This would appear to be a pirate recording not previously issued by a legitimate record company. The sound is hard and loud with the drums overbalanced; it might even have been an amateur recording. The music is typical Davis concert-style of the time, though. Coltrane had just left Miles’ band, finally, a few months earlier, to form his first quartet. Davis, with a European tour coming up, probably had to find a quick replacement and he picked Stitt, presumably because he was available.
An 18-minute Four kicks things off, followed by an almost equally long All Of You. Davis’s extended solo is open and occasionally strident. He would not, I think, have played like this in the studio but this was a tour he was committed to playing and he was going through the motions. Stitt follows with typical bop solos, the only kind he knew throughout his career. The rhythm section plays in free-flowing manner and do what they always did behind Davis, swing like crazy. Cobb appears animated – or it may just be that he was over-recorded on this occasion.
There is a four-minute version of Walkin’, which ends abruptly as the tape runs out – something that adds weight to the amateur-recording theory. All Blues is played at tempo similar to that of the studio version on Kind Of Blue. Miles seems happier here, on one of his more recent compositions. Not playing so lyrically as on the studio version, he comes up with a high octane, inventive solo using slurs and high-note runs. Stitt tries to get into the modal mood, but he doesn’t sound happy about it. He is soon back to his bop phrases. The quintet sound collectively serene on Monk’s Well You Needn’t and Miles plays a charging open-trumpet solo, flying up into the stratosphere on occasion. Stitt is on more familiar ground here and contributes a good bop solo complete with quotations.
Autumn Leaves is a 17 -minute workout where Miles pays scant attention to the melody, improvising on the chords throughout a long solo. Chambers plays a typical arco solo towards the end of this piece. So What is the second modal selection, played up tempo here. Stardust is a short feature for Stitt’s saxophone and the concert ends with 44 seconds of Miles’s theme. There are good moments on this two-LP set but a lot of what sounds like running the clock down.
Discography
LP1: Four; All Of You (25.08) – Walkin’ Four; All Blues (27.17)
LP2: Well, You Needn’t; So What (23.50) – Autumn Leaves; Stardust; The Theme (22.01)
Davis (t); Stitt (ts, as); Wynton Kelly (p); Paul Chambers (b); Jimmy Cobb (d). Manchester, 27 September 1960.
Jazz Wax JWR 4637
