My Funny Valentine | ||||
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Live album by | ||||
Released | February 23, 1965 [1] | |||
Recorded | February 12, 1964 | |||
Venue | 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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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [3] |
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings | [4] |
My Funny Valentine: Miles Davis in Concert is a live album by the jazz trumpter and composer Miles Davis. It was recorded at a concert at the Philharmonic Hall of Lincoln Center, New York City, on February 12, 1964 and released through Columbia Records the following year.
The concert was part of a series of benefits staged at the recently built Philharmonic Hall (now known as Avery Fisher Hall), co-sponsored by the NAACP, the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Davis's set that night was ostensibly in support of voter registration in Mississippi and Louisiana, but he also mentioned in a Melody Maker interview that one of the concerts was in memory of John F. Kennedy, who had been assassinated the previous year. Kennedy's death had struck at the hopes of many in the 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:
"That was my first time playing at the Philharmonic Hall and that was, like, a big deal, because the new Carnegie Hall was the Philharmonic Hall. Just from the prestige standpoint I really wanted to play good—the whole band really wanted to play good because that was the whole band's first time playing there … although Miles had played at Carnegie Hall before … but it was really a special concert. Only the New York Philharmonic plays there … and I tell you something … it was really funny … when we walked away from that concert, we were all dejected and disappointed. We thought we had really bombed … but then we listened to the record - it sounded fantastic!" [7]
The concert marked the final recording of saxophonist George Coleman with Miles Davis. He would be replaced by Sam Rivers, then Wayne Shorter, cementing Miles' "Second Great Quintet."
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
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1. | "My Funny Valentine" | 15:03 | |
2. | "All of You" | Cole Porter | 14:57 |
Total length: | 30:00 |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Stella by Starlight" | 13:01 | |
2. | "All Blues" | Miles Davis | 8:57 |
3. | "I Thought About You" | 11:14 | |
Total length: | 33:12 1:03:12 |
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musical directions in a roughly five-decade career that kept him at the forefront of many major stylistic developments in jazz.
Herbert Jeffrey Hancock is an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer. Hancock started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound. In the 1970s, Hancock experimented with jazz fusion, funk, and electro styles, using a wide array of synthesizers and electronics. It was during this period that he released perhaps his best-known and most influential album, Head Hunters.
Keith Jarrett is an American pianist and composer. Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey and later moved on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s, he has also been a group leader and solo performer in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music. His improvisations draw from the traditions of jazz and other genres, including Western classical music, gospel, blues, and ethnic folk music.
Wayne Shorter was an American jazz saxophonist, composer and bandleader. Shorter came to mainstream prominence in 1959 upon joining Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, for whom he eventually became the primary composer. In 1964 he joined Miles Davis' Second Great Quintet, and then co-founded the jazz fusion band Weather Report in 1970. He recorded more than 20 albums as a bandleader.
David Holland is an English double bassist, bass guitarist, cellist, composer and bandleader who has been performing and recording for five decades. He has lived in the United States since the early 1970s.
Maiden Voyage is the fifth album led by jazz musician Herbie Hancock, and was recorded by Rudy Van Gelder on March 17, 1965, for Blue Note Records. It was issued as BLP 4195 and BST 84195. Featuring Hancock with tenor saxophonist George Coleman, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Tony Williams, it is a concept album aimed at creating an oceanic atmosphere. As such, many of the track titles refer to marine biology or the sea, and the musicians develop the concept through their use of space. The album was presented with the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1999.
E.S.P. is an album by Miles Davis, recorded on January 20–22, 1965 and released on August 16 of that year by Columbia Records. It is the first release from what is known as Davis's second great quintet: Davis on trumpet, Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Tony Williams on drums. The album was named after a tune by Shorter, and was inspired by the fact that, "since Wayne Shorter's arrival, the five members of the quintet seemed to communicate by mental telepathy."
