Miles Davis Quintet: Miles Davis (trumpet); John Coltrane (tenor saxophone); Red Garland (piano); Paul Chambers (acoustic bass); Philly Joe Jones (drums). Recorded at the Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey on May 11 and October 26, 1956. Originally released on Prestige (7200). Includes liner notes by Joe Goldberg and Chris Albertson. Digitally remastered by Phil De Lancie (1989, Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, California). The final in a series of legendary recordings with the classic Miles Davis Quintet, STEAMIN' is distinguished by the virtuosity of drummer Joseph Rudolph Jones. Philly Joe's soulful, stylish command of the drum set's technical demands (his remarkable coordination, touch and speed of hand) and his wily command of time demonstrate why he is venerated as an innovator. Philly Joe played right on top of the beat, sometimes spilling over ahead of it. He took more chances, and pulled off more daring polyrhythmic designs than any drummer of his generation save for Max Roach and Art Blakey. Nowhere is this better illustrated than on an abstract romp through Gillespie's Salt Peanuts. Jones sets a fierce boppish pace with fragmented shards of Afro-Cuban accents, Vaudevillian rim shots and elegant counterpoint. An unbridled Coltrane is in his element, but how about the fleet-fingered Garland, or the soaring, wailing Davis? Philly Joe comes flying out of Coltrane's final chorus with richly accented rolls, and architecturally perfect rises and falls in texture and dynamics that possess an uncanny harmonic logic--a virtuoso storyteller. Elsewhere, Miles and the band enjoy a bold run through Monk's Well You Needn't. They take a more supple approach to Diane, Something I Dreamed Last Night and Surrey With The Fringe On Top (from the musical Oklahoma), transforming them into unlikely Davis classics. On Surrey..., the trumpeter free-falls through the tune's thematic arc over a definitive quarter-note groove. Coltrane follows with long harmonic elisions that deconstruct the theme into a triple-timed soliloquy, until Garland uses his elegant two-handed voicings and pithy melodic miniatures to distill Trane's vociferous exclamations into a heady blues elixir.