Someday My Prince Will Come (Miles Davis album)
| Someday My Prince Will Come | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 The woman on the cover of the album was Davis' wife, Frances. | ||||
| Studio album by Miles Davis | ||||
| Released | December 11, 1961[1] | |||
| Recorded | March 7, 20, 21, 1961 | |||
| Studio | Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York | |||
| Genre | Jazz | |||
| Length | 41:45 | |||
| Label |
Columbia CS-8456 | |||
| Producer | Teo Macero | |||
| Miles Davis chronology | ||||
| ||||
Someday My Prince Will Come is the seventh studio album by Miles Davis for Columbia Records, catalogue CL 1656 and CS 8456 in stereo, released in 1961. Recorded at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in Manhattan, it marked the only Miles Davis Quintet studio recording session to feature saxophonist Hank Mobley.
Background
Keeping to his standard procedure at Columbia to date of alternating small group records and big band studio projects with Gil Evans, Davis followed up Sketches of Spain with an album by his working quintet. In 1960, however, the jazz world had been in flux. Although Davis had garnered acclaim for Kind of Blue, the entrance of Ornette Coleman and free jazz via his fall 1959 residency at the Five Spot Café and his albums for Atlantic Records had created controversy, and turned attention away from Davis.
Similarly, Davis' touring band had been in flux. In 1959, Cannonball Adderley left to form his own group with his brother, reducing the sextet to a quintet.[2] Drummer Jimmy Cobb and pianist Wynton Kelly had been hired in 1958, but most difficult for Davis was the departure of John Coltrane, who stayed on for a spring tour of Europe but left to form his own quartet in the summer of 1960.[3] In 1960, Davis went through saxophonists Jimmy Heath and Sonny Stitt before settling on Hank Mobley in December, the band re-stabilizing for the next two years.[4]
Composition
Unlike Kind of Blue, which featured nothing but group originals, this album paired equal numbers of Miles Davis tunes with pop standards, including the title song resurrected from the 1937 Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The titles to all three Davis originals refer to specific individuals: "Pfrancing" to his wife Frances, featured on the album cover; "Teo" to his producer Teo Macero; and "Drad Dog" (Goddard reversed) to Columbia Records president Goddard Lieberson .[5] While the cover credits the Miles Davis Sextet, only the title track featured six players, Coltrane making two cameo appearances on the album, taking solos on the title track and "Teo", playing instead of Mobley on the latter.[6] On March 21, ex-Davis drummer Philly Joe Jones made his final contribution to a Davis session, replacing Cobb for the original "Blues No. 2", which was not used on the album.
On June 8, 1999, Legacy Records reissued the album for compact disc with two bonus tracks including the unused "Blues No. 2" and an alternative take of "Someday My Prince Will Come".
Critical reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [7] |
| Down Beat (1962) |  [8] |
| Down Beat (1990) | [8] |
| Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [9] |
| MusicHound Jazz | 4/5[10] |
| The Penguin Guide to Jazz | [11] |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [12] |
In a contemporary review for Down Beat, Ira Gitler praised Coltrane's solo on the title track while finding Kelly equally exceptional as both a soloist and comping musician. "His single-lines are simultaneously hard and soft. Cobb and Chambers groove perfectly together and with Kelly", Gitler wrote. "The rhythm section, individually and as a whole, is very well-recorded."[8] The magazine's Howard Mandel later viewed Someday My Prince Will Come as "a commercial realization rather than an artistic exploration" but nonetheless "lovely", highlighted by each musicians' careful attention to notes and dynamics, and among Davis' most "romantic, bluesy and intentionally seductive programs".[8]
Track listing
Side one
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Someday My Prince Will Come" | Frank Churchill, Larry Morey | 9:02 |
| 2. | "Old Folks" | Willard Robison, Dedette Lee Hill | 5:14 |
| 3. | "Pfrancing" (also known as "No Blues") | Miles Davis | 8:30 |
Side two
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Drad-Dog" | Miles Davis | 4:49 |
| 2. | "Teo" | Miles Davis | 9:33 |
| 3. | "I Thought About You" | Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Mercer | 4:52 |
1999 reissue bonus tracks
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7. | "Blues No. 2" | Miles Davis | 7:05 |
| 8. | "Someday My Prince Will Come" (alternate take) | Frank Churchill, Larry Morey | 5:34 |
Personnel
- Miles Davis — trumpet
- Hank Mobley — tenor saxophone on all tracks except "Teo"
- John Coltrane — tenor saxophone on "Someday My Prince Will Come" (master) and "Teo"
- Wynton Kelly — piano
- Paul Chambers — bass
- Jimmy Cobb — drums all tracks except "Blues No. 2"
- Philly Joe Jones — drums on "Blues No. 2"
Production personnel
- Teo Macero — producer
- Fred Plaut, Frank Laico — engineers
- Bob Cato — album cover design
- Frances Davis — cover model
- Michael Cuscuna, Bob Belden — reissue producers
- Mark Wilder — digital remastering engineer
- Seth Rothstein — reissue project coordinator
- Howard Fritzson — reissue art direction
- Eddie Henderson — reissue liner notes
See also
References
- ↑ Miles Davis.com
- ↑ Richard Cook. It's About That Time: Miles Davis On and Off Record. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-19-532266-8, p. 123.
- ↑ Lewis Porter. John Coltrane: His Life and Music. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1999. ISBN 0-472-10161-7, p. 144.
- ↑ Cook, pp. 128–130.
- ↑ Cook, pp. 131–132.
- ↑ Someday My Prince Will Come. Columbia/Legacy CK 65919, 1999, liner notes p. 4.
- ↑ Jurek, Thom (2011). "Someday My Prince Will Come [Bonus Tracks] - Miles Davis Sextet | AllMusic". allmusic.com. Retrieved 2 August 2011.
- 1 2 3 4 Alkyer, Frank; Enright, Ed; Koransky, Jason, eds. (2007). The Miles Davis Reader. Hal Leonard Corporation. pp. 221–22, 305. ISBN 142343076X.
- ↑ Larkin, Colin (2011). "Miles Davis". Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 0857125958.
- ↑ Holtje, Steve; Lee, Nancy Ann, eds. (1998). "Miles Davis". MusicHound Jazz: The Essential Album Guide. Music Sales Corporation. ISBN 0825672538.
- ↑ Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2006). The Penguin Guide to Jazz (8th ed.). Penguin Books. p. 735. ISBN 0141023279.
- ↑ Considine, J. D. (1992). "Miles Davis". In DeCurtis, Anthony; Henke, James; George-Warren, Holly. The Rolling Stone Album Guide (3rd ed.). Random House. p. 179. ISBN 0-679-73729-4.
