Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings recently announced the newest box set in the Miles Bootleg Series — Miles in France - Miles Davis Quintet 1963/64: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8, available November 8th as a 6 CD and 8 LP set with more than four hours of previously unreleased music and new liner notes by journalist Marcus J. Moore.
Released today is the first offering from the box set to feature Davis’ full-formed Second Great Quintet - a spellbinding, never-released, twelve-minute version of “Autumn Leaves” from Salle Pleyel at the Paris Jazz Festival - recorded 60 years ago this month on October 1, 1964.
Miles In France will include all the music that Davis made at the 1963 Festival Mondial Du Jazz in Antibes (July 26-28 of that year) and the 1964 Paris Jazz Festival (October 1). A 2LP break-out set, of just the 1964 recordings, will also be available on November 8. The 1963 recordings featured on Miles In France find him backed by George Coleman, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams; while the 1964 recordings feature Wayne Shorter’s arrival on tenor saxophone, as the final member of the Second Great Quintet.
Miles in France was produced by the multi-GRAMMY winning team of Steve Berkowitz, Richard Seidel and Michael Cuscuna (marking one of the last productions for Cuscuna, who passed away earlier this year) and mastered by multi-GRAMMY winning Sony Music engineer Vic Anesini at Battery Studios in NYC.
At the time of the 1964 Paris Jazz Festival, tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter had just left Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and joined Miles' band for what was the first European tour of the Second Great Quintet. The band played two consecutive concerts in Paris on October 1st, a total of 99 minutes of music. Featuring no repetition of tunes between the performances, they offered an in-depth examination of the brand new Second Great Quintet, which would go on to break uncharted ground.
Miles would return to the U.S. after these shows with a new sense of musical purpose, spurred on by the bands he took to France, reveling in the stages they played. By the time Miles recorded E.S.P. with the Second Great Quintet in 1965, he proved that - despite whatever physical and spiritual challenges he may have endured - he was the barometer by which jazz moved and evolved. Some 60 years removed from these recordings, and more than 30 since his passing, Miles is still the summit and pinnacle, the essence of audacity, the monument of all monuments.
MILES IN FRANCE SET LISTS
MILES DAVIS QUINTET
The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8
Festival Mondial Du Jazz, Antibes/Juan-Les-Pins, July 26, 1963
1. Introduction by André Francis (:46)
2. So What (9:46)
3. All Blues (11:59)
4. Stella By Starlight (14:13)
5. Seven Steps To Heaven (11:01)
6. Walkin’ (10:43)
7. My Funny Valentine (9:55)
8. Joshua (11:02)
9. The Theme (2:59)
10. Closing announcement by André Francis (0:37)
Festival Mondial Du Jazz, Antibes/Juan-Les-Pins July 27, 1963
1. Introduction by André Francis (:52)
2. Autumn Leaves (13:55)
3. Milestones (9:23)
4. I Thought About You (11:47)
5. Joshua (11:31)
6. All Of You (16:44)
7. Walkin’ (16:16)
8. Bye Bye Blackbird (16:49)
9. The Theme (6:06)
Festival Mondial Du Jazz, Antibes/Juan-Les-Pins July 28, 1963
1. Introduction by André Francis (1:21)
2. If I Were A Bell (12:46)
3. So What (12:41)
4. Stella By Starlight (15:47)
5. Walkin’ (18:19)
6. The Theme (:28)
Paris Jazz Festival, Salle Pleyel, October 1, 1964 (1st concert)
1. Autumn Leaves (12:49)
2. So What (9:39)
3. Stella By Starlight (11:05)
4. Walkin’ (9:07)
5. The Theme (0:38)
Paris Jazz Festival, Salle Pleyel, October 1, 1964 (2nd concert)
1. All Of You (16:05)
2. Joshua (12:35)
3. My Funny Valentine (12:18)
4. No Blues (13:13)
5. The Theme (1:05)
