Studio Recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet, 1965-68

[Rosco]

Bought this a few days ago, after reading this thread, and I'm a little more than halfway through it.

It's a fascinating read and Waters certainly knows his stuff (and his 'Stuff', presumably). Some of it is very technical and a few passages have gone over my head, although fewer of them as I get more used to his writing style and particular terminology. I shall probably read it over again as soon as I'm done, as I'm sure much of it will make more sense the second time round.

Just to clarify, no, there's nothing from Water Babies or any discussion of the quintet tunes from Circle in The Round, the boxed set, etc. Simply a decision to restrict it to 'first choice' tunes, which is fair enough. He also doesn't discuss every piece. There's little mention of Footprints, for instance (and there's a whole lot going on rhythmically in that piece).

But what is here is excellent- the dissections of Iris and Dolores I found particularly enlightening. Any book that can make you go back and listen to tracks you've heard a hundred times and still find new things to hear has to be worth a read.

[Leeway]

One can read a chapter from the book at the excellent Point of Departure site:

Miles book

[erwbol]

Link

There's a 64 minutes interview with the author, Keith Waters, about the book on the New Books Network. It's downloadable as an mp3 file.