Two of the most important musicians in the history of jazz were born in 1926. Miles Davis on May 26, in Alton, Illinois and John Coltrane on September 23, in Hamlet, North Carolina. They would meet, play together, and separately transform what the music could be. And this year, their centennial, feels like the right moment to reflect on that.

They are not interchangeable icons of the genre. Their trajectories were distinct, their temperaments almost opposite to one another. But between them, they covered nearly every significant development in jazz from the late 1940s through the late 1960s: Bebop, cool, hard bop, modal, post-bop, and free. The music they made together — and apart — is the backbone of the modern jazz canon.

Miles Davis: The Musical Shape-Shifter

Miles Davis didn't so much have a style as a sequence of styles, each one initiated by him and then absorbed and extended by everyone who came after. The cool sound of Birth of the Cool (1949–50). The Prestige sessions of 1956, recorded in marathon days with his first great quintet — Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones — producing Cookin', Relaxin', Workin', and Steamin' in two sessions. Kind of Blue (1959), the best-selling jazz album in history. The second great quintet, the electric period, Bitches Brew. Miles never stayed anywhere long enough to become a monument to himself, and that restlessness is what kept him relevant across four decades.

On the website right now:

• Miles Davis — Kind of Blue (MoFi 2LP, 45 RPM, Numbered) — $105 · The audiophile edition of the essential album. One copy.
• Miles Davis Quintet — Freedom Jazz Dance: The Bootleg Series Vol. 5 — $70 · Rare studio recordings from the second great quintet, 1966–68. One copy.
• Miles Davis — The Prestige 10" LP Collection, Vol. 2 (5LP Boxset, NM/NM) — $125 · The early Prestige 10" sides in a complete boxset — where it all began.
• Miles Davis — Prestige of Miles (1970 France, 3LP Box) — $50 · A French compilation box of the Prestige years.

And there are tonnes more to dig through in the store.

John Coltrane: The Musical and Spiritual Seeker

Where Davis moved laterally — always sideways into new territory — Coltrane moved vertically, deeper and deeper into whatever he was working on until he found the bottom of it, and then kept going. His 1957 Prestige debut. Giant Steps (1960), which redrew the harmonic map. A Love Supreme (1964), arguably the most spiritually serious record in jazz. And then the late period — Meditations, Ascension, and Om, where he moved fully into free improvisation and left most listeners behind, before many caught up with him again.

He died in 1967 at 40. Everything he did, he did in twenty remarkable years of practicing, recording, gigging and touring.

On the website right now:

• John Coltrane — Giant Steps (Atlantic 45 RPM Master Series, Numbered, NM/NM) — $200 · The definitive audiophile pressing of the record that changed harmony. One copy.
• John Coltrane — Giant Steps (Japan pressing) — $50 · A more accessible option of the same essential album.
• John Coltrane — Blue Train (Japanese Collector's Series) — $80 · His sole Blue Note leadership date, in a beautifully pressed Japanese collector's edition.
• John Coltrane — Ballads (1980 US, Sealed) — $75 · The most accessible Coltrane — and still one of the most beautiful. Sealed original.
• John Coltrane — A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle 1965 (2LP) — $44 · A landmark live document of the suite performed just months after the studio recording.
• John Coltrane — A Love Supreme (2015 Impulse Reissue) — $40 · The cleanest current edition of the essential album.
• John Coltrane — The Best Of John Coltrane (Prestige Compilation) — $35 · The Prestige years distilled. Two copies.
• John Coltrane — The Paris Concert — $40 · A late-career live document, 1962.

New This Month: The Centenary OJC Releases

Craft Recordings marked the centennial on August 14 with two new Original Jazz Classics (OJC) reissues, both cut AAA by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI, in tip-on jackets:

• Miles Davis — Cookin' With the Miles Davis Quintet (Prestige, 1957) — The best of the four legendary '56 Prestige sessions, with Coltrane in the group.
• John Coltrane — Coltrane (Prestige, 1957) — His first session as a leader, recorded the same year, at the same studio, with largely the same band.

Ask us about availability for these — we're expecting stock shortly.

A hundred years on, if you want to understand why jazz is the music it is, why it sounds the way it does, why it moves the way it moves, you could do a lot worse than spending a week with Miles and Trane, starting at the beginning and working forward. We have most of what you need on the website and in the store.