4/5. When John Coltrane left Miles Davis's band in 1961, it seemed that no future group could match the perfection of their partnership.
But as Donald Macleod finds out, this spurred Davis on to a new challenge: he set about recruiting a new quintet, with such illustrious names as Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Ron Carter. The group's stylistic range, playing Davis's own pieces, was extraordinary, from the dawn of jazz rock on Eighty-One to the abstract freedom of Agitation. And Macleod hears how the tight structure of a conventional jazz piece like Seven Steps to Heaven was reinvented into the extended form of Davis's Stuff.Â

(Rptd from Thursday)