In 1996, Fantasy came out with a series of reissue CDs featuring various jazz artists "playing the blues." Their
Miles Davis CD is a bit surprising, for it leaves out his most famous blues performance ("Walkin'") and has the second (rather than the classic first) take of "Bags' Groove" from a 1954 session with pianist
Thelonious Monk and vibraphonist
Milt Jackson. The nine numbers (all but one from 1954-1956) are easily available elsewhere and, although the music (which features such sidemen as altoist
Jackie McLean, tenors
John Coltrane,
Sonny Rollins, and
Lucky Thompson, trombonist
J.J. Johnson, and pianists
Red Garland and
Horace Silver, among others) is sometimes classic. ~ Scott Yanow