Miles Smiles is an album by the jazz musician Miles Davis. It was released on February 16, 1967 through Columbia Records. It was recorded by Davis and his second quintet at Columbia 30th Street Studio in New York City on October 24 and October 25, 1966. It is the second of six albums recorded by Davis' second great quintet, which featured tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Tony Williams.
The Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel 1965 is a live box set of the Miles Davis Quintet, recorded on December 22 and 23, 1965. First released in Japan in March 1992 by Sony Records as a 7 disc set, it was re-released on Legacy Records in July 1995 as an 8 disc set. In conjunction with Legacy, Mosaic Records released a 10 LP set. It was re-released as an SA-CD Box in October 2023 in a limited edition of 1500 by Sony Japan for Tower Records Japan. It comprises recordings of seven performance sets over the two nights by the second great Davis quintet at the now-defunct Plugged Nickel nightclub in Chicago. A single-disc sampler, Highlights from the Plugged Nickel was released by Legacy on November 14, 1995, and was reissued on February 1, 2008.
George Edward Coleman is an American jazz saxophonist known for his work with Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock in the 1960s. In 2015, he was named an NEA Jazz Master.
The Quintet is an album by V.S.O.P. It was compiled from two concert performances: one at the Greek Theatre, University of California, Berkeley, on July 16, 1977; the other at the San Diego Civic Theatre on July 18, 1977. The quintet were keyboardist Herbie Hancock, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, drummer Tony Williams, bassist Ron Carter and saxophonist Wayne Shorter. The album was originally released in October 1977 as a 2-disc LP by Columbia Records.
Water Babies is a compilation album by American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. It compiled music Davis recorded in studio sessions with his quintet in 1967 and 1968, including outtakes from his 1968 album Nefertiti and recordings that foreshadowed his direction on In a Silent Way (1969), while covering styles such as jazz fusion and post-bop. Water Babies was released by Columbia Records in 1976 after Davis had (temporarily) retired.
V.S.O.P. is a 1977 double live album by keyboardist Herbie Hancock, featuring acoustic jazz performances by the V.S.O.P. Quintet, jazz fusion/ jazz-funk performances by the ‘Mwandishi’ band and The Headhunters.
'Four' & More: Recorded Live in Concert is a live album by Miles Davis. It was recorded at the Philharmonic Hall of Lincoln Center on February 12, 1964 and released two years later. Two albums were assembled from the concert recording: the up-tempo pieces were issued on this album, while My Funny Valentine consists of the slow and medium-tempo numbers.
Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings of Miles Davis 1963–1964 is a box set of studio and concert recordings by Miles Davis for Columbia over a two-year period. Instead of focusing on a particular collaboration or session period, it focuses on the time period in between the solidified lineups of the first and second Great Quintets, starting with Ron Carter's introduction and finishing with the establishment of Wayne Shorter in the lineup.
Miles in Tokyo is a live album recorded on July 14, 1964, by the Miles Davis Quintet at the Tokyo Kōsei Nenkin Kaikan, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. It was released in the United States on CD in 2005 and is the first recording of Davis in Japan. It is the only album to showcase an early incarnation of his Second Great Quintet featuring Sam Rivers on tenor saxophone, following George Coleman's departure; after this, Wayne Shorter's appointment completed the classic lineup which recorded such albums as ESP and Miles Smiles, through to Miles in the Sky.
V.S.O.P. was an American jazz quintet consisting of Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter (bass), Tony Williams (drums), and Freddie Hubbard . Hancock, Shorter, Carter, and Williams had all been members of Miles Davis' "Second Great Quintet" during the 1960s. The name V.S.O.P. is taken from a grade of Cognac brandy, where it signifies aged stock.
Miles Davis' Greatest Hits is a compilation album by Miles Davis originally released in 1969 and re-released in 1997 on CD with different recordings of tracks 3, 4 and 8.
Live in Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Vol. 1 is a 3 CD + 1 DVD live album of Miles Davis and his "Second Great Quintet," with saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Tony Williams. The CDs contain recordings of three separate concerts in Europe, and the DVD has two additional concerts from Karlsruhe and Stockholm.