The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions

In the summer of 1955, Davis performed a noted set at the Newport Jazz Festival, and had been approached by Columbia Records executive George Avakian, offering a contract with the label if he could form a regular band.[2] Davis assembled his first regular quintet to meet a commitment at the Café Bohemia in July with Sonny Rollins on tenor saxophone, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums.[3] By the autumn Rollins had left, and at the recommendation of Jones, Davis replaced Rollins with John Coltrane.[4]

In January 1951, Prestige Records owner and producer Bob Weinstock signed Davis to a one-year contract;[5] Davis would continue to record for the label into 1956. Weinstock gave Davis an advance of $750, but the company's artists' contracts were often manipulative with low royalties, paying nothing for rehearsal time.[6] With his success at Newport and the formation of the Miles Davis Quintet, Davis convinced Avakian to buy out his contract with Prestige.[7]

The terms of the deal between Avakian and Weinstock allowed Davis to record for Columbia but not release any of the material until Davis fulfilled his remaining duty to Prestige.[8] Davis took the quintet into the studio for a session in 1955 followed by two marathon dates in 1956, meeting his contractual obligations efficiently.[9] Prestige released the results of the first date for the album Miles in 1956, his second specifically for the twelve-inch LP format.[10]

Recording sessions took place at the studio of Rudy Van Gelder in Hackensack, New Jersey, three over a twelve-month period 1955 to 1956. Discs one, two, and three contain selections in the order they were taped, all five Prestige LPs assembled from this material. The songs were mostly pop standards, mixed with jazz standards that would have been commonly played by hard bop groups during the 1950s. Disc one, tracks one through six, were recorded on November 16, 1955; disc one, tracks seven through ten, and disc two, tracks one through ten, were recorded on May 11, 1956; and disc two, tracks eleven and twelve, and disc three were recorded on October 26, 1956.[11]

Disc four contains previously unreleased live performances. Tracks one through four are from the first iteration of The Tonight Show, taped on November 17, 1955, the day after the first studio session.[12] Tracks five and six derive from a radio broadcast at the now-defunct Blue Note club in Philadelphia on December 8, 1956.[13] Tracks seven through ten derive from a show at the also defunct Café Bohemia in New York City on May 17, 1958, with Bill Evans in place of Garland. The show was broadcast on the Bandstand USA radio program.[14]

• Miles Davis — trumpet
• John Coltrane — tenor saxophone
• Red Garland — piano
• Bill Evans — piano on disc four tracks 7-10
• Paul Chambers — bass
• Philly Joe Jones — drums