What does it say about the current state of jazz that this fall's most eagerly anticipated "new" release is a Miles Davis concert package from 1966? (The only real competition is a Sonny Rollins largely drawn from last year's 80th-birthday celebration and documenting his encounter with fellow octogenarian Ornette Coleman; a live Coltrane from 1967 has been postponed indefinitely, or it, too, would be in the running.) Possibly just that jazz has veered in so many different directions since the period represented by these latest artifacts—and its cognoscenti has splintered into so many distrustful camps—that their appeal is greatly intensified by a longing for something resembling yesterday's near-unanimity of opinion regarding which figures were worth following wherever their muses and the... More >>>