TopTenREVIEWS presents the music career and reviews of Miles Davis
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Miles Davis
BAND RANKINGS:
CAREER SPAN:
Decade
Album Score
# Albums
1940s
0.0000
3
1950s
0.0000
44
1960s
0.0000
23
1970s
0.0000
11
1980s
0.0000
10
1990s
0.0000
47
2000s
0.0000
153
Ratings and rankings are based on all available critic reviews for each album.
Overall Band Score: 
2.7034
2.7034
Miles Davis Album Rankings
Band Pages
1
3.8313How cool was Miles Davis? Cool enough to create jazz music so powerful it moved even anti-jazz consumers. His music is considered some of the most striking and inventive in history. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
2
3.8000Given thatRound About Midnightwas Miles Davis' debut Columbia recording, it was both a beginning and an ending. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
- Album Rankings
- Discography
- Biography
- Awards
Other Bands
4
3.6827This album is perhaps most significant for the process it set in motion -- the collaboration betweenGil Evansand Miles Davis that would producePorgy and BessandSketches of Spain, two of Davis' best al ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
5
3.6481Listening to Miles Davis' originally released version ofIn a Silent Wayin light of the complete sessions released by Sony in 2001 (Columbia Legacy 65362) reveals just how strategic and dramatic a stud ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
6
3.5637Thought by many to be the most revolutionary album in jazz history, having virtually created the genre known as jazz-rock fusion (for better or worse) and being the jazz album to most influence rock a ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
7
3.5510With their second album,Miles Smiles, the secondMiles Davis Quintetreally began to hit their stride, delving deeper into the more adventurous, exploratory side of their signature sound. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
8
3.5504Nefertiti, the fourth album by Miles Davis' second classic quintet, continues the forward motion ofSorcerer, as the group settles into a low-key, exploratory groove, offering music with recognizable t ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
9
3.3950So dubbed because these three sessions -- two from early 1949, one from March 1950 -- are where the sound known as cool jazz essentially formed,The Birth of the Coolremains one of the defining, pivota ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
10
3.3590Could there be any more confrontational sound in Miles Davis' vast catalog than the distorted guitars and tinny double-timing drums reacting to a two-note bass riff funking it up on the first track fr ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
11
3.3341Cookin'is the first of four albums derived from the Miles Davis quintet's fabled extended recording session on October 26, 1956. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
12
3.3341Workin'is the third in a series of four featuring the classicMiles Davis Quintet: Davis (trumpet),John Coltrane(tenor sax),Red Garland(piano), andPhilly Joe Jones(drums). ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
13
3.3233The undeniable strength and conviction present in Miles Davis' performance onWalkin', underscores the urgency and passion with which he would rightfully reclaim his status as a primary architect of bo ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
14
3.2442This four-CD set is actually just a repackaging of four CDs that are available separately: the classicBirth of the Coolsessions,Cannonball Adderley's 1958 date with Miles Davis as a sideman (Somethin' ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
15
3.2358All the music that trumpeter Miles Davis and his second classic quintet (with tenor saxophonistWayne Shorter, pianistHerbie Hancock, bassistRon Carter, and drummerTony Williams) played at the Plugged ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
16
3.2232Capitol'sThe Complete Birth of the Coolis a double-disc set that's separated into two halves. The first contains all 12 tracks Davis cut in the studio in January 1949 withGil Evans. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
17
3.2153Firing like a machine gun over a heavily armored and equipped outfit of young, brawny assassins, Miles Davis ruled the world at the end of 1970. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
18
3.2143ESPmarks the beginning of a revitalization for Miles Davis, as his second classic quintet -- saxophonistWayne Shorter, pianistHerbie Hancock, bassistRon Carter, and drummerTony Williams-- gels, establ ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
19
3.2136Since it's billed as "Directions in Music By Miles Davis," it should come as little surprise thatFilles de Kilimanjarois the beginning of a new phase for Miles, the place that he begins to dive headfi ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
20
3.2056When it was released in April 1970 Davis' double LP "Bitches Brew" outraged jazz's old guard with its jagged rhythms and unprecedented electric sprawl. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Overstock
21
3.1940Miles Davis' concert of February 12, 1964, was originally divided into two LPs, with all of the ballads put onMy Funny Valentine. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
22
3.1932Sorcerer, the third album by the second Miles Davis Quintet, is in a sense a transitional album, a quiet, subdued affair that rarely blows hot, choosing to explore cerebral tonal colorings. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
