A further instalment in EJC's backwardmoving series of Miles reissues (see Jazzwise 194 and 197), this overlaps with the 1951-1957 Studio Recordings compilation on American Jazz Classics, to the extent of the 1954 Blue Note session with Horace Silver (reviewed in Jazzwise 186). The earlier material, constituting the rest of this set, dovetails stylistically and chronologically with the first half of last month's collection of recordings with Rollins, given the usual proviso that the ensembles on the Blue Note material do sound more rehearsed. Miles is not only energetic and taking most of the solo space, but shows that he mastered bebop's harmonic intricacy before he abandoned it. In the absence of early Rollins, there's compelling evidence here of early Jimmy Heath and especially early Jackie McLean, who's also heard on the bonus airshots (poorly recorded but still dynamic) from the week before the first Blue Note session. Another indication of the value of this material is that Miles' 1952 adaptation of ‘Dear Old Stockholm’ could be described as his first modal experiment.