I mentioned a Miles Davis remix album a post or so ago, and I realized I'd never written about Miles proper. So, here's my admittedly random view of the vast Miles Davis canon.
First of all, you need to own "Kind of Blue". It's not just a bedrock of jazz, it's one of the cornerstones of modern music, period. And the best part is, it's really, really good, and not in an academic "classic" kind of way. It is truly timeless. One thing about it for me is that it's there when I want to hear it (I approach the music), but it has this power to move me towards it when I'm in a different space. Boy, this is awkward and hard to express: whenever I hear it, I'm ready to hear it. It is so captivating and mesmerizing. It occupies a special place in the realm of sound.
I acquired a few Miles LPs in high school and college: a "best of" to dip my toe in the water, "Bitches Brew" which I listened to over and over as I did my homework, "Kind of Blue" of course, but I didn't take the real plunge until I bought "Miles Davis: The Columbia Years", a sampler of his home label for decades. I didn't listen much to the last disc (my mistake) but the rest of the box introduced me to his Gil Evans albums ("Sketches of Spain", "Miles Ahead", "Porgy and Bess"), his quintet that featured Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, some soundtrack work ("Elevator to the Gallows" -- amazing!) -- and the best part was the hitherto unreleased versions of album tracks (versions that eventually made it to the CD reissues). There's a sequence of "Masqalero" (from "Sorcerer"), "Pinocchio" (from "Nefertiti"), "Summer Night" (from "Quiet Nights", and "Fall" (also from "Nefertiti") that travels from pensive to relaxed to practically stock still that is genius, in sequencing and in performance. I didn't hear those songs in context until the staff at one of my old jobs bought me the Quintet box set when I "retired".
This is just a tiny bit of Miles Davis' output, and I can certainly recommend more ("In A Silent Way", "Birth of the Cool", "Filles de Kilimanjaro", "Cookin'", "Relaxin'"...), but the best way to discover Miles is to just take a chance, borrow some CDs from the library, and start listening.
