Classic Miles Davis albums - at a giveaway price

As copyrights expire, under the 50-year rule, more and more great albums are starting to enter the public domain. You’ve been able to pick up dirt cheap reissues of 1940s greats – Sinatra, Ella and the like – for years, but mid-1950s masterpieces are now being reissued on el cheapo labels.

Elvis Presley’s 1956 recordings were the first to get the £2 supermarket treatment: the floodgates have opened.

The best deal I’ve seen so far is a new reissue of classic 1950s albums by Miles Davis’s first great quintet, including Coltrane, for three different labels – Prestige, CBS and Philips.

Last week, I bought Miles Away (3CD box, on the Not Now label) at Fopp for £5. Worth a punt, I mused – though it’s probably crappy off-air live recordings.

Not at all. It contains remastered versions of no fewer than six original must-have Miles albums: Cookin’, Relaxin’, Steamin’, Round about Midnight, Miles Ahead and l’Ascenseur pour l’Echafaud. A wonderful package.

If you’ve been thinking of sampling Miles Davis, but have put it off – now’s the time.

Classic Miles albums at 83 pence each? Whatever next?


Gerry Smith