# One of Miles Davis’s finest albums is Miles Ahead +19: Videos, Photos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2019/02/28/one-of-miles-daviss-finest-albums-is-miles-ahead-19-videos/
- Published: 2019-02-28T20:00:31+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**One of Miles Davis’s finest albums is _Miles Ahead: Miles Davis +19,_ an orchestral
jazz recording arranged and conducted by Gil Evans in May and August of 1957. **

In many ways, the LP was jazz’s first concept album. The music unfolds like a story
and can only be heard and appreciated by listening from start to finish.

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 As gentle
and as seamless as this album is—with Evans’s heaving orchestration and Davis’s 
innocent flugelhorn throughout—virtually all of the music had already been recorded
by other artists. To illustrate, I have recreated _Miles Ahead: Miles Davis +19_
below using the original recordings in the same order as they appear on the album.
What this shows is just how brilliant Evans was as an arranger and how tender Davis
was as a flugelhornist. By stitching these pieces together and lifting them to majestic
levels, we hear how songs become masterpieces in the right hands [photo above of
Miles Davis and Gil Evans]:

John Carisi’s composition and arrangement of _Springsville_recorded on _All About
Urbie Green and his Big Band _in August 1956, featuring Green on trombone and Carisi
in the trumpet section…

French classical composer Léo Delibes’s _The Maids of Cadiz,_ as recorded by the
Benny Goodman Sextet in 1947…

Dave Brubeck playing his composition _The Duke_ in 1955…

The first jazz recording of Kurt Weill’s _My Ship,_ by Bob Chester in 1941 with 
Betty Bradley on vocal…

The noble original _Miles Ahead,_ by Miles Davis and Gil Evans, from the _Miles 
Ahead_ album…

Gil Evans’s _Blues for Pablo,_ which he wrote and arranged originally for Hal McKusick’s
Jazz Workshop tentet in 1956…

Ahmad Jamal’s _New Rhumba_, recorded by Ahmad Jamal (p) Ray Crawford (g) and Israel
Crosby (b) in 1955…

Bobby Troup and Leah Worth’s _The Meaning of the Blues_by singer Julie London in
1957…

J.J. Johnson’s _Lament_, recorded by trombonists Johnson and Kai Winding in 1954…

Jack Elliot and Harold Spina’s _I Don’t Wanna Be Kissed (by Anyone But You) _as 
recorded by Ahmad Jamal in 1955 (same personnel as above)…

The entire _Miles Ahead: Miles Davis +19_ (one track follows the next)…

![Aaaaaaa](https://marcmyers.typepad.com/.a/6a00e008dca1f08834022ad3e528f7200b-500wi)

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