Miles Davis - Volume 2 (Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series)

180 Gram Black Vinyl Mono Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series

Kevin Gray cut this edition all-analog from the original master tapes for Blue Note's Classic Vinyl Series, pressed on 180 gram vinyl at Optimal. It is a mono record, which is how the material was made.

Volume 2 gathers three Blue Note sessions — 9 May 1952, 20 April 1953 and 6 March 1954 — that first appeared across three 10-inch LPs before Blue Note collected them onto a 12-inch album as BLP 1502 in February 1956. Rudy Van Gelder engineered the 1954 date at his studio in Hackensack, New Jersey.

The personnel change from session to session: J.J. Johnson on trombone, Jackie McLean on alto and Jimmy Heath on tenor, with Gil Coggins and Horace Silver at the piano, Oscar Pettiford and Percy Heath on bass, and Kenny Clarke and Art Blakey on drums. Davis was in his mid-twenties across these dates, several years ahead of the quintet that would make his name at Columbia.

Writing for AllMusic in 2010, Scott Yanow included the album among seventeen essential hard bop recordings.

Tracklist

Side A

1. Take Off
2. Weirdo
3. Wouldn't You
4. I Waited For You
5. Ray's Idea (Alternate Take)
6. Donna

Side B

1. Well You Needn't
2. The Leap
3. Lazy Susan
4. Tempus Fugit (Alternate Take)
5. It Never Entered My Mind