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This chapter outlines the history of the Miles Davis Quintet, one of the most important and influential performers of jazz music. It examines their compositions, recordings, and their working methods inside the studio. It describes how their conventional practices of extended improvisation and heightened group interaction were groundbreaking, contributing significantly to the jazz repertory. Their innovations also serve as a cornerstone of contemporary jazz composition. Great importance is put on the quintet's departure from chorus structure, and their experiment of “controlled freedom”, where they maximized their creativity, spontaneity, and interaction. The chapter also discusses the background careers of each of the members, highlighting in particular what they brought into the quintet.

This chapter provides some general analytical frameworks relevant to the Davis quintet studio recordings. It defines terms such as “modal jazz”, and provides overviews of strategies used by the group in refining their improvisational techniques. On the topic of pitch, it considers the motivic cells, motivic improvisation, and phrase overlap. In the area of meter, it covers accentual shift, metrical conflict, and metric modulation. It examines the interaction of larger metrical groupings or hypermeter and form, and suggests how the quintet enhanced formal ambiguity in improvisation by masking sectional and formal divisions. It also delves further into the idea of “controlled freedom”, describing the group's interest in uniting traditional jazz approaches with avant-garde ones, and how this affected their approaches to improvisation by indicating a series of intermediate levels between strict adherence to chorus structure on the one hand, and its complete abandonment on the other.

This chapter explores the quintet's approach to the studio recording of the album Miles Smiles, known for its effortless negotiation between the traditional and experimental. It analyzes the album's singles, namely, “Orbits”, “Circle”, “Footprints”, “Dolores”, “Freedom Jazz Dance”, and “Ginger Bread Boy”. It discusses the harmonic structure of each, concerning the head, improvisations, and mode/scale organization. It looks into how the Miles Davis Quintet further developed their celebrated sense of airy openness and space by highlighting their studio techniques and indicating each member's contributions to the composition of songs.

This chapter evaluates the final two albums of the Miles Davis Quintet, namely, Miles in the Sky and Filles de Kilimanjaro. It examines the group's attempt to mix jazz with rock elements on the albums through the use of electric piano and electric bass, single extended tonal centers for improvisation, and importation of rock based straight-eighth rhythms. Both compositions were significant predecessors for Davis's fusion work later in his career, with the use of rock rhythms, pedal point improvisation, and harmonic language somewhat sparer than earlier recordings. The chapter also analyzes the singles “Country Son”, “Paraphernalia”, “Black Comedy”, and “Stuff” from Miles in the Sky, and “Petit Machins”, “Tout de suite”, and “Filles de Kilimanjaro” from Filles de Kilimanjaro.

This chapter discusses the legacy of the Miles Davis Quintet to jazz music. It describes how the members' longevity in the music industry helped make the quintet's compositions a part of the jazz standard repertory. It explores how Miles Davis and the other members who formed their own groups were essential to the development of fusion music in the 1960s and 1970s, with their use of electronic instruments, funk and rock rhythms, extended pedal point and ostinato figures, and sparer harmonic textures. It also considers the quintet's influence in the hard bop resurgence of 1980s, where groups that were indebted to the improvisational approaches of the quintet emerged.

This chapter examines the musical composition of the album The Sorcerer by the Miles Davis Quintet. It considers the group's practice of placing complete or partial statements of the head's melody between or within solos. It discusses the singles “Vonetta”, “Prince of Darkness”, “Masqualero”, “Pee Wee”, and “Limbo”, analyzing their