Ken Burns JAZZ Collection: Miles Davis
First emerging inCharlie Parker's quintet and the hothouse of bop in the late 1940s, Miles Davis soon became the dominant trendsetter in modern jazz, creating new settings for his spare, lyrical trumpet in the cool, hard bop, modal, and fusion movements. This career-spanning collection (an accompaniment to Ken Burns's 10-part documentary,Jazz), then,  contains not only Davis's landmarks, but also some of modern jazz history's mileposts. The 1949Birth of the Coolnonet sessions, represented here by "Boplicity," heralded the cool school with its airy, transparent textures. The tougher, hard-swinging "Walkin'" from 1954 is an extended masterpiece of hard bop with a trumpet solo that shows Davis's command of construction, while the beautiful "I Loves You, Porgy" illustrates Davis's collaboration with arrangerGil Evans, the most influential partnership between soloist and orchestrator in modern jazz.Even that, however, may pale beside "So What" from 1959'sKind of Bluesession. With a band that included saxophonistsJohn ColtraneandCannonball Adderleyand pianistBill Evans, Davis was both creating the modal school of improvisation and recording its most enduring works. A decade later, Davis took another epoch-defining step, layering electric keyboards and percussion for "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down" from theBitches Brewsessions. There are other exalted performances here, like the live version of "My Funny Valentine," one of his most enduring ballads, and a host of stellar sideman performances by such influential stylists asGerry Mulligan,J.J. Johnson,Wayne Shorter,Herbie Hancock, andTony Williams.--Stuart Broomer