Miles Davis and the Jazz Giants should not be confused with another Prestige release titled Miles Davis & the Modern Jazz Giants (Prestige 7150/OJC 347), although both are owned by Fantasy. While the main focus of Miles Davis & the Modern Jazz Giants is a December 24, 1954, session featuring
Thelonious Monk and
Milt Jackson, this 68-minute CD is really a best-of and spans 1951-1956.
Miles Davis and the Jazz Giants, which Prestige/Fantasy assembled in 1986, spotlights some of the trumpeter's bop-oriented encounters with fellow jazz heavyweights -- and those heavyweights range from
J.J. Johnson,
Horace Silver, and
Lucky Thompson on "Walkin'" in 1954 to
Sonny Rollins,
Jackie McLean, and
Art Blakey on "Dig" in 1951. While "Dig" is the collection's oldest recording, the most recent is a 1956 performance of "Vierd Blues" that features
Rollins and pianist
Tommy Flanagan. And "The Serpent's Tooth" is from a 1953 session that finds
Rollins and
Charlie Parker taking a two-tenor approach. Bird, of course, was primarily an alto saxophonist, but "The Serpent's Tooth" demonstrates that he could also be quite appealing on tenor. Some jazz enthusiasts will no doubt wonder why
John Coltrane is absent from this collection -- after all, he was most definitely a jazz giant. But
Coltrane's absence was not an oversight on Fantasy's part; this disc is meant to spotlight all-star encounters that took place outside of a regular working group -- after all,
Davis' legendary 1955-1957 quintet with
Coltrane,
Red Garland,
Paul Chambers, and
Philly Joe Jones was a regular working group while it lasted. But even without
Coltrane, this collection is excellent -- and it is among the five-star CDs that novices are urged to acquire if they are starting to explore
Davis' Prestige output of the '50s. ~ Alex Henderson