Milestones (album)

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Milestones

Studio album by Miles Davis
Released	1958
Recorded	February-March 1958
Genre	Jazz
Length	47:36
Label	Columbia
Producer(s)	George Avakian
All Music Guide link
Miles Davis chronology
Miles Ahead (1957)	Milestones (1958)	Porgy and Bess (1958)

Milestones is an album recorded in February and March 1958 by Miles Davis. It is renowned for including Miles' first forays into the developing modal jazz experiments, as noticed on the piece 'Miles' (renamed 'Milestones'), which would be followed to its logical conclusion on Kind of Blue. Furthermore the exuberant playing of his superb sextet, which featured the adept Cannonball Adderley and the mercurial John Coltrane dueling musically on such tracks as "Straight No Chaser", have induced it to be highly regarded by jazz musicians, fans and critics alike. It was also significant since it was the last time the rhythm section of Jones, Garland and Chambers would ever play with Miles on record.

Garland does not get much solo space on the album, taking solos only on the trio performance "Billy Boy" and the extended "Straight, No Chaser". He does not appear at all on "Sid's Ahead", which features Davis on piano, since Garland walked out of that session (due to a spat with Davis) - Davis merely comps behind the saxophone solos when he is not playing.

[edit] Analysis

The album is notable for the contrast between lightning-fast bebop tracks (Dr. Jackle and Two Bass Hit), the standards (Straight, No Chaser and Sid's Ahead, previously named 'Weirdo') and the foray into modal jazz, Milestones. The bop tracks demonstrate the two saxophonists' technical brilliance; Davis seems to lag behind in comparison, although this may be more due to his own sparse style of playing. The contrast that is so readily evident between Coltrane's 'sheets of sound' and Davis' cooler playing on Kind of Blue is documented here for the first time on record, though arguably neither sound is fully fledged.

The title track has become rather a standard, performed by Jimmy Smith, Wes Montgomery and others on various occasions. It is made up of two sections--'A' and 'B'. Section A is an 8-bar theme of 3 chords; it is repeated. Section B is also an 8-bar theme of 1 chord and is repeated. Section A is played again to round out the head. The form is AABBA. Some scores notate the B section as one continuous section of 16 bars. This scarceness of variety in chords is one of the reasons it is hailed as Davis' first attempt at modal jazz, as the emphasis moves to scales improvised over the chord instead.

[edit] Track listing

"Dr. Jackle" (Not "Jekyll") (Jackie McLean)
"Sid's Ahead" (Miles Davis)
"Two Bass Hit" (John Lewis - Dizzy Gillespie)
"Milestones" (Miles Davis)
"Billy Boy" (Traditional, arr. Ahmad Jamal)
"Straight, No Chaser" (Thelonious Monk)

Billy Boy is a trio performance by Garland, Chambers and Jones. CD reissues include alternate takes of Two Bass Hit, Milestones and Straight, No Chaser.