Miles Davis – My Funny Valentine (Numbered Hybrid SACD) - (SACD)

Description

Miles Davis Taps Divine Inspiration: My Funny Valentine Is Marked by Deep Emotions, Spontaneous Brilliance, Sensitive Beauty, and Sublime Poignancy

Audiophile Sound and Sleek Packaging: Mobile Fidelity's Hybrid SACD Boasts Lifelike Tones, Balances, Images, and Ambience

Miles Davis’ My Funny Valentine marks several historic turning points. For Davis, the live album represents the final time on record he’d perform standards rather than original compositions. It also stands as one of the last documents made by the same band that created Seven Steps of Heaven. As such, the work teems with bebop melodicism yet steers clear of Davis’ oft-controversial avant-garde leanings. Most significantly, however, the set captures the ballads performed at a benefit concert from New York’s then-new Philharmonic Hall just months after President Kennedy’s assassination. Tapping into a seemingly divine inspiration, Davis never sounded so elegant or poetic.

Boasting gorgeous sound, Mobile Fidelity’s collectible SACD reissue features myriad enhancements relating to depth, presence, dynamics, clarity, and ambience. Experienced on a great stereo, the disc plays with balances, tonalities, and airiness that duplicate the experience of witnessing live jazz in an acoustically ideal hall. The images of each individual instrument, the decay of the notes, the inner reaches of the piano, and symmetry of the horns all are rendered with palpable detail. 

Staged as a benefit to support voter registration in the South, the February concert came amidst the height of the Civil Rights movement, a cause dear to Davis’ heart. Yet unforeseen circumstances raised the stakes. Having professed his admiration for Kennedy years prior, Davis appears to approach the compositions on My Funny Valentine (and, in particular, the title track) as homage to the fallen leader, a collective soliloquy comprised of pieces shot through with deeply emotional passages, spontaneous brilliance, sensitive beauty, and sublime poignancy. Elegiac moods permeate the performances; Davis and his Harmon mute paint with intricate brushstrokes.