Dig

Dig collects the bulk of a single October 5, 1951 session - among the first jazz dates conceived with the new long-playing format in mind, allowing the musicians to 'stretch out' beyond three-minute 78 constraints. It documents the first extended studio partnership between Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins, who had recorded together before but never at this length, alongside a teenaged Jackie McLean then deep in his Charlie Parker apprenticeship - Parker himself reportedly dropped by the studio during the date. The material is significant: 'Dig' and 'Denial' are Davis contrafacts on 'Sweet Georgia Brown' and 'It's Only a Paper Moon' changes respectively, 'Bluing' is a long blues meditation, and 'Out of the Blue' became a jazz staple. Coming during Miles's early-1950s Prestige years - after Birth of the Cool but before his heroin-habit nadir and triumphant 1954-55 comeback recordings - the album captures him consolidating a harder, more driving post-bop language with the explosive Art Blakey pushing the rhythm. The remaining two performances from the session, 'Conception' and 'My Old Flame,' were issued on the companion LP Conception (PRLP 7013). Ira Gitler's original notes frame the set as a milestone in the Davis-Rollins axis, and the record has since been recognized as a foundational document of early hard bop and of Rollins's emergence as the era's great tenor voice.