The Miles Davis Quintet – Steamin' With The Miles Davis Quintet (OJC)

Miles Davis' Steamin' With The Miles Davis Quintet arrived on Prestige in 1961, but its music was captured in 1956 during the celebrated Van Gelder studio sessions that also produced Cookin', Relaxin' and Workin'. That backstory matters: these performances came from a band with a road-tested live book and unusually tight internal chemistry, caught at the point where Miles was moving from Prestige toward Columbia while his first great quintet was sharpening its identity.

The line-up alone tells you why this record still lands so well: Miles Davis with John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones. Steamin' is especially good at showing how this group could remake familiar material without sounding dutiful. “Surrey With the Fringe on Top” feels airy and conversational, “Salt Peanuts” brings a flash of bop intensity, and “Well You Needn't” turns Monk's angular theme into something lean, swinging and unmistakably their own. Even without original compositions, the album makes a strong case for the quintet's gift for taking standards apart and rebuilding them around feel, timing and interplay.

This 2026 Original Jazz Classics edition is also the kind of reissue treatment jazz collectors look for: all-analog mastering from the original tapes, cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, pressed at RTI, and housed in a Stoughton tip-on jacket. For an album built on spontaneity and ensemble trust, that kind of care suits the music.

Features

• 1xLP, 180g, OJC
• AAA lacquers cut from the original master tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio
• Pressed at RTI
• Stoughton tip-on jacket with obi strip

Reviews

• the end results are consistently astonishing - AllMusic.com