Wayne Shorter (tenor sax), Miles Davis (trumpet), Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass) and Tony Williams (drums). From the album Miles Smiles (1967).
After returning from Paris, Davis became depressed, found little work and began to delay in the payment of the hotel’s rent. Some of the musicians he had played with were succeeding in the cool style. He became addicted to heroin, which was very expensive, and Davis lost control of his life, although he became friends with boxer Johnny Bratton and was interested in boxing. In 1950 he toured with Billy Eckstine and Billie Holiday, and was arrested in Los Angeles for drug possession. In 1951 he signed a one-year contract with Prestige Records, formed a group and started recording albums and transcribing scores for other record labels.
Billy Eckstine
To pay for his heroin addiction, Davis played music, exploited prostitutes and asked friends for money, but in 1953 his addiction began to affect his playing. That same year, Davis went to his father’s house in St. Louis for several months, but even then he couldn’t stop shooting up heroin, so he returned again determined to give up the addiction. He locked himself in the guest house for a week until he got over the withdrawal syndrome. Then he moved to Detroit, where it was harder to find drugs. In 1954, when he found himself physically and mentally stronger, he went back to New York, started going to a gym and worked again for the Prestige label.
Miles Davis
Williams begins to play and the rest of the group joins in at once to expose the theme, whose melody, rendered in unison by Shorter and Davis, is incisive and sharp. Davis first enters using short phrases with different motifs and Hancock accompanies him playing loose, repetitive and unconnected chords. He is followed by Shorter with an interesting and creative speech, but also leaving silences between the sentences while Hancock continues with his ostinatos. Next it’s Hancock’s turn, who presents a very well structured and conceived melodic line before the group re-exposes the theme.
© Columbia Records