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More than 40 years after its last performance, Miles Davis’s great 1960s quintet still sounds “thoroughly fresh, contemporary, and daring,” said George Varga in Jazz Times. This three-CD (and one-DVD) set captures the group’s final major tour before Davis began venturing into electric jazz-funk, and the playing is “so galvanizing in its emotional intensity” that “some listeners may find the experience both exhilarating and draining.” The band’s interpretations of its core tunes “vary widely from night to night,” said Kevin Whitehead in NPR.org. Bassist Ron Carter and pianist Herbie Hancock rewrote chord changes on the fly, while drummer Tony Williams made the tempos shift like waves. When Davis’s trumpet stated a theme, Wayne Shorter’s sax talked back. “Umpteen bands in every decade since the ’60s have copied or explored ideas raised by this Miles Davis quintet.” This is more than an album. “It’s the fountainhead.”
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