Jazz Track Explained

Jazz Track
Type:compilation
Artist:Miles Davis
Cover:JazzTrack_Miles.jpg
Released:[1] [2]
Recorded:December 4, 1957, Paris,
May 26, 1958
Studio:Columbia 30th Street (New York City)
Genre:Jazz, hard bop, modal jazz
Label:Columbia
Producer:Teo Macero
Prev Title:Kind of Blue
Prev Year:1959
Next Title:Workin' with the Miles Davis Quintet
Next Year:1960

Jazz Track is a compilation album[3] by Miles Davis, released in November 1959 by Columbia Records, catalogue CL 1268. It compiles sessions by the most recent edition of the Davis Sextet which were insufficient to compose an entire LP, with music previously released in France as a soundtrack. This album was made available on CD for the first time as part of Miles Davis' 'The Original Mono Recordings' box set.[4]

Content

Side one is the American issue of material recorded on December 4, 1957, for the soundtrack of the 1958 Louis Malle film Ascenseur pour l'échafaud,[5] and previously released in Europe as a 10 inch LP on the Fontana label. The soundtrack was recorded in Paris, December 4, 1957, using local musicians, including American expatriate drummer Kenny Clarke.

Side two consists of newly released material recorded by his sextet on May 26, 1958.[6] These were the same musicians who would soon record Kind of Blue, excluding pianist Wynton Kelly. The composition "Fran Dance" is named for Davis' wife, Frances Taylor.[7] The complete Fontana soundtrack was issued on compact disc in the 1980s, using the original title and Fontana artwork, expanded with all studio takes from the session.[8] The sextet material was later rereleased in 1974 under the title 1958 Miles, with live recordings from the same year replacing the soundtrack material. This album, and not Jazz Track, survived into the compact disc era. The sextet material, with additional tracks, appeared again in 2008 as part of the Kind of Blue 50th Anniversary Edition on Legacy Records.

Track listing

All tracks written by Miles Davis except as indicated.

Side two

Personnel

Side one
Side two

Notes and References

  1. News: November Album Releases . 24 June 2019 . The Cash Box . The Cash Box Publishing Co. Inc., NY . 21 November 1959.
  2. News: Jazz Track . 24 June 2019 . The Billboard . The Billboard Publishing Co. . 2 November 1959.
  3. Saxophone Journal. 32. 4–6. 30. 2008. Anon.. none. Jazz Track wasn't an album in the true sense, since it was actually a compilation of two vastly different groups (one European, the other American)..
  4. Web site: The Original Mono Recordings Miles Davis. Miles Davis. 27 January 2017.
  5. http://www.plosin.com/MilesAhead/Sessions.aspx?s=571204 December 4, 1957 Session Details
  6. http://www.plosin.com/MilesAhead/Sessions.aspx?s=580526 May 26, 1958 Session Details
  7. Book: Gottlieb, Robert. Reading Jazz: A Gathering of Autobiography, Reportage, and Criticism from 1919 to Now. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. 2014. 978-0-307-79727-8. 252. en.
  8. The October 25, 1990 date for issue on the Amazon website is given to all compact discs which pre-date their indexing system for release dates; this compact disc appeared in the American marketplace some time in the 1980s.

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