Before the personnel of the Second Great Quintet was set with Wayne Shorter chosen for the tenor slot, Miles tried a few different tenor players including Sonny Stitt, George Coleman and Sam Rivers. The story goes that Herbie and Tony Williams disliked Coleman because he tended to have his solos “worked out” ahead of time. Not spontaneous enough for them. They also disliked Rivers for being “too free”. The opposite of Coleman. Shorter was unquestionably the right choice, but “too free” or not, the quintet with Rivers recorded some of the greatest Jazz ever, imo. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nJhJ-QazRxJbLIsKqwPQK6UIpa2xq7Pzc&si=rba0AXg-eaWO47qc
|