Miles Davis “E.S.P.” (1965)

After the uncertainties of the early 1960s, the Miles Davis Quintet kept to the old repertoire but cut their music back to the bone in their live performances, then, on ESP, the first studio recording by the new Quintet with Wayne Shorter on tenor, they brought in new material and built up a new sound - then, after Miles Smiles, they cut back again, then built up a new sound with In A Silent Way, and then in the early 1970s cut back again. Whether you prefer the sparser albums, finding the essence of Davis's music in their simpleness, or the albums with the richer ingredients, might just be a matter of taste: but I go for the fuller bodied ones and think ESP is one of the great Davis albums. Davis had been playing with this rhythm section for a couple of years and now, finally, they had found a tenor player totally suited to their music. Ron Carter is superb, building a complexity of rhythms while always keeping a strong rhythmic centre; Tony Williams is superb, building intricate patterns of rhythm (although he would be even better over the next three or four years); Herbie Hancock is superb, cutting his piano back to horn like lines (compare the version of Little One on this album with Hancock's on his Maiden Voyage album: Hancock's is lusher, Davis's is starker - both are amongst the great jazz recordings of 1965); Wayne Shorter is superb - I have often heard the aggression of is playing referred to, but for me there is a great warmth in his sound, creating a satisfying contrast with Davis; and Miles Davis is superb - I have previously called his playing in the mid 1960s icy: I don't want to imply that his music is cold, but it has the freshness of a frosty morning. The sound of the album has a wonderful balance, it has the clear bright lines of a Vermeer interior, the sounds having their own place but all working together with a clear symmetry. This is the creation of a world of clarity. –Nick