MILES DAVIS — Bags' Groove (review)

MILES DAVIS — Bags' Groove album cover Boxset / Compilation · 1957 · Bop Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
siLLy puPPy
BAGS GROOVE was recorded way back in 1954 but wasn't released until 1957. This is considered his “Birth Of The Cool” phase in his career. As with many releases this one is a handful of selections that were strewn together after being recorded from various sessions. 54' was a fruitful year of session recordings since other tracks from the same period led to the album “Miles Davis And The Modern Jazz Giants” as well as there being enough material to throw on Thelonious Monk albums. BAGS was the nickname of vibraphonist Milt Jackson who, despite having the album named after him, only plays on the first two tracks which are different versions of the title track.

Thelonious Monk and Horace Silver on piano, Sonny Rollins on tenor sax, Percy Heath on bass, Kenny Clarke on drums and of course Miles himself on trumpet all conspire to make an outstanding album of classic jazz that is satisfying from beginning to end. The music is good enough to merit a much higher rating but there is one thing keeping this album from being a huge classic and that is the fact that two tracks here, namely the title track “Bags Groove” and “But Not For Me” appear here twice each showcasing two different takes of each piece.

Although I have no preference of one take over another, the fact is that this makes listening to this as an album from beginning to end a bit of chore especially when the title track takes are over 11 and 9 minutes and also that the takes don't differ significantly from each other. So this basically makes it feel like a leftovers package and since the album came out three years after it was recorded that very well may be exactly what this is. Recently this has in fact been considered by some to be a compilation album.
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