Miles Davis Quintet

In the summer of 1955, after Davis performed at the Newport Jazz Festival, he was approached by Columbia Records executive George Avakian, who offered him a contract if he could form a regular band.

[1] Davis assembled his first regular quintet to meet a commitment at the Café Bohemia in July with Sonny Rollins on tenor saxophone, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums.

[2] By the autumn, Rollins had left to deal with his heroin addiction, and later in the year joined the hard bop quintet led by Clifford Brown and Max Roach.

[7] Coltrane departed in the spring of 1960, and after interim replacements Jimmy Heath and Sonny Stitt, Davis plus Kelly, Chambers, and Cobb continued through 1961 and 1962 with Hank Mobley on tenor sax.

[9] Initially with George Coleman or Sam Rivers on tenor sax, the final member of the quintet arrived in late 1964 when saxophonist Wayne Shorter joined.

Players on In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew would go on to form the core jazz fusion bands of the 1970s away from Davis: Shorter and Josef Zawinul to Weather Report; John McLaughlin and Billy Cobham to the Mahavishnu Orchestra; Hancock and Bennie Maupin to Headhunters; and Chick Corea, Airto Moreira and Lenny White to Return to Forever.