Miles Davis

LP version. Recorded in the summer and in September 1968, Filles de Kilimanjaro is the last album by the quintet Miles Davis had led through the middle of the decade. Electric piano is heard on every track, and Davis gave all five pieces French titles. The record is usually heard as a hinge between the acoustic albums of the quintet and In a Silent Way, recorded a few months later. Columbia issued it in the United States early in 1969, with a cover photograph by Hiro and liner notes by Ralph J. Gleason. Although the credits name Davis alone, the arranger Gil Evans worked on the music without a credit. He co-wrote Petits Machins, a theme later known as Eleven.

The quintet was Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Herbie Hancock on piano and electric piano, Ron Carter on bass and Tony Williams on drums, with Teo Macero producing. Together they recorded three of the five pieces, among them the title track and Tout de Suite. For the session of 24 September 1968, Chick Corea and Dave Holland took the places of Hancock and Carter. Corea moves between acoustic and electric piano, while Holland plays acoustic bass. It was the first time Corea and Holland appeared on a Davis album, and both are heard on his records of the next two years. Mademoiselle Mabry, from that September date, is named after Betty Mabry, whom Davis married that year and who appears on the cover. The piece is a reworking by Evans of Jimi Hendrix's The Wind Cries Mary, and it shows how closely Davis was listening to rock at the time. Frank Laico and Arthur Kendy engineered the sessions, and Williams plays on all five pieces. Three pieces fill the first side and two the second. Reviewing the 2002 reissue for All About Jazz, Jim Santella wrote that the album represents a high point in modern jazz.

This Music On Vinyl edition (MOVLP2384), released in 2019, is a 180 gram stereo LP.