My Funny Valentine: Miles Davis in Concert
My Funny Valentine | ||||
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Philharmonic Hall, NYC | ||||
Genre | Jazz[2] | |||
Length | 63:12 | |||
Label | Columbia CL 2306 (mono) CS 9106 (stereo) | |||
Producer | Teo Macero | |||
Miles Davis chronology | ||||
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Miles Davis live chronology | ||||
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the following year.
BackgroundThe concert was part of a series of benefits staged at the recently built Philharmonic Hall (now known as Civil Rights Movement, a cause dear to Miles, who had expressed his admiration for the President in 1962: "I like the Kennedy brothers; they're swinging people."[5]
Two albums were assembled from the concert recording. The up-tempo pieces were issued as Four & More, while My Funny Valentine consists of the slow and medium-tempo numbers. Davis biographer Ian Carr notes that the former were "taken too fast and played scrappily", while the Funny Valentine pieces "were played with more depth and brilliance than Miles had achieved before."[5] He goes on to laud the album as "one of the very greatest recordings of a live concert … The playing throughout the album is inspired, and Miles in particular reaches tremendous heights. Anyone who wanted to get a vivid idea of the trumpeter's development over the previous eight years or so should compare [earlier recordings of "My Funny Valentine" and "Stella by Starlight"] with the versions on this 1964 live recording."[6] The hurried nature of the faster pieces that night has been partially attributed to the sheer importance of the event weighing on Davis's young rhythm section, who were playing their biggest date yet. Tensions were only worsened by their anger on finding out they would not be paid for the performance. Pianist Herbie Hancock, twenty-three years old at the time, later described the psychological pressure on the quintet:
The concert marked the final recording of saxophonist Second Great Quintet ."
Track listing
PersonnelThe Miles Davis Quintet
Technical personnelOriginal
Reissue
Sources
References
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