Porgy and Bess

Porgy and Bess is a studio album by jazz musician Miles Davis, released in 1958 on Columbia Records. The album features arrangements by Davis and collaborator Gil Evans from George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess. The album was recorded in four sessions on July 22, July 29, August 4, and August 18, 1958 at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City. It is the second collaboration between Davis and Evans and has garnered much critical acclaim ... more

Porgy and Bess is a studio album by jazz musician Miles Davis, released in 1958 on Columbia Records. The album features arrangements by Davis and collaborator Gil Evans from George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess. The album was recorded in four sessions on July 22, July 29, August 4, and August 18, 1958 at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City. It is the second collaboration between Davis and Evans and has garnered much critical acclaim since its release, being acknowledged by music critics as the best of their collaborations. Jazz critics have regarded the album as historic. In 1958, Miles Davis was one of many jazz musicians growing dissatisfied with bebop, seeing its increasingly complex chord changes as hindering creativity. Five years earlier, in 1953, pianist George Russell published his Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization, which offered an alternative to the practice of improvisation based on chords. Abandoning the traditional major and minor key... less