This Week: Davis Comes Alive!

This week on Miles to Go Before I Sleep, I explored the world of live recordings from some of the best ever to play at some of the world's most famous jazz venues, such as The Blue Note, Carnegie Hall, and The Village Vanguard (pictured left). And in the spirit of improvising on the fly, Miles to Go was flooded with requests - both online and over the phone - and a flurry of visitors. Lessons learned this evening include: 1. There is always time for listener-requested music; 2. There is no such thing as a short live jazz recording - take, for example, Coltrane's My Favorite Things, which I cut off a third of the way through its 20-minute runtime; and 3. Three Musketeers nougat sandwiched between a pair of Animal Crackers makes a decent snack.  (Seriously, I wasn't kidding when I said the show operated on the fly this evening!). That said, we still managed to saturate the airwaves with some pretty catchy tunes:

1. Filthy MacNasty [Live at The Village Gate] - Horace Silver
2. Split Kick [Live at Birdland] - The Art Blakey Quintet
3. Machine [Live from King Street, San Francisco] - Buddy Rich
4. In the Hall of the Mountain King [Live from Folly Theatre] - The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra
5. Tank! [Live] - Yoko Kanno & The SeatBelts
6. My Funny Valentine [Live] - The Miles Davis Quintet
7. Gloria's Step [Take 2, Live from The Village Vanguard] - Bill Evans
8. When I Fall in Love [Live at The Blue Note] - Keith Jarrett
9. Autumn Leaves [Live at The Alhambra] - The Ahmad Jamal Trio
10. Black Dog/Helter Skelter [Live from The Blue Note] - Paris Troika
11. A Night in Tunisia [Live] - The Modern Jazz Quartet
12. Cast Your Fate to the Wind [Live] - The Vince Guaraldi Trio
13. Take Five [Live at Carnegie Hall] - The Dave Brubeck Quartet
14. The Girl from Addis Ababa [Live] - Mulatu Astatke & The Ethiopian Quintet
15. Big P [Live at The Lighthouse] - Cannonball Adderly
16. I've Grown Accustomed to YourFace [Live from Birdland] - Sonny Rollins
17. Slow Boat to China [Live from The Savoy] - Charlie Parker
18. My Favorite Things [Live at The Village Vanguard] - John Coltrane
19. So What [Take 1, Live] - Miles Davis & John Coltrane

Talk-over music came courtesy of Mulatu Astatke, Paul Desmond, David Holmes, The Crimson Jazz Trio, The Swingle Sisters, Yoko Kanno and the SeatBelts, and Medeski, Martin & Wood.

As per usual, for a rundown of the Miles to Go playlist each week, keep your browsers here, and for the best jazz et al. around, keep your radios (or your iTunes) tuned to WKCO 91.9 FM!