The 1969 “lost quintet” (Shorter, Corea, Holland, and DeJohnette) was the pivot point on which Miles’ career would turn. Sure, the ‘70-‘72 groups were funkier and the gigantic ‘73-’75 ensembles took abstraction to its limits, but the ’69 quintet was the first and only to delicately balance the frantic bop of Miles’ pre-electric period with the heady psychedelia of Bitches Brew.
1969 was the year Miles broke free from his previous self – setting off on one of the most thrilling career stretches in modern music. Diving headfirst into the unknown, birthing entirely new genres and sending music off on side quests that are chased to this day.
11.9.1969 Rotterdam
While the band closed out 1969 with a multi-night stand in Toronto and a pair of residencies at the Village Gate, this final stop on the European tour is the last known document of the Miles Davis Lost Quintet. Following large band studio sessions on November 19th and 28th, Miles began experimenting with an expanded…
Explore this show11.7.1969 Berlin
Is this Berlin gig the best Lost Quintet performance of 1969? For my money, it’s hard to find a better representation of this band. In terms of documentation, both the broadcast recording and the concert film are outstanding. Download the set below without hesitation, and if you don’t own the DVD of the performance included…
Explore this show11.5.1969 Stockholm
The inclusion of this Stockholm gig on The Bootleg Series Volume 2 is one of the more curious entries in the Miles Davis official live canon. The curiosity being why Columbia Legacy chose this show out of the many others recorded on this tour. The band played 2 sets on this date, the first of…
Explore this show11.4.1969 Copenhagen
Like a lot of shows from the fall European tour, a tape of this excellent Copenhagen performance has been floating out in the ether for decades. Columbia crowned it with semi-official status back in 2010 by including video of the set in its mega deluxe Bitches Brew 40th anniversary package, then gave it a broader audience…
Explore this show11.3.1969 Paris
A week into the Newport Jazz Fest European tour, the quintet inexplicably shifts into a new gear here in Salle Pleyel. The set flow is honed to perfection, Corea, Holland, and DeJohnette are dialed in and playful, and a solid sound system allows Miles and Shorter to blow with utter confidence. Everything fell into place…
Explore this show11.2.1969 Ronnie Scott’s, London
After months’ worth of tapes from concert halls and festival stages, it’s a delight to hear the quintet back in a club setting. Because as much as Miles wanted to ratchet up the band’s volume and intensity throughout the year, the primitive amplification in these larger venues seems to have forced him beyond his comfort…
Explore this show11.1.1969 Hammersmith Odeon, London
By the time the Newport Jazz Festival tour hit London, the quintet was on day 2 of a 7-day streak of gigs – each day featuring an afternoon and evening set. While at least one, and often both of the days’ sets of the tour were captured for radio broadcast, the only record of this…
Explore this show10.31.1969 Vienna
Following a monster of a gig in Rome on October 27th, the quintet had a few days to spare between shows. Who knows what sort of culture they immersed themselves in, but it made for a supremely weird set in Vienna. Fortunately, like most shows on this European leg, a broadcast team was there to capture it…
Explore this show10.27.1969 Rome
The quintet’s second date on the Newport Jazz Festival European tour brought them to Teatro Sistina in Rome with a TV and radio broadcast crew at the ready. While the quality of the audio recording is superb, it’s worth noting that “The Theme” has been pruned from the end of the afternoon set, and “Directions” is…
Explore this show10.26.1969 Milan
While the quintet set off for Chicago, Cincinnati and LA shortly after the August 19-21 Bitches Brew session, the next circulating tape is this murky audience gem from late October in Milan – the first of an incredible, and incredibly well documented run of gigs from the Newport Jazz Festival European tour. Notable within the…
Explore this show8.19-21, 1969: Bitches Brew Sessions
Given the rapid evolution of the quintet across the first half of 1969, it’s no surprise that the band we hear on July 27th at Rutgers sounds remarkably different from the one featured on the next available tape, October 26th (upcoming). The change agent being, of course, the three-day sessions at Columbia Studio B on…
Explore this show7.27.1969 Rutgers
By the time the quintet took the stage in New Brunswick, they were on their third gig in three days with more than 3,000 miles of travel in between. As evidenced by this brief audience tape of an incomplete set, our heroes remained undaunted. Perhaps his Fender Rhodes was in the shop after giving him…
Explore this show7.25 & 7.26.1969 Juan-les-Pins
This pair of gigs from the Antibes Festival were two of the most heavily circulated recordings from the Miles Davis Lost Quintet before their official release in 2013 as Live in Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2 (the 7.25 set was issued decades earlier in Japan as 1969 Miles – Festiva De Juan Pins). Both were recorded for radio…
Explore this show7.7.1969 Central Park
The summer of ‘69 rolls on with a true scorcher in Central Park, just a couple of days after the Shorter-less blowout at the Newport Jazz Fest. Like that Newport gig, you can hear the band continuing to work out and refine a lot of the phrasing and touchpoints they’d use to great effect on the…
Explore this show7.5.1969 Newport Jazz Fest
The earliest pro-recorded live set of 1969 comes from the Newport Jazz Fest – oddly, it’s also an incomplete set, with 3 songs clocking in at just 24 recorded minutes. Not surprisingly, it smokes, explaining why Columbia has released it on the Bitches Brew Live comp in 2011 and again on Miles Davis at Newport 1955–1975:…
Explore this show6.21.1969 Blue Coronet
This audience tape from the Blue Coronet in NYC is one of the better sounding recordings from the first half of 1969 and the second to feature the monster “Miles Runs the Voodoo Down” – 17+ minutes here! This is the fourth circulating reel from 1969, and the Lost Quintet’s evolution across just a few…
Explore this show6.4.1969 Plugged Nickel
This audience tape sounds as though it were recorded from inside a coffee tin backstage, but let your ears adjust and be rewarded; the band was positively ON at this Plugged Nickel gig. As if trying to one-up the Miles Davis “Second” Great Quintet’s notoriously 1965 recordings at the same venue, the band summits early…
Explore this showDecember 1969 Village Gate
This brief audience tape offers a mere snapshot from one the Miles Davis Quintet’s stopovers at the Village Gate in 1969. My god, what a show. Jack DeJohnette is absolutely ferocious behind the kit* and goes full-bore from the start – not necessarily overplaying but clearly pushing the rest of the band (even Miles) into…
Explore this show2.25.1969 Duffy’s Backstage
This February tape from Rochester, NY is the first recording with the Miles Davis Lost Quintet fully intact. Despite the fresh lineup, the performance sounds remarkably similar to what Davis’ “second great quintet” (Shorter, Hancock, Carter, Williams) was up to just a year before – it’s amazing to hear Corea and DeJohnette sound so restrained.…
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the Heat Warps 