Billboard : 03/30/1957
Spotlight on… selection

Davis‘ Columbia debut disk is the mellowest and, for the average joe, the most accessible of his to date. There are boppish rides (as in Parker‘s Ah-Leu-Cha), but lyricism and emotional warmth seem to be Davis’ main preoccupation here, and the simplicity of All of You and Bye Bye Blackbird will come as quite a surprise to long-time students of Davis. No LP of his ever had such a good chance of “making it” with the average customer.

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Cashbox : 03/30/1957

This is the initial LP effort for Columbia by the Miles Davis Quintet, headed by its namesake’s full and sweet trumpet excursions. The numbers, some borrowed, some new, are sometimes represented in a soft ’round about midnight glow or in a life-of-the-party burst. It’s clean-cut, and refreshing jazz sessions. The oft-recorded Davis crew has a quality jazz entry for their Columbia debut.

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Kansas City Star
R.K.S. : 03/31/1957

Miles Davis, dean of the cool school, gives irrefutable evidence that he has been studying his lessons – this by his performance in a new album called ‘Round About Midnight.

With his quintet, he runs through a couple of Gillespie–Parkerish race track numbers and plays pretty with a mute in four others. It’s as if the strip teasers hadn’t taken over Fifty-second street. The tunes in this album have the freshness of the bop of a few years ago when the Fifty-second street types were setting the style for jazz musicians everywhere, when someone really cared.

It has been estimated that it would cost $300 a month to buy one each of the jazz records now being released. Obviously, only a small percentage of these numerous records could contain any genuine inspiration or enthusiasm. This Davis album seems to have the spark of enthusiasm. With Davis’ trumpet are the efforts of Philly Joe Jones on drums, John Coltrane on tenor, Red Garland on piano and Paul Chambers on bass, all excellent.

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Louisville Courier-Journal
Norman L. Johnson : 06/12/1957

Miles Davis is a young man whose trumpet has a warm tone and a cool technique – that is, he makes wonderful sounds but they bear very little relationship to the melody as written. Here he and the other members of his quintet – tenor sax, piano, bass and drums – play six numbers, two of which (All Of You and Bye Bye Blackbird) have familiar titles, but when the boys get through, none of them sound familiar.

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Miami Herald
Fred Sherman : 05/12/1957

The moody horn of Miles Davis has been given the full treatment in a Columbia album called ‘Round About Midnight. The trumpet player has been building a solid jazz reputation since a postwar basic training session at Julliard.

Now the Columbia album promises the big-time promotion that the musician deserves. This is quintet jazz, with John Coltrane, tenor sax; Red Garland, piano; Philly Joe Jones, drums, and Paul Chambers on bass. This same group has produced similarly stunning albums for Prestige. The title piece of the Columbia album is the Thelonious Monk composition that Davis has used before to nail down the success of a recording session. You’ll find it on Collectors Items, a Prestige product of 1956.

Happily, Columbia has programmed only six numbers for the Davis debut. This gives him room to move around in. And move he does, through four originals and two standards. A good album.

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Oakland Tribune
Russ Wilson : 03/31/1957

‘Round About Midnight is the debut on this label of the Miles Davis Quinet, and an auspicious bow it is. The LP is a top drawer display of the attributes which have made the group one of the most popular in the jazz field today: musical integration which comes of almost two years’ association, individual sensitivity of five artists, and a grooviness which is maintained through a repertoire ranging from the old standard, Bye, Bye Blackbird, to Charlie Parker‘s Ah-Leu-Cha. Miles and his cohorts – tenorist John Coltrane, pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones – should make a lot of new friends for modern jazz with this one as well as please those who already dig.

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Portland Oregonian
John A. Armstrong : 08/18/1957

This you should hear. Davis‘ trumpet, with its unique, almost husky tone, knits together a smooth modern jazz combo. At times he comes on with full tone solos, but I prefer his more intimate style.

Playing is sometimes boppish, sometimes along the quieter, cool lines, but nothing so far out that it will annoy the conservatives. At least, I think it won’t. There’s always the possibility that as I grow older I’m becoming more tolerant of the modern jazz sound and improvisation.

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Providence Journal
Philip C. Gunion : 04/21/1957

Miles Davis, who blew himself to the top of the trumpet field with long, original lines and a crisp, delicate, yet virile tone, is presented in a thoroughly satisfying program on Columbia Records’ album ‘Round About Midnight.

In addition to the title number, the best thing Thelonious Monk has written, particularly those sections spiced up by Cootie Williams. Miles plays Charler Parker‘s Ah-Leu-Cha, a Tad Dameron piece, a Swedish folk tune, Dear Old Stockholm, and two standards, All of Me and Bye Bye Blackbird, both of which become amazingly vital again in the skillful hands of the Davis quintet.

