Porgy and Bess (CL 1274) is a studio album by the jazz musician Miles Davis, released in March 1959 on Columbia Records.

[8] Five years earlier, in 1953, pianist George Russell published his Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization, which offered an alternative to the practice of improvisation based on chords.

[13] Influenced by Russell's ideas, Davis implemented his first modal composition with the title track of his 1958 album Milestones, which was based on two modes, recorded in April of that year.

[14] Instead of soloing in the straight, conventional, melodic way, Davis’s new style of improvisation featured rapid mode and scale changes played against sparse chord changes.

[8] The musical, commercial and critical success of 1957's Miles Ahead helped make future Davis/Evans ventures possible, as it impressed Columbia Records enough for them to bestow further artistic control upon Davis and Evans.

These ranged from an all-star big band version arranged and conducted by Bill Potts to one by Bob Crosby and the Bobcats.

Following the first collaboration with Evans, Davis followed up on these efforts with much interest in symphonic readings, which, at the time, jazzmen were not known for, and neither were some classically trained musicians known for interpreting jazz scores.

Robert Gilbert of All About Jazz praised Porgy and Bess, describing it as "one of many great albums that Miles Davis recorded over his lifetime.