Billboard : 05/05/1956
Score of 80

Two members of Davis‘, “new” quintet – drummer Philly Joe Jones and pianist Red Garland – were heard with him in the LP, Musing With Miles (Prestige 7007). Here again they offer much to be admired, as do the other members of the fivesome: John Coltrane on tenor, and Bass : Paul Chambers on bass. The material consists of four standards and two originals, including a fine run-thru of The Theme, the sign-off number of the Jazz Messengers. Davis’ emphasis is on lyricism and expression rather than virtuosic display, particularly in the ballads. Some of the writing is mannered and lacking in continuity, but there is a wealth of good playing from all hands to revive interest after occasional lapses.

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Cashbox : 05/26/1956

Top trumpeter Miles Davis comes up with a class assortment of various jazz moods. The Davis Quintet handles the six selections by expertly weaving its instruments in deft jazz harmony. This corner greatly appreciated the robust Miles trumpet and accompaniment on the oldie, S’posin. Jazz fans will take to the set enthusiastically. Miles is a master.

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Providence Journal – Providence, RI
Philip C. Gunion – 05/27/1956
‘Miles’ Displays His Talents

Miles Davis is a superb trumpet player who developed his own individual sound on that instrument. His boyhood idol was quite obviously Miles Davis. His sound has been imitated ever since other trumpet players first heard it, but Miles is still master and he proves it handsomely on Miles, a new Prestige Records LP, recorded by his new quintet.

This is an excellent display of his many talents with four tastefully forceful standards and two originals. With Miles are John Coltrane, tenor; Red Garland, piano; Paul Chambers, bass, and Philly Joe Jones, drums. The standards: How Am I To Know?, There Is No Greater Love, S’posin, and Squeeze Me. Hear this and you’ll know why Miles Davis stood at the top of the class in the last Down Beat poll.

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San Francisco Chronicle
Ralph J. Gleason : 06/07/1956

The best small groups in modern jazz have been keeping busy recently recording and the result is a particularly good set of LPs showing what they have been up to.

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Miles Davis‘ new group in its Prestige LP Miles produces some moving horn by the leader, swinging drumming by Philly Joe Jones, incomprehensible tenor by John Coltrane and interesting solos by pianist Red Garland. But the bassist of the group, Paul Chambers, impresses as the best thing in the album. A most moving soloist.

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Down Beat : 05/30/1956
Nat Hentoff : 4 stars

The New Miles Davis Quintet is the unit with which he’s been traveling for several months – tenor John Coltrane, pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummerPhilly Joe Jones. Miles is in wonderfully cohesive form here, blowing with characteristically personal, eggshell tone, muted on the standards, open on the originals. And he continues to grow in his searching quality of being able to get so inside a song that he makes it fit him as if to order without injuring the Coltrane, as Ira Gitler notes accurately, “is a mixture of Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, and Sonny Stitt.” But so far there’s very little Coltrane. His general lack of individuality lowers the rating.

Garland plays some of his best choruses on record here, combining imaginative sensitivity with relaxed light-fingered swing. Chambers lays down a support that could carry an army band. His tone is full and never flabby and his time is right. He has only one solo, a building one on the The Theme. His bass is somewhat over-recorded in places.

Philly Joe is pulsatingly crisp as usual, and has apparently curbed a previous tendency to play too loudly too often. The last, uniquely attractive original, is by Philadelphian Benny Golson. A very good set particularly worth absorbing for Miles. He himself deserves five.

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Liner Notes by Ira Gitler

Miles Davis concluded a most successful year in 1955 from many standpoints. His playing was sharper than it had been in some time and as lyrical and probing as ever. Critics and fans alike reacclaimed him as the leading trumpeter in numerous articles and several polls. As the year drew to a close amid these tributes, Miles formed a new group. He had been fronting quartets and quintets intermittently throughout the year and the personnel had been a shifting one. When his current group was formed on a regular basis it needed differentiation from the previous transitory fives. Hence, the new Miles Davis quintet which translated means Miles Davis’ new quintet. Without revision the ambiguity contains valid meaning in each of its members.

The New Miles Davis Quintet actually had its forerunning in Miles’ last LP, The Musings of Miles (PRLP 7007). Cut prior to the actual formation of the new group, this recording date had Red Garland and Philly Joe Jones on board. Using these two Philadelphians as a nucleus, Miles added tenorman John Coltrane, also from Quaker City, and the youthful bass start from Detroit, Paul Chambers.

Jones had been with Tadd Dameron and Tony Scott and is one of the hardest swinging drummers right down to his powerful brush work.

Garland is an ex-boxer (he fought with Sugar Ray Robinson in the 40s) whose leaping, happy single line style is sometimes joined by his locked hands chordal method.

Coltrane’s style is a mixture of Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt. “Trane” previously was with Dizzy Gillespie in Diz’s last big band of 1949.

Chambers, who made a tremendous impression on New Yorkers at the Café Bohemia during 1955 with George Wallington, is one of the most facile soloists to come along in many a how high the moon.

This LP consists of four standards and two originals. In choosing the standards, Miles has come up with two rarely done in How Am I To Know? and There Is No Greater Love and two done not much more often in S’posin and Just Squeeze Me. The originals are the highly intriguing Stablemates by Benny Golson (another Philadelphian) which has Miles at his searching best, and The Theme so called because the group uses it as a sign-off. This tune is also used as a sign-off theme by the Messengers. Here it gets a sendoff from a fine Paul Chambers solo.

Squeeze Me finds Miles in a delicate mood, and he continues this becoming more tender and caressing on There Is No Greater Love with a complementary locked hands bit by Garland.

How Am I To Know? features a driving Miles with Chambers and Jones laying down a rock ribbed beat.

S’posin finds Miles muted as he is on all the standards (he’s open on the originals) and still swinging but in a more insinuating way.