In 1956, a 30-year-old Miles Davis was leading one of the most electrifying small groups in jazz: a quintet comprising the then-little-known John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums. Their incendiary performances at Café Bohemia were lighting up the New York jazz scene, drawing the attention of Columbia Records. But before Miles could put pen to paper with Columbia he needed to fulfill his remaining Prestige contract—resulting in two whirlwind sessions on May 11 and October 26, 1956.
These legendary sessions would yield four classic albums released over the next five years on Prestige that would come to define the 1950s and the hard bop era.
The last of these four albums; Steamin’, was released in July 1961 after the quintet had already disbanded and as Miles was ascending to new heights on Columbia with Miles Ahead, Kind of Blue, and Sketches of Spain. Though Miles had moved on to form another groundbreaking group, the raw, live-in-the-room intensity captured on Steamin’ stands as a testament to the original quintet’s enduring greatness.
Miles’ signature muted trumpet offers lean, lyrical, emotionally charged phrases, set against Coltrane’s fiery, searching improvisations. Garland’s block chords and shimmering runs provide warmth and structure, Chambers’ resonant bass lines ground the group with melodic poise, and Philly Joe’s crisp, swinging, personality-rich drumming completes the chemistry. Steamin’ is spontaneity distilled—jazz in its rawest, purest, most unadulterated form.
Cut directly from the original analog master tapes, through our unique all valve 1965 Ortofon / Lyrec vinyl cutting system in True Mono*. No equalisation, compression or any other processing was added during the cutting process.
All sleeve artwork made by hand and authentically letter-pressed on a 1963 Heidelberg SB.
This edition of 345 copies is priced at £395.00 UK pounds. Order here.
*Where everything in the chain from the tape head, the tape pre-amplifier, the cutting amplifier and the dedicated mono cutter head is a single channel pathway: This early technology avoids phase issues (smearing of the sound) that is frequently encountered when cutting with todays dual” or “pseudo” mono cutting systems
