blog post Miles Davis Quintet Live in Europe 1969, 3-CD box set stream

It doesn’t get much more exciting than this: new music from Miles Davis. Not just from Davis, but from a phenomenal quintet that never recorded in studio: Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette. The three-CD (plus DVD) set is released Jan. 29, 2013, but you can listen to the entire box set right here, right now (until Jan. 29). Ladies and gents, the Miles Davis Quintet’s Live In Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2.

[The streaming period has ended. You can buy Miles Davis Quintet Live in Europe 1969, 3-CD box set here.]

The music

These live performances are previously unreleased and were only heard by a limited audience as bootlegs. This is the first significant collection of music from what’s sometimes called Davis’s “lost band” of 1969-70: Wayne Shorter (soprano and tenor saxes), Chick Corea (keyboards), Dave Holland (upright bass) and Jack DeJohnette on drums. You hear the quintet in three concerts, two at the Antibes Jazz Festival and one in Stockholm, at the Newport Jazz Festival in Europe, introduced (as you’ll hear) by festival founder, George Wein.

The band

In Miles the Autobiography, by Quincy Troupe, Davis, never shy, said: “I took the band out on the road; Wayne, Dave, Chick, and Jack DeJohnette were now my working band. Man, I wish this band had been recorded live because it was really a bad motherf--ker. I think Chick Corea and a few other people recorded some of our performances live, but Columbia missed out on the whole f--king thing.”

The quintet (along with other musicians) ended up recording Filles De Kilimanjaro and In a Silent Way, and were at the heart of one of Davis’s most famous recordings, Bitches Brew. But they were never recorded in studio as a quintet.

The prequel

In 2011, probably the most critically acclaimed release of the year was Miles Davis Quintet – Live In Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Vol. 1 (voted Downbeat’s historical album of the year in both their readers' and critics' poll, and garnering rave reviews everywhere). Jazz critic Nate Chinen’s review for The New York Times said, “It’s humbling to think that a release like Live in Europe 1967 might help illuminate jazz’s present as well as its past, but that’s what great archival work can do. So congratulations, Columbia/Legacy. Now, what’s next?” 

What’s next, of course, is the box set of 1969 recordings.

The DVD

In case you are curious, the DVD that accompanies the box set (a 46-minute colour performance at the Berlin Philharmonie) shows a healthy, macrobiotic-diet-drug-avoiding Davis. In other words, you see Miles Davis playing on all cylinders.

Track listing

CD one — Selections:

1. Introduction by André Francis
2. "Directions "
3. "Miles Runs The Voodoo Down"
4. "Milestones"
5. "Footprints"
6. "’Round Midnight"
7. "It’s About That Time"
8. "Sanctuary"
9. "The Theme" (recorded 7/25/69 at Festival Mondial du Jazz d’Antibes, La Pinède, Juan-les-Pins, France)

CD two — Selections

1. Introduction by André Francis
2. "Directions"
3. "Spanish Key"
4. "I Fall in Love too Easily"
5. "Masqualero"
6. "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down"
7. "No Blues"
8. "Nefertiti"
9. "Sanctuary"
10. "The Theme" (recorded 7/26/69 at Festival Mondial du Jazz d’Antibes, La Pinède, Juan-les-Pins, France)

CD three — Selections

1. Introduction by George Wein
2. "Bitches Brew"
3. "Paraphernalia" 
4. "Nefertiti"
5. "Masqualero" (incomplete)
6. "This" (recorded 11/5/69 at “The Newport Jazz Festival In Europe,” Folkets Hus, Stockholm)

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