Christmas came early for me, thanks to the arrival of these public-domain reissues, all of them except Kind Of Blue making some use of the original cover-art. The three earlier items, initially released as six LPs on Prestige, constitute all of that label's albums of Miles with Red Garland. Beginning with the Musings Of Miles quartet date followed by The New Quintet adding Coltrane, the meat of the series is the two sessions that were spread over the iconic Cookin', Relaxin', Workin' and Steamin', released but not recorded in that order. The Prestige version of ‘Round Midnight’ by this quintet (first included on a separate album) is missing, as are a couple of Miles's spoken comments (“Block chords, Red” and “I'll play it and tell you what it is later”) originally included on Relaxin'.

Still, when you think what a cornucopia of music is here, this is no place to carp. You don't need to be told about the individual musicians (or, if you do, you now have an excellent way to catch up), but it's a fascinating experience to hear them creating their reputations. The fact that the May and October 1956 sessions were recorded with no playbacks and no retakes succeeded admirably in simulating the freedom of a club date in the studio. Thus there are occasional rough edges, mostly from Coltrane who sounds hesitant and even inappropriate at times while still trying to corral his knowledge of Parker and Dexter into the spaces opened up by Davis. The superbly executed (and recorded) lines of Chambers were an excellent springboard for Garland and Jones to inject occasional big-band-type backing figures (á la Silver and Blakey) and to leave huge gaps at other times. Especially with the few bop-era tunes used (‘Salt Peanuts’, ‘Woody’n You', ‘Well You Needn’t', Miles' own ‘Half Nelson’), you can see just how radical were his current soloing and bandleading methods.

These three albums are all four-star programmes but, with The New Quintet from November 1955 being a little stilted compared to the following year, and with The Musings marked by Davis sounding out-of-tune and lacking a contrasting reedman, Cookin'/Relaxin' is marginally the strongest entry. It also adds two bonus quartet tracks from 1953, showing just how far Miles had moved ahead already. Then there's Kind Of Blue, in this edition including the five basic tracks (no alternate ‘Flamenco Sketches’) augmented by the three from Jazz Track (no ‘Love For Sale’) and the TV version of ‘So What’ (shorn of its orchestrated intro). Davis had moved on again, thanks to his hiring of Evans and Cobb – and let's not forget Adderley – and, by developing the lessons learned from the 1955-56 quintet, he created something that's almost as good as its reputation.