With Miles are John Coltrane, who has improved tremendously, on tenor sax; Red Garland, piano; Paul Chambers, bass, and Philly Joe Jones, drums. This apple hasn’t a worm in it and it’s juicy all the way through.

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San Francisco Chronicle
Ralph J. Gleason : 04/07/1957

This is the first Davis LP for Columbia and it is one of the best he has ever made. It is a wonderful, delicate, yet swinging thing, that combines all the provocative blowing and intricate harmonies of Davis and the best efforts of his usual group of Philly Joe Jones, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and John Coltrane. Columbia has managed throughout this album to make them all sound the way they only occasionally sound in person – superb. Highly recommended.

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Saturday Review
Martin Williams : 07/13/1957

Although, like many today, Davis may over-extend himself with one chorus too many, his current bitter-sweet melodic conception is of a high order. J. Coltrane‘s tenor ranges from harmonically provocative to trite.

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Down Beat : 05/17/1957
Ralph J. Gleason : 5 stars

First, let me say that you should buy this LP immediately. Perhaps even two copies, since you may wear out one playing it and you will want another. This is the kind of album to which one returns time and time again because it is, in its way, a perfect thing, a slice of modern jazz conceived and executed in the very best style.

To those of you who may have heard the group (the album was made by the unit with which Miles have been touring for some time now) and have been disappointed, I want to point out that this album has captured all the best of the group and that Columbia and George Avakian have managed to make them sound on record as they have sounded only occasionally in person.

There is a mellowness, a lack of hostility and a ripe, romantic grooviness to the sound and spirit of this album which makes it an utter pleasure to hear.

The cover picture shows Miles with fingers in his ears, a position that some have emulated when Jones has been busy playing with less thought about dynamics that one might wish. On the album, however, he has been restrained enough through electronics or by other devices, to use brushes at least part of the time behind Miles, and the result is an extraordinary example of the Milesian extension of single horn solos over rhythm. It is hard to see what can be done next.

Miles is in exquisite form. His inferential, tentative, haunting, low-pressure direction (reminiscent sometimes of Bunk Johnson – of all persons) is at its best in Midnight, All of You, and Blackbird, in which his essentially melodic conception seems particularly at home.

Miles plays with a dainty, almost delicate manner as he probes the melodic possibilities in these tunes, setting up a romantic, glowing mood in his first choruses which allows him to improvise endlessly in the second half of his solos. The break at the end of Davis’ initial statement in All of You is as close to a wail as he produces on this album and yet it is a very moving thing. His solos build beautifully to logical climaxes, and Coltrane, who customarily enters after Miles, seems here to have more of the melding of Pres and Hawkins and less of the bad tone which has been his lot up to now.

In All of You, Coltrane and Chambers set up what is almost a duet and although Jones has switched to cymbals, it does not detract but rather adds. Garland, with his occasional excursions into the use of locked chords in his second choruses plays very effectively throughout the entire album. His chorus on Blackbird was particularly impressive to me for the manner in which he walked in, dancing along in a most attractive, elfin fashion.

Chambers has a long solo in the bop classic, Tadd’s Delight, which, while it is impressive as all of his solos are, seems to indicate he has yet to master his tone problem.

Avakian’s notes are informative despite an almost maidenly reluctance to mention Capitol when discussing Miles’ previous important recordings.

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Liner Notes by George Avakian

This album marks the debut of Miles Davis on Columbia, except for his interpretation of Sweet Sue on Leonard Bernstein’s lecture-demonstration record, What Is Jazz?. Appropriately, it is by the Miles Davis Quintet, which was organized in 1955 and is now in its second year as a permanent unit. It is also one of the most popular groups in the jazz field today, as its personal appearances from coast to coast attest.

Miles himself has gradually emerged as one of the great figures of the modern jazz scene. His first years in the jazz scene found him greatly overshadowed by Dizzy Gillespie, although his playing — while obviously influenced by Gillespie — actually did not resemble closely that of the older exponent of modern jazz trumpet. More recently, Miles has acquired further polish and sureness, and also a wider public, to the point where he now places first among trumpet players in those jazz polls which are not won by Gillespie.

His playing is characterized by both the nervous, jagged lines of the bop school and the pensive relaxation of the cool period which followed. The latter quality dominates in Miles’ playing, and to such a degree that it tempers the surface excitement of his playing in fast tempo; Miles seldom produces the familiar sound of frantic exasperation to exploit the emotions of his listeners, but rather seeks to achieve response through the inner tension of his improvisations. The paradox of tension produced by an outwardly relaxed style is an achievement first developed in its highest form by Dizzy Gillespie, and has been brought to new heights for the trumpet by Miles.

