Miles Davis Vols. 1 & 2

Miles Davis, Volumes 1 & 2 are a pair of separate but related albums by American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis recorded on May 9, 1952, April 20, 1953 and March 6, 1954 and released on Blue Note early 1956. The three sessions were originally released on ten-inch LPs as Young Man with a Horn (1953), Miles Davis, Vol. 2 (1953) and Miles Davis, Vol. 3 (1954), respectively.

Personal life
Volume 1 was originally released in January 1956 shortly after Davis won the DownBeat readers poll as best trumpeter and shortly followed in February by Volume 2 (BLP 1502).

Release history
After 10"s lost the format war, Blue Note began reissuing its Modern Jazz Series on 12"s. The three sessions were subsequently recompiled across Miles Davis, Volume 1 (BLP 1501) and Miles Davis, Volume 2 (BLP 1502), the first of Blue Note's 1500 series, their first one hundred 12" records after they discontinued their line of 10" records.

The two volumes were recompiled for their CD reissue, restoring the track listing of the original 10"s, placing Vol. 1 (BLP 2028) on Volume 1, and Vol. 2 (BLP 5057) and Vol. 3 (BLP 5070) on Volume 2.

While the original BLP 1501 running order is available on some Japanese CD versions and from HDTracks, most CD reissues recompile the three sets with an entirely different track listing, grouping the sessions together and appending alternate takes, placing the 1952 and 1954 sessions on Volume 1 and the 1953 session on Volume 2.

When Rudy Van Gelder remastered the pair of the 2001 RVG edition, he reused the CD track list and replaced the covers for the two volumes with new covers based on the originals from Miles Davis, Vol. 3 and Miles Davis, Vol. 2 respectively.

Reception
The album was identified by Scott Yanow in his AllMusic essay "Hard Bop" in 2010 as one of the 17 Essential Hard Bop Recordings.

May 9, 1952

 * Miles Davis – trumpet
 * J. J. Johnson – trombone
 * Jackie McLean – alto saxophone
 * Gil Coggins – piano
 * Oscar Pettiford – bass
 * Kenny Clarke – drums
 * Recorded at WOR Studios, New York City

April 20, 1953

 * Miles Davis – trumpet
 * J. J. Johnson – trombone
 * Jimmy Heath – tenor saxophone
 * Gil Coggins – piano
 * Percy Heath – bass
 * Art Blakey – drums
 * Recorded at WOR Studios, New York City

March 6, 1954

 * Miles Davis – trumpet
 * Horace Silver – piano
 * Percy Heath – bass
 * Art Blakey – drums
 * Recorded at Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey

Original

 * Alfred Lion – producer
 * Doug Hawkins (1952, 1953) – recording engineer
 * Rudy Van Gelder (1954) – recording engineer
 * John Hermansader, Reid Miles – cover design
 * Francis Wolff – photography
 * Leonard Feather – liner notes

Reissue

 * Michael Cuscuna – producer
 * Ron McMaster, Yoshio Okazaki – digital transfers