Miles Davis My Funny Valentine Miles Davis in Concert

180g Vinyl! Pressed at RTI!
Historic Recording Captures Elegant Ballads Performed at February 1964 Concert!
Audiophile-Standard Sound: Album Boasts Lifelike Tones, Balances, Images, and Ambience.
In February 1963, a few months after the assassination of President Kennedy, Miles Davis played at a benefit concert of various civil rights organizations. The live recording was divided into two albums: Four & More contains the fast tracks, My Funny Valentine contains the pieces played in slow and medium tempo. For Davis, My Funny Valentine marks a turning point. For the last time, he releases a live album with standards and not with his own compositions. It is also one of the last recordings with the same band that produced Seven Steps of Heaven.
Davis plays elegantly and poetically like never before. Pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Tony Williams accompany the trumpeter, but the congenial complement is George Coleman. Subtle and understated, always with a clear direction and yet flexible, the tenor saxophonist is the ideal partner for Davis.
Krieg Wunderlich took over the remastering for Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab from a tape copy, as the actual master can no longer be found in the Sony archives. Accordingly, the cover of this issue does not contain the usual lettering 'Original Master Recording'. But don't worry - the sound is exceptionally good, as you would expect from MFSL. The 180g double LP with 33 rpm will be released in a limited edition with a sequential serial number.
Davis Taps Divine Inspiration: Compositions Marked by Deep Emotions, Spontaneous Brilliance, Sensitive Beauty, and Sublime Poignancy.
Miles Davis' My Funny Valentine marks several historic turning points. For Davis, the live album represents the final time on record he'd perform standards rather than original compositions. It also stands as one of the last documents made by the same band that created Seven Steps of Heaven. As such, the work teems with bebop melodicism yet steers clear of Davis' oft-controversial avant-garde leanings. Most significantly, however, the set captures the ballads performed at a benefit concert from New York's then-new Philharmonic Hall just months after President Kennedy's assassination. Tapping into a seemingly divine inspiration, Davis never sounded so elegant or poetic.
Boasting gorgeous sound, Mobile Fidelity's collectable reissue of the trumpeter's scintillating work bookends the label's release of Four & More from the same show and features similar enhancements relating to depth, presence, dynamics, clarity, and ambience. Presented in reference-standard fidelity, the record boasts balances, tonalities, and airiness that duplicate the experience of witnessing live jazz in an acoustically ideal hall. The images of each individual instrument, the decay of the notes, the inner reaches of the piano, and symmetry of the horns - all are rendered with palpable detail. This is the very definition of reach-out-and-touch-it realism.
Staged as a benefit to support voter registration in the South, the February concert came amidst the height of the Civil Rights movement, a cause dear to Davis' heart. Yet unforeseen circumstances raised the stakes. Having professed his admiration for Kennedy years prior, Davis appears to approach the compositions on My Funny Valentine (and, in particular, the title track) as homage to the fallen leader, a collective soliloquy comprised of pieces shot through with deeply emotional passages, spontaneous brilliance, sensitive beauty, and sublime poignancy. Elegiac moods permeate the performances; Davis and his Harmon mute paint with intricate brushstrokes.
Pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Tony Williams are their leader's equals and would continue with Davis until later in the decade, helping form what's now known as the "second great quintet." But the secret weapon on both My Funny Valentine and its sister Four & More arrives in the form of tenor saxophonist George Coleman, whom jazz experts Brian Morton and Richard Cook deem "one of the unsung heroes of modern jazz." His lines are subtle and sophisticated, straight-ahead but capable of unanticipated direction, and here, he comes into his own. As does the entire band.
Indeed, the combination of introspective chemistry, lyrical reach, and telepathic communication demonstrated by the quintet on My Funny Valentine arguably exceeds that on any of Davis' myriad other live efforts. One listen confirms something special transpiring, and on this Mobile Fidelity reissue, those properties are rendered in a manner that's as transparent to the source as humanly possible. Do not miss this.

Features:

• 180g Vinyl
• Pressed at RTI
• Sourced from the Original Master Tapes
• Production and Mastering by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab

Musicians:

• Miles Davis, trumpet
• George Coleman, tenor saxophone
• Herbie Hancock, piano
• Ron Carter, bass
• Tony Williams, drums

Selections:

Side A
1. My Funny Valentine
2. All Of You
Side B
1. Stella By Starlight
2. All Blues
3. I Thought About You