The Davis tone – soft, rich, intimate in its breathy warmth – is one of his most immediately recognizable characteristics. In recent years, Miles has also chosen to exploit the sound of the muted trumpet, blown softly but very close to a microphone. Both in clubs and in these records, he has achieved a personalized sound through this technique. His open horn is still the trademark by which his fans know him, and it has earned him an audience ranging from youngsters new to the jazz world to old-time fans who find in his sound a recollection of the great Joe Smith, who was sharing solos with young Louis Armstrong in Fletcher Henderson‘s band before Miles was born.

Miles, who comes from Alton, Illinois, learned to play trumpet in and around St. Louis. His first idol was Roy Eldridge. When Billy Eckstine‘s band came through town, Miles met Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Gillespie was taken by the quiet youngster and let him sit in with the band. In 1945, at the age of 19, Miles left home to study at the Juilliard School in New York, where he acquired a foundation in harmony and theory. Dizzy advised him to study piano, so that he could play variant chords for himself; this led Miles to a solider, faster, and more confident understanding of what a soloist could and could not play above such harmonies.

Miles was quickly accepted into the group of musicians centered around Gillespie and especially Parker, with whom he made his first recordings. He played with many small New York groups, and even joined Eckstine for a while. Encouraged by his Juilliard studies, Miles embarked briefly on a medium-sized band venture which was a great success musically but one of the grandest failures the jazz night club business has ever known. It was a frankly experimental group, with some of the most unusual arrangements ever offered by a jazz band up to that time, and its brass section was augmented by a French horn and tuba. In order to eat, Miles went back to working with Parker and others on 52nd Street, which was then in its last stage before the complete taking over by strip-teasers. (Today, only Jimmy Ryan’s, second only to Greenwich Village’s Nick’s as the oldest home of dixieland in New York, continues to offer jazz.)

Illness forced Miles into a physical and musical decline for a time, but he came back strong in 1954 and has since proved himself a greater musician than ever. His present quintet serves as his full-time showcase, and as these records attest, it is one of the best post-bop jazz groups in the country today.

With Miles are three Philadelphians and a young bassist from Detroit. Tenor saxophonist John Coltrane is something of a personal find of Miles; although he broke into the business as a member of Dizzy Gillespie’s big band in 1949, it has been through Miles that he has achieved acceptance as a solo performer. Pianist Red Garland is also a kind of Miles Davis protégé, and shares with Miles a keen interest in boxing; as a matter of fact, Red was once a good enough welterweight to have had the privilege of losing to Sugar Ray Robinson on the latter’s way to the championship. (It was no disgrace; Robinson did not lose a bout for more than ten years during that period of his career.)

Drummer Joe Jones is one of the Roach–Blakey school of “hard” percussionists; he is also known as “Philly Joe” Jones so as to avoid confusion with Jonathan “Jo” Jones, the ex-Basie drummer. Paul Chambers, who got into the big time with the J.J. Johnson–Kai Winding Quintet, has already established himself as one of the best young bass players to come along in recent years.

The recordings in this collection are representative of the Miles Davis repertoire in recent years. ‘Round About Midnight, written by pianist Thelonious Monk with embellishments by ex-Ellington trumpeter Cootie Williams, has become something of a modern jazz classic since first Williams and then Gillespie recorded it more than a decade ago. It is also the piece which Miles played at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1955 with such effect that it started people asking each other where Miles had been lately. (It turned out he had been around, but nobody had been listening.) Its reflective changes are a perfect vehicle for Miles’ bluest mood, and it bids fair to acquire permanent association with him in the jazz literature.

Ah-Leu-Cha harkens back to Miles’ early association with Charlie Parker in New York. It has a strange quality of counterpoint; the arranged beginning and ending sound like dixieland in the bop vein. (Parker’s compositions frequently employed this kind of counterpoint; Chasin’ the Bird, recorded by the J. J. Johnson Quintet in CL 935, is another example.)

What Miles can do with a lovely pop tune is amply shown in the easy, relaxed, two-beat interpretation of Cole Porter‘s show tune, All of You. Much the same feeling holds in the ancient standard, Bye Bye Blackbird. Some of Miles’ fans expressed shock when he first played old pops like this – or even new ones like All of You – but this disturbs Miles not the slightest. He finds them ideal themes for his horn and his group, and that’s all he wants to know.

Tadd’s Delight recalls still another associate of the forties; Tadd Dameron is by now the elder statesman among the composer-arrangers of the bebop period, and was one of the first to bring a technical background (he had studied the Schillinger System of composition and arranging) to the new school of jazz.

Dear Old Stockholm is a Swedish folk tune whose nostalgic quality lends itself ideally to Miles’ muted style. The unusual construction of this piece, with its many breaks, gives it a feeling which is a combination of sentiment and the quality best described as misterioso. Paul Chambers’ long bass solo, placed early in the interpretation, adds to the sensation of strangeness that pervades this moving performance.