Miles Davis
Miles Smiles

It was a matter of name: too delightful and sharp not to catch my attention, although for a long time I didn't want to delve deeper into (eventually to be done) a knowledge with this album.

One day, however, I discover its particulars and I start to like it even more.
Well, it was recorded in 1966, by the so-called "second" quintet, featuring the jazz gurus, namely Wayne Shorter on sax, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, Tony Williams on drums. The principal ensemble in the history of this genre: cultured and respectable minds and characters, worthy of the purest and most passionate praise.
What more intriguing fact than these fine names?

Once you start listening, from the very first notes you realize it's a guarantee, the now certain guarantee of quality and beauty. You notice it from the stunning "Orbits" which gravitates essentially on solos. The latter, in turn, are beautiful.
But there's nothing to be done: Miles' ballads are pure wordless poetry. Even just for "Circle" this album can be adored, gentle like a butterfly, colored in pastel hues, delicate and refined, with a depth that aims so high.
After dreaming you listen to "Footprints" and this -now- standard fills you with admiration: it seems to completely change sound with dad Shorter's solo, after Miles'; and then again with uncle Herbie, who gives us intense, serious notes, in a brief yet beautiful intervention. In short, a family consolidates that seems perfectly cohesive and balanced, empathetic and reassuring.

That's why tracks like "Dolores", which refer to the bop tradition that our friends know marvelously, are played with firm awareness and maturity: gone are the days of angry solos, sometimes off-key notes, of youthful vigor that drove the damned boppers to sweep away from their action radius every law too tight and too slow. Now there's no longer a need for outbursts. These good boys, now grown and praised, have learned the lesson excellently.

"Freedom Jazz Dance" is decidedly "the evolution of the groove", or its prophecy, as one might say. You can savor the Miles of a few years later, but if you wish you can also decently satiate yourself just by thinking about the immense innovative charge (I perfectly see an ancestor of the funky '70s) that these guys here brought to each of their works.
The last one, "Gingerbread Boy", is still a very "up" proposition, and Miles seems to be having fun like a child accompanied by the workings of an ever-in-4 bass (cut time..to be clear, it's fast!), while Shorter's solo, as usual, appears "serious" and evocative. Herbie, always in search of new and richer melodic combinations, but which cannot fail to refresh and gratify the ear.

Well, you must have understood that listening to Miles Smiles means being astonished by the executive feats of these musicians (who sit so high up!).
The trumpet, sax, and piano speeches follow one another (always in this order) to give ever stronger emotions, which on one hand make you think about how much beauty can be recorded on a disc, and on the other hand have the task of creating (honestly and deservedly) so much admiration.

This album is a deeply refined work: the three soloists (the rhythm section is not given space) dominate the scene with mastery and erudition: this album is a great example of how to play. And I don't just mean jazz: playing, after all, is always an emotion, and when you can do it greatly, this emotion becomes titanic. Knowing how to play also means and above all letting what you feel come out and giving it to those who listen.
And these five individuals here know better than anyone else how it's done.