1961 studio album by Miles Davis
Someday My Prince Will Come is the seventh studio album by Miles Davis for Columbia Records, catalogue CL 1656 and CS 8456 in stereo, released in 1961. Recorded at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in Manhattan, New York City, it marked the only Miles Davis Quintet studio recording session to feature saxophonist Hank Mobley.
Background
In 1959, Cannonball Adderley left to form his own group with his brother, reducing the sextet to a quintet.[2] Drummer Jimmy Cobb and pianist Wynton Kelly had been hired in 1958. John Coltrane who stayed in the group for a spring tour of Europe, but left to form his own quartet in the summer of 1960.[3] In 1960, Davis went through saxophonists Jimmy Heath and Sonny Stitt before settling on Hank Mobley in December, the band re-stabilizing for the next two years.[4]
Composition
Unlike Kind of Blue, which featured nothing but group originals, this album paired equal numbers of Miles Davis tunes and pop standards, including the title song resurrected from the 1937 Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The titles to all three Davis originals refer to specific individuals: "Pfrancing" to his wife Frances, featured on the album cover; "Teo" to his producer Teo Macero; and "Drad Dog" (Goddard reversed) to Columbia Records president Goddard Lieberson.[5] While the cover credits the Miles Davis Sextet, only the title track featured six players, Coltrane making two cameo appearances on the album, taking solos on the title track and "Teo", playing instead of Mobley on the latter.[6] On March 21, ex-Davis drummer Philly Joe Jones made his final contribution to a Davis session, replacing Cobb for the original "Blues No. 2", which was not used on the album.
Re-issue
On June 8, 1999, Legacy Records reissued the album for compact disc with two bonus tracks including the unused "Blues No. 2" and an alternative take of "Someday My Prince Will Come".
Critical reception
In a contemporary review for Down Beat, Ira Gitler praised Coltrane's solo on the title track while finding Kelly equally exceptional as both a soloist and comping musician. "His single-lines are simultaneously hard and soft. Cobb and Chambers groove perfectly together and with Kelly", Gitler wrote. "The rhythm section, individually and as a whole, is very well-recorded."[9] The magazine's Howard Mandel later viewed Someday My Prince Will Come as "a commercial realization rather than an artistic exploration" but nonetheless "lovely", highlighted by each musician's careful attention to notes and dynamics, and among Davis's most "romantic, bluesy and intentionally seductive programs".[9]
The album is ranked number 994 in All-Time Top 1000 Albums (3rd edition, 2000).[15]
