Miles Davis - Porgy And Bees VINYL LP MFSL2-485
Mastered from the Original Master Tapes, Strictly Limited to 4,000 Numbered Copies
Mastered from the original tapes, pressed at RTI, and strictly limited to 4,000 numbered copies, Porgy and Bess attains previously unheard degrees of clarity, openness, immediacy, and depth on Mobile Fidelity's 180g 45RPM 2LP set. Here, the arrangements unfold amidst practically limitless soundstages and burst with multi-dimensional images. Separation between instruments allows you to locate individual band members and trace the decay of the notes. Davis' iconic solo passages take on borderline-surreal qualities of realism and shape. The magisterial scope of the Evans-conducted orchestra emerges with room-filling bloom, color, and dynamics.
While difficult to pinpoint its single-best strength, Mobile Fidelity's reissue gives reference-level credence to what may remain the album's most crucial aspect: tone. Based not on chords but on scales and feeling, Porgy and Bess teems with emotions and possibilities – characteristics conveyed by the nuances, timbre, and temper delivered by the array of horns, woodwinds, basses, and percussion involved. Whether the combination of Bill Barber's tuba in unison with Paul Chambers' bass during "Buzzard Song," Davis' improvisational flights on "It Ain't Necessarily So," or the doubling up on alto flutes on several compositions, never before have they been experienced with such richness, roundness, and palpability.
Just as identifying singular sonic highlights proves virtually unfeasible, so does underlining which songs feature the most memorable exchanges, melodies, and scoring. Davis and Evans' adaptation of Porgy and Bess remains of a piece, an American touchstone, a recording that immediately separated itself from the multiple other versions released during the same period and continues to make waves decades after its creation, assuming a place in the historical canon alongside collaborative masterworks by Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn and Frank Sinatra/Nelson Riddle.
tracklist
The Buzzard Song
Bess, You Is My Woman Now
Gone
Gone, Gone, Gone
Summertime
Oh Bess, Where's My Bess?
Prayer (Oh Doctor Jesus)
Fisherman, Strawberry and Devil Crab
My Man's Gone Now
It Ain't Necessarily So
Here Come de Honey Man
I Wants to Stay Here (a.k.a. I Loves You, Porgy)
There's a Boat That's Leaving Soon for New York
