Miles Davis – Cookin’ With The Miles Davis Quintet (Mono)

Cookin’ With the Miles Davis Quintet is the first classic album of four total that emerged from two marathon and fruitful sessions recorded in 1956 (the other three discs released in Cookin’s wake were Workin’, Relaxin’ and Steamin’). All the albums were recorded live in the studio, as Davis sought to capture, with Rudy Van Gelder’s expert engineering, the sense of a club show á la the Café Bohemia in New York, with his new quintet, featuring tenor saxophonist John Coltrane. In Miles’s own words, he says he called this album Cookin’ because “that’s what we did—came in and cooked.” What’s particularly significant about this Davis album is his first recording of what became a classic tune for him: “My Funny Valentine.” Hot playing is also reserved for the uptempo number “Tune Up,” which revs with the zoom of both the leader and ’Trane.