Miles Davis Quintet - First Great Quintet/ Sextet (1955-58)

First Great Quintet/ Sextet (1955-58)

In the summer of 1955, Davis performed a noted set at the Newport Jazz Festival, and had been approached by Columbia Records executive George Avakian, offering a contract with the label if he could form a regular band. Davis assembled his first regular quintet to meet a commitment at the Café Bohemia in July with Sonny Rollins on tenor saxophone, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums. By the autumn, Rollins had left to deal with his heroin addiction, and later in the year would join the hard bop quintet led by Clifford Brown and Max Roach.

At the recommendation of drummer Jones, Davis replaced Rollins with John Coltrane, beginning a partnership that would last five years and finalizing the Quintet's first line-up. Expanded to a sextet with the addition of Cannonball Adderley on alto saxophone in 1958, the First Great Quintet would be one of the definitive hard bop groups along with the Brown-Roach Quintet and the Jazz Messengers, recording the Columbia albums Round About Midnight, Milestones, and the marathon sessions for Prestige Records resulting in five albums collected on The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions.

In mid-1958, Bill Evans replaced Garland on piano and Jimmy Cobb replaced Jones on drums, but Evans only lasted about six months, in turn replaced by Wynton Kelly as 1958 turned into 1959. This group backing Davis, Coltrane, and Adderley, with Evans returning for the recording sessions, would make what is often considered the greatest jazz album of all-time, Kind of Blue. Adderley left the band in September 1959 to pursue his own career, returning the line-up to a quintet. Coltrane departed in the spring of 1960, and after interim replacements Jimmy Heath and Sonny Stitt, Davis plus Kelly, Chambers, and Cobb would continue through 1961 and 1962 with Hank Mobley on tenor sax.

The two rhythm sections from the Davis Quintet would also achieve fame on their own. Garland, Chambers, and Jones would record as a unit on Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section and Sonny Rollins' Tenor Madness, while Kelly, Chambers, and Cobb would tour and record as a trio under Kelly's name, in addition to appearing on the albums Coltrane Jazz and the solo debut of Wayne Shorter, as well as backing Wes Montgomery on Full House and Smokin' at the Half Note.