Miles Davis Quintet: Live in Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 1
This three-CD (and one-DVD) set captures the Quintet's final major tour before Davis ventured into electric jazz-funk.
****
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.”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Here We Are: Stephen Sondheim's 'utterly absorbing' final musical
The Week Recommends The musical theatre legend's last work is 'witty, wry and suddenly wise'
-
The Trial: 'sharp' legal drama with a 'clever' script
The Week Recommends Channel 5's one-off show imagines a near future where parents face trial for their children's crimes
-
Riefenstahl: a 'gripping and incrementally nauseating' documentary
The Week Recommends Andres Veiel's nuanced film examines whether the controversial film director was complicit in Nazi war crimes