Someday My Prince Will Come (Miles Davis album)

For the Wynton Kelly album, see Someday My Prince Will Come (Wynton Kelly album).
Someday My Prince Will Come

The woman on the cover of the album was Davis' wife, Frances.
Studio album by Miles Davis
Released December 11, 1961[1]
Recorded March 7, 20, 21, 1961
Studio Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York
Genre Jazz
Length 41:45
Label Columbia
CS-8456
Producer Teo Macero
Miles Davis chronology
Sketches of Spain
(1960)		 Someday My Prince Will Come
(1961)		 Seven Steps to Heaven
(1963)

Someday My Prince Will Come is the seventh studio album by Miles Davis for Columbia Records, catalogue CL 1656 and CS 8456 in stereo, released in 1961. Recorded at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in Manhattan, it marked the only Miles Davis Quintet studio recording session to feature saxophonist Hank Mobley.

Background

Keeping to his standard procedure at Columbia to date of alternating small group records and big band studio projects with Gil Evans, Davis followed up Sketches of Spain with an album by his working quintet. In 1960, however, the jazz world had been in flux. Although Davis had garnered acclaim for Kind of Blue, the entrance of Ornette Coleman and free jazz via his fall 1959 residency at the Five Spot Café and his albums for Atlantic Records had created controversy, and turned attention away from Davis.

Similarly, Davis' touring band had been in flux. In 1959, Cannonball Adderley left to form his own group with his brother, reducing the sextet to a quintet.[2] Drummer Jimmy Cobb and pianist Wynton Kelly had been hired in 1958, but most difficult for Davis was the departure of John Coltrane, who stayed on for a spring tour of Europe but left to form his own quartet in the summer of 1960.[3] In 1960, Davis went through saxophonists Jimmy Heath and Sonny Stitt before settling on Hank Mobley in December, the band re-stabilizing for the next two years.[4]

Composition

Unlike Kind of Blue, which featured nothing but group originals, this album paired equal numbers of Miles Davis tunes with pop standards, including the title song resurrected from the 1937 Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The titles to all three Davis originals refer to specific individuals: "Pfrancing" to his wife Frances, featured on the album cover; "Teo" to his producer Teo Macero; and "Drad Dog" (Goddard reversed) to Columbia Records president Goddard Lieberson .[5] While the cover credits the Miles Davis Sextet, only the title track featured six players, Coltrane making two cameo appearances on the album, taking solos on the title track and "Teo", playing instead of Mobley on the latter.[6] On March 21, ex-Davis drummer Philly Joe Jones made his final contribution to a Davis session, replacing Cobb for the original "Blues No. 2", which was not used on the album.

On June 8, 1999, Legacy Records reissued the album for compact disc with two bonus tracks including the unused "Blues No. 2" and an alternative take of "Someday My Prince Will Come".

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[7]
Down Beat (1962)[8]
Down Beat (1990)[8]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[9]
MusicHound Jazz4/5[10]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz[11]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[12]

In a contemporary review for Down Beat, Ira Gitler praised Coltrane's solo on the title track while finding Kelly equally exceptional as both a soloist and comping musician. "His single-lines are simultaneously hard and soft. Cobb and Chambers groove perfectly together and with Kelly", Gitler wrote. "The rhythm section, individually and as a whole, is very well-recorded."[8] The magazine's Howard Mandel later viewed Someday My Prince Will Come as "a commercial realization rather than an artistic exploration" but nonetheless "lovely", highlighted by each musicians' careful attention to notes and dynamics, and among Davis' most "romantic, bluesy and intentionally seductive programs".[8]

Track listing

Side one

No. TitleWriter(s) Length
1. "Someday My Prince Will Come"  Frank Churchill, Larry Morey 9:02
2. "Old Folks"  Willard Robison, Dedette Lee Hill 5:14
3. "Pfrancing" (also known as "No Blues")Miles Davis 8:30

Side two

No. TitleWriter(s) Length
1. "Drad-Dog"  Miles Davis 4:49
2. "Teo"  Miles Davis 9:33
3. "I Thought About You"  Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Mercer 4:52

1999 reissue bonus tracks

No. TitleWriter(s) Length
7. "Blues No. 2"  Miles Davis 7:05
8. "Someday My Prince Will Come" (alternate take)Frank Churchill, Larry Morey 5:34

Personnel

Production personnel

See also

References

  1. ↑ Miles Davis.com
  2. ↑ Richard Cook. It's About That Time: Miles Davis On and Off Record. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-19-532266-8, p. 123.
  3. ↑ Lewis Porter. John Coltrane: His Life and Music. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1999. ISBN 0-472-10161-7, p. 144.
  4. ↑ Cook, pp. 128–130.
  5. ↑ Cook, pp. 131–132.
  6. ↑ Someday My Prince Will Come. Columbia/Legacy CK 65919, 1999, liner notes p. 4.
  7. ↑ Jurek, Thom (2011). "Someday My Prince Will Come [Bonus Tracks] - Miles Davis Sextet | AllMusic". allmusic.com. Retrieved 2 August 2011.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Alkyer, Frank; Enright, Ed; Koransky, Jason, eds. (2007). The Miles Davis Reader. Hal Leonard Corporation. pp. 221–22, 305. ISBN 142343076X.
  9. ↑ Larkin, Colin (2011). "Miles Davis". Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 0857125958.
  10. ↑ Holtje, Steve; Lee, Nancy Ann, eds. (1998). "Miles Davis". MusicHound Jazz: The Essential Album Guide. Music Sales Corporation. ISBN 0825672538.
  11. ↑ Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2006). The Penguin Guide to Jazz (8th ed.). Penguin Books. p. 735. ISBN 0141023279.
  12. ↑ Considine, J. D. (1992). "Miles Davis". In DeCurtis, Anthony; Henke, James; George-Warren, Holly. The Rolling Stone Album Guide (3rd ed.). Random House. p. 179. ISBN 0-679-73729-4.
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