspective quality to the playing that is purely Miles. The overall atmosphere on these sessions is a sort of relaxed, late-night version of hard bop, a hotter version of the cool, if you will. As for the supporting players here, pianist John Lewis is superb, and while I honestly can't tell if its Al Cohn or Zoot Sims playing, the horn ensembles are nice. That's really my only quibble with this record: the cuts tend to be far too short, with solos by Sonny Rollins, trombonist Bennie Green and Cohn/Sims kept to a single chorus. It puts the spotlight thoroughly on Miles' longer solos, however, and he's in fine fettle."