23
3.1667Columbia's continuing summation of the career of Miles Davis through lavish box-set reissues resumed in 1998 withThe Complete Bitches Brew Sessions, a four-disc set including all the music from the or ...more
- CD Pricing Not Available
24
3.0159None of Miles Davis' recordings has been more shrouded in mystery thanJack Johnson, yet none has better fulfilled Miles Davis' promise that he could form the "greatest rock band you ever heard. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
25
3.0146Along with its sister recording,Pangaea,Aghartawas recorded live in February of 1975 at the Osaka Festival Hall in Japan. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
26
3.0034Live-Evilis one of Miles Davis' most confusing and illuminating documents. As a double album, it features very different settings of his band -- and indeed two very different bands. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
27
3.0034This is the second of two performances from February 1975 at the Osaka Festival Hall in Japan. This is the evening show; the Columbia releaseAghartawas the afternoon show. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
28
2.9288Of all the recording sessions completed by Miles Davis with his various bands, the sessions surroundingIn a Silent Way Sessionsin 1968 and 1969 are easily the most mysterious and enigmatic. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
29
2.8572After bothJohn ColtraneandCannonball Adderleyleft Miles Davis' quintet, he was caught in the web of seeking suitable replacements. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Overstock
30
2.7234Undeniably both the most famous and influential of Miles Davis' 120+ releases between his debut release, 1945's First Miles , and his death in the late summer of 1991, Kind of Blue remains the landmar ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
31
2.6621Miles Davis' recordings of 1951-1954 tend to be overlooked because of his erratic lifestyle of the period and because they predated his first classic quintet. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
32
2.6621This CD contains all of the music recorded by a particularly strong sextet in 1953, six selections and five alternate takes. With trumpeter Miles Davis, trombonistJ.J. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
33
2.5336Recorded in April 1961 at San Francisco's Blackhawk club, these albums were the first purpose-designed live recordings Miles Davis made. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Walmart
34
2.3439A month after losingWayne Shorterto the beginnings ofWeather Report, Miles Davis added young saxophonistSteve Grossmanto the fold that included drummerJack DeJohnette, bassistDave Holland, electric pi ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
35
2.2544Would you know greatness if you saw it? This is the eternal question for people like me, posting their supposedly well thought-out pontifications for anyone with a computer and an Internet connection ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
36
2.2253In the spring of 1970, Miles Davis was fresh off his trailblazing, artistic watermarks In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew , and focusing on the development of his live show. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Overstock
37
2.0822AfterGeorge Colemanleft the Miles Davis Quintet, tenor-saxophonistSam Riverstook his place for a short period including a tour of Japan. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
38
2.0430Okay, so this might sound like a contradiction of the last Panthalassa review I wrote, but let's make a clarification: assuming there's any one dude in music history that doesn't need to be remixed, i ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
39
1.8563Toronto's Hayden (nee paul Hayden Dresser) made quite the splash in 1995 withEverything I Long For, a collection of spare, deeply personal songs that he recorded on a four-track in his bedroom at his ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
40
0.4064The Art Ensemble of Chicago (AEOC) may be the most exciting performance group in jazz today, and the four live sides ofUrban Bushmencapture much of the band's startling virtuosity and playful, control ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Overstock
41
0.4034Nine examples of Miles Davis caressing a ballad at a slow tempo are included on this 1999 CD. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
46
0.3255 Another great hard bop session, with Milt (Bags) Jackson , Thelonious Monk , Sonny Rollins and Horace Silver . ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
47
0.3236Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings of Miles Davis 1963-1964 is an anomaly among the retrospective sets that have been issued from the late artist's catalog. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
48
0.3235 With the 1968 album Miles in the Sky, Miles Davis explicitly pushed his second great quintet away from conventional jazz, pushing them toward the jazz-rock hybrid that would later become known as fus ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Overstock
49
0.3235Recorded live in Germany at the Berlin Philharmonic, Miles in Berlin represents the first recording of trumpeter Miles Davis with tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter. ...more
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Best CD Pricing:
Amazon
