As far as is known, the Davis Quintet of 1964 only played three dates in Japan. The 14 July date was released on Japanese CBS-Sony as Miles Davis Quintet in Tokyo, thus these rare recordings from July 12 and July 15 complete the recorded evidence we have of Sam Rivers' brief foray with Davis. Drummer Tony Williams was reportedly not a fan of Rivers' predecessor George Coleman, preferring saxophonists with free jazz inclinations, and got under Coleman's skin sufficiently to provoke his resignation. Rivers was known to Williams from his Boston days and lobbied Davis to hire him, which he finally did after an overture to Wayne Shorter, then with Art Blakey, was turned down. It is fair to say that the frontline of Davis and Rivers was not a match made in heaven. The album Miles Davis in Tokyo comprises ‘If I Were a Bell’, ‘My Funny Valentine’, ‘So What’, ‘Walkin,’ and ‘All of You’ (all but one of these numbers had been recorded at the Philharmonic Hall concert earlier in the year with Coleman and all but one had been recorded at the Blackhawk more than three years earlier). The two previously unissued concerts present alternative versions of all these tunes with the exception of ‘My Funny Valentine’, and adds ‘Autumn Leaves’, ‘Stella by Starlight’, and ‘Oleo’ plus a version of ‘Seven Steps to Heaven’ without Rivers – all familiar Davis fare of the period. Yet while Rivers may have been the most distinctive tenor voice at that point to line-up alongside Davis since Coltrane, he was not much interested in group dynamics, and, as these recordings (perhaps more than Miles Davis in Tokyo) suggest, he seemed to be heading further ‘outside’ than Davis, who largely remains “inside”, was prepared to tolerate – indeed, he is on record during this period of being harshly critical of several musicians with free jazz inclinations. On their return to the USA, Rivers was gone and Davis was again talking to Shorter, and as history records, with success. All in all, then, these recordings open a small window into Davis' musical world for which high praise to Domino Records for making available.