MILES IN BERLIN

It's 1964 and the first Berlin Jazz Festival is about to reach it's absolute peak: the final concert on the night of Friday, 25th September by Miles Davis. And the European subsidiary of Columbia Records, CBS, couldn't wait to release this legendary event on LP. The new quintet, for the first time with Wayne Shorter on the tenor sax (and not yet as composer), thrilled and roused the audience in the Philharmonie from the first minute to the very end. The classics "Miles (tones)", "So What" and "Walkin'" were performed at an astonishingly fast pace, the ballads were tender and dreamy. Such a magical atmosphere was rarely evoked at later concerts, which was probably due to the excellent acoustics of the large concert hall.