Happy 60th Anniversary to Miles Davis’ Someday My Prince Will Come, originally released December 11, 1961.
In 1959, the legend, virtuoso, and musical master Miles Davis was at the top of his career. He was the man. He was the definition of cool.
With the colossal success of Kind of Blue, Davis and his sextet were highly in-demand fixtures at high-profile jazz venues such as New York City’s Birdland and San Francisco’s Blackhawk, with “overflowing audiences and lines that wrapped around the corners,” as noted in Miles: The Autobiography (1989). Davis and his group were at the top of the world.
Despite his reputation and widespread appreciation by the public, the same year Kind of Blue was released, Davis was involved in an (unmotivated) racial assault enacted by policemen, which led to his cabaret license being (wrongfully) revoked, preventing him from playing New York City clubs for a while. The ghastly event left the artist emotionally drained.
The same year, saxophonist Julian “Cannonball” Adderley left the band, and the group's sound changed, leaving Davis out of musical ideas and new challenges. “Without Cannon’s alto voice up in the mix, I kind of reached a dead end of ideas for what I wanted a small group to sound like,” Davis confided in his autobiography. “I felt I needed to take a rest.”
However, Davis’ genius did not break. After listening to the recording of Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez at the house of his friend and bass player Joe Mondragon, Davis commenced collaborating with pianist-composer Gil Evans on the album—and masterpiece—Sketches of Spain (1960). The album was a particularly complex work to craft, due to the different techniques melding flamenco, Arabic scales, Black African scales, ad-libbed sections, infused with joyous yet nostalgic emotions.
Following the release of Sketches of Spain in March 1960, Davis and his quintet left for a European tour. The group was extremely well received and acclaimed, playing different venues, in front of audiences ranging from three to eight thousand people, with all-sold-out halls every night.
After returning from the European tour, saxophonist Sonny Stitt departed the band in December 1960. Davis, who around the Christmas season would play in Chicago, had to find a new band member promptly. Eventually, he settled on Hank Mobley, a tenor saxophonist known for his foggy and round sound, who made a name for himself working in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and becoming a prolific artist for Blue Note Records as both leader and sideman.
It was in March 1961 that Davis went back to the studio, with his new band lineup, to record his first small-group album since Kind of Blue. With Mobley, pianist Wynton Kelly, double bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb forming the core quintet, alongside the legendary saxophonist John Coltrane and percussionist Philly Joe Jones who contributed on a few tracks, the new album was recorded over three days on March 7th, 20th and 21st.
On December 11, 1961, Davis released Someday My Prince Will Come. The record—named after its opening, titular composition, a rendition of the famous song from Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs—is an authentic, thoughtful, and stunning expression of the artist’s love for his former wife, the actress and dancer Frances Taylor Davis.
With Someday My Prince Will Come, Davis began to request that Columbia Records make Black women the protagonists of his album covers. “It was on Someday My Prince Will Come that I started demanding that Columbia use Black women on my album covers,” Davis recalled in his autobiography. “So, I was able to put Frances on Someday My Prince Will Come. . . .it was my album, and I was Frances’ prince.”
By requesting that a picture of his wife would be on the album cover, Davis was making a massive statement. The trumpeter was standing up for Black women, projecting their beauty through his music. In addition to Someday My Prince Will Come, Frances Taylor appeared on two other album covers for Saturday Night: Miles Davis In Person at the Blackhawk in San Francisco (1961) and E.S.P. (1965). The iconic actress Cicely Tyson graced the cover of Sorcerer (1967), with funk legend (and Davis’ second wife) Betty Davis appearing on Filles De Kilimanjaro (1969).
During the album’s postproduction process, producer Teo Macero—who had collaborated on Sketches of Spain, Porgy and Bess (1959), and later, Davis’s legendary gamechanger Bitches Brew (1970)—used tape editing to glue musical sections together, then adding Davis’ and Coltrane’s post-recorded extra horn work. And finally, Davis opted to remove the liner notes from his new release, as he recalled “I just want everyone to listen to the music and make up their own minds. I never did like no one writing about what I played on an album, trying to explain what I was trying to do. The music speaks for itself.”
As a result, Someday My Prince Will Come is a beguiling meld of finger-snapping blues and stunning, melody-driven ballads, underlining Davis’s introspective, emotional, and romantic side.
Particularly sentimental is the album’s title track, “Someday My Prince Will Come.” The song is introduced by double bassist Paul Chambers and pianist Kelly who set the ¾ rhythm, to then leave the stage to Davis’ Harmon-muted trumpet layering the main harmonies along with Kelly’s piano. The quintet exudes impeccable lyricism and melodic sensibilities, showcasing an immaculately gorgeous and timeless performance. The last two saxophone choruses are credited to Coltrane, who contributed to the song with extended harmonies, exquisitely held notes, and rich rapid runs.
The melancholic ballad “Old Folks” is enhanced by Davis’ piercing, silvery trumpet, contrasted by the warm round tones of Mobley’s soft-spoken improvisation then followed by Kelly’s skillful brief ad-lib solo.
The next track, “Pfrancing” unfolds as a tasteful, classy, blues-driven piece inspired by the beauty and elegance of Frances Taylor. The piece springs around an enticing call-and-response melody line, leading to everyone playing solos. The star of the track is, however, Kelly, who flaunts frisky, agile solos swinging up and down the modal scale.
The song “Drag Dog”, an homage to CBS president Goddard Lieberson, is decidedly moody, changing from nostalgic melodies to more rhythmic sections, which leads to the conclusion that perhaps the piece might have been part of a longer episode, then cut by producer Macero for better results.
“Teo” is arguably the most dynamic song on the album. On the piece, Davis delves into Mid-Eastern modal scales, following the form of “Flamenco Sketches” (Kind of Blue), bestowing the same upper register as “Saete” (Sketches of Spain). The song presents, in fact, a Spanish tone, particularly in Cobb’s stickwork imbuing a Latin lilt to the rhythm, which, like the album’s title track, is performed in ¾. Davis' fierce, hypnotizing initial solo is then followed by Coltrane’s improvisation building into some of his most stirring figures, working over scales he could modulate whenever and however he wished.
The Prestige reminiscent “I Thought About You” is a rendition of Jimmy Van Heusen's piece. On the song, Davis plays muted horn, for an elegant outcome, with Mobley picking up the second chorus, wherein Cobb infuses an intriguing beat.
Finally, the vivacious “Blue No. 2,” which is available only on the album reissue, presents a full-blown blues arrangement, offering a brief glimpse of Philly Joe Jones’ symmetrical yet intricate jounces and bebop licks.
Historically and autobiographically, Someday My Prince Will Come is rich in magnitude. The album, besides showing the high level of skills and talent of every single musician involved, is one of the most relevant testaments to Miles Davis’ forging influence, and his self-assured, focused, visionary leadership, which trailblazed and shaped jazz music for many years to come.
Note: As an Amazon affiliate partner, Albumism may earn commissions from purchases of vinyl records, CDs and digital music featured on our site.
LISTEN via Apple Music | Spotify | YouTube: