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Miles & Quincy: Live at Montreux (1993)

Where the lyrics of Miles & Quincy: Live at Montreux take you, and where it was really made.

Davis made this record months before his death, playing older music he had never revisited before.

Key places

Recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival, 8 July 1991 (1991)

Recording site Mountain Studios — Discogs records the recording on 8 July 1991 at the Montreux (Swiss) Jazz Festival. The point marks the Montreux venue, but the exact building is not confirmed by the source. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Miles & Quincy: Live at Montreux is a collaborative live album by trumpeter Miles Davis and conductor Quincy Jones
• Recorded at the 1991 Montreux Jazz Festival, on 8 July 1991
• Released in 1993 by Warner Bros. Records
• Davis was seriously ill during the concert; it was the final album he recorded before his death three months later
• A live document of a festival set that revisited Davis's older music

Background

• Davis had never revisited past music from his career before this concert
• Quincy Jones persuaded him to play his older music after a meeting with a psychic at Jones's home in New York
• The psychic's dice fell into Davis's lap, and the pair read this as a sign that he should play his older music
• The concert was also a tribute to Gil Evans, who had died a few years before
• Jones used two orchestras and conducted both the Gil Evans Orchestra and the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band
• Guest players included Benny Bailey, Wallace Roney, Grady Tate, Carles Benavent and Kenny Garrett

Recording

• Recorded on 8 July 1991 at the Montreux Jazz Festival
• Live sound recording credited to David Richards and Justin Shirley-Smith
• Audio coordinating credited to Ron Lorman; mixing credited to Mick Guzauski
• Mixed at Capitol Studios; mastered at Bernie Grundman Mastering
• Discogs lists Mountain Studios among the recording companies

Cover

• Photography credited to Annie Leibovitz and Philippe Dutoit
• Art direction credited to Jeff Gold and Jeri Heiden

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · www.discogs.com

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Career

• Born March 14, 1933 in Chicago; died November 3, 2024 in Los Angeles at age 91.
• American record producer, musician and composer; a career spanning seven decades.
• Received 28 Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award and a Tony Award; seven Academy Award nominations.
• Began as a jazz arranger and conductor in the 1950s, touring with Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie.
• Produced all four million-selling singles for Lesley Gore in the early-to-mid 1960s, including "It's My Party".
• Arranged and conducted for Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and others.
• Scored The Pawnbroker, In the Heat of the Night, The Italian Job and The Color Purple.
• Produced Michael Jackson's Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad.
• Produced and conducted "We Are the World" (1985) to raise famine relief for Ethiopia.
• Founded Qwest Productions and later Qwest TV, a jazz subscription video service.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Entertainment Weekly critic David Hajdu gave the album an A, calling it the most exquisite music of tragedy this side of a New Orleans funeral
• Q magazine found the sound thin, but funky and strong
• Vibe critic Greg Tate found Davis's playing occasionally sketchy and felt the recreations did not match Gil Evans's original arrangements

Reappraisal

• AllMusic's Ron Wynn wrote that not every moment is golden, but the session ranks a bit below the majestic 1950s and 1960s Davis and Evans dates
• The Penguin Guide to Jazz (Richard Cook and Brian Morton) said the exaggerated arrangements are redeemed by the audience's reception and Davis's musical ideas
• German critics mostly see the album more differentiated, and mostly agree with Ron Wynn that the performance does not always reach Gil Evans's arrangements
• Hans Sterner rejects the album completely, saying the arrangements were diluted to the level of mainstream pop

Records

• Charted at number one on the Billboard Top Jazz Albums
• Won Davis his eighth competitive Grammy Award, for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance
• French and German sources date the Grammy to 1994

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · de.wikipedia.org · fr.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Davis was in poor health during the concert, and this record became his final album before he died three months later.
• The album was recorded in 1991 but released in 1993, after Davis's death in September 1991.
• The set uses a 1949 studio recording of Boplicity as a long-standing reference point for Davis's older music.
• Discogs notes the recording as made on 8 July 1991 at the Montreux (Swiss) Jazz Festival.
• Credits list mastering at Bernie Grundman Mastering and mixing at Capitol Studios.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · de.wikipedia.org · fr.wikipedia.org · www.discogs.com

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