Perhaps the most famous recording was the one by Miles Davis's quintet in 1954. The recording was released on the 1957 album Bags' Groove. This version is famous for the fact that Thelonious Monk did not play behind Miles during his solo (at the request of Miles) and, after that, he delivered one of his most renowned solos at the piano. Other recordings from the same session are included on the album Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants, and include "The Man I Love", "Swing Spring", and "Bemsha Swing". There are several important recordings of "Bags' Groove" by The Modern Jazz Quartet, featuring only the Quartet (Modern Jazz Quartet, 1957; European Concert, 1960, Concert in Japan '66, 1966, The Last Concert, 1974), and with special guests (Sonny Rollins- The Modern Jazz Quartet at Music Inn Vol.2, 1958; Paul Desmond- The Only Recorded Performance of Paul Desmond with the Modern Jazz Quartet, 1971).
The song was named for vibraphonist Milt Jackson's nickname "Bags".[1]
Milton Jackson, nicknamed "Bags", was an American jazz vibraphonist. He is especially remembered for his cool swinging solos as a member of the Modern Jazz Quartet and his penchant for collaborating with hard bop and post-bop players.
Oscar Pettiford was an American jazz double bassist and composer. He was one of the earliest musicians to work in the bebop idiom.
The Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ) was a jazz combo established in 1952 that played music influenced by classical, cool jazz, blues and bebop. The Quartet consisted of John Lewis (piano), Milt Jackson (vibraphone), Percy Heath, and various drummers, most notably Kenny Clarke and Connie Kay. The group grew out of the rhythm section of Dizzy Gillespie's big band from 1946 to 1948, which consisted of Lewis, Jackson, and Clarke along with bassist Ray Brown. They recorded as the Milt Jackson Quartet in 1951 and Brown left the group, being replaced on bass by Heath. During the early-to-mid-1950s they became the Modern Jazz Quartet, Lewis became the group's musical director, and they made several recordings with Prestige Records, including the original versions of their two best-known compositions, Lewis's "Django" and Jackson's "Bags' Groove". Clarke left the group in 1955 and was replaced as drummer by Kay, and in 1956 they moved to Atlantic Records and made their first tour to Europe.
Eli "Lucky" Thompson was an American jazz tenor and soprano saxophonist whose playing combined elements of swing and bebop. Although John Coltrane usually receives the most credit for bringing the soprano saxophone out of obsolescence in the early 1960s, Thompson embraced the instrument earlier than Coltrane.
Kenneth Clarke Spearman, known professionally as Kenny Clarke and nicknamed Klook, was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. A major innovator of the bebop style of drumming, he pioneered the use of the ride cymbal to keep time rather than the hi-hat, along with the use of the bass drum for irregular accents.
Percy Heath was an American jazz bassist, brother of saxophonist Jimmy Heath and drummer Albert Heath, with whom he formed the Heath Brothers in 1975. Heath played with the Modern Jazz Quartet throughout their long history and also worked with Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Wes Montgomery, Thelonious Monk and Lee Konitz.
Conrad Henry Kirnon known professionally as Connie Kay, was an American jazz and R&B drummer, who was a member of the Modern Jazz Quartet.
Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants is an album by Miles Davis, released on Prestige Records in 1959. Most of the material comes from a session on December 24, 1954, featuring Thelonious Monk and Milt Jackson, and had been previously released in the discontinued ten inch LP format. "Swing Spring" was originally released on the 10"LP Miles Davis All Stars, Volume 1, and "Bemsha Swing" and "The Man I Love" had been previously released on Volume 2. "'Round Midnight" is newly released, and comes from the same sessions by Davis's new quintet in 1956 which resulted in Steamin' with the Miles Davis Quintet and three other albums to fulfill Davis's contract with Prestige.
Bags' Groove is a jazz album by Miles Davis, released in 1957 by Prestige, compiling material from two 10" LPs recorded in 1954, plus two alternative takes.
Django is an album by the Modern Jazz Quartet, first released on 12-inch LP in 1956.
Julius Watkins was an American jazz musician who played French horn. Described by AllMusic as "virtually the father of the jazz French horn", Watkins won the Down Beat critics poll in 1960 and 1961 for Miscellaneous Instrument.
Amsterdam Concert is a rare live Miles Davis recording from 1957. This album was recorded at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam on December 8, 1957, a couple of days after the recording of the movie soundtrack Ascenseur pour l'échafaud. Davis recorded the album with drummer Kenny Clarke and three French musicians: Pierre Michelot on bass, Rene Urtreger on piano, and Barney Wilen on tenor saxophone.
Milt Jackson and the Thelonious Monk Quintet is an album by American jazz vibraphonist Milt Jackson, recorded on July 2, 1948, July 23, 1951 and April 7, 1952 and released on Blue Note in 1956. The latter two sessions were originally released on ten-inch LP as Wizard of the Vibes (1952).
The Complete Last Concert is a double CD live album by American jazz group the Modern Jazz Quartet featuring performances recorded at Avery Fisher Hall in 1974 and released on the Atlantic label originally as a double album The Last Concert (1975) and More from the Last Concert (1981) before the complete edition was released in 1988.
Sonny Rollins with the Modern Jazz Quartet is a 1956 compilation album by jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins, featuring his earliest recordings for the Prestige label under his leadership, including four tracks performed by Rollins with the Modern Jazz Quartet, eight tracks where Kenny Drew and Art Blakey replace Lewis, Jackson, and Clarke, and one track with Miles Davis on piano.
This article presents the discography of the jazz saxophonist and band leader Sonny Rollins.
By the end of the 1940s, the nervous energy and tension of bebop was replaced with a tendency towards calm and smoothness, with the sounds of cool jazz, which favoured long, linear melodic lines. It emerged in New York City, as a result of the mixture of the styles of predominantly white swing jazz musicians and predominantly black bebop musicians, and it dominated jazz in the first half of the 1950s. The starting point were a series of singles on Capitol Records in 1949 and 1950 of a nonet led by trumpeter Miles Davis, collected and released first on a ten-inch and later a twelve-inch as the Birth of the Cool. Cool jazz recordings by Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Bill Evans, Gil Evans, Stan Getz and the Modern Jazz Quartet usually have a "lighter" sound which avoided the aggressive tempos and harmonic abstraction of bebop. Cool jazz later became strongly identified with the West Coast jazz scene, but also had a particular resonance in Europe, especially Scandinavia, with emergence of such major figures as baritone saxophonist Lars Gullin and pianist Bengt Hallberg. The theoretical underpinnings of cool jazz were set out by the blind Chicago pianist Lennie Tristano, and its influence stretches into such later developments as Bossa nova, modal jazz, and even free jazz. See also the list of cool jazz and West Coast musicians for further detail.
European Concert is a live album by American jazz group the Modern Jazz Quartet featuring performances recorded in Sweden in April 1960 and originally released on two consecutive volumes on the Atlantic label.
Dedicated to Connie is a live album by American jazz group the Modern Jazz Quartet featuring performances recorded in Slovenia in May 1960 and released in 1995 on the Atlantic label following drummer Connie Kay's death. The album was also released by Jazz Life in 1990 as Modern Jazz Quartet In Concert.
Miles Davis All Stars, Vols. 1 & 2 are a pair of separate but related 10" LP albums by Miles Davis recorded by Rudy Van Gelder on December 24, 1954 and released on Prestige Records as Miles Davis All Stars, Vol. 1 and Miles Davis All Stars, Vol. 2 the following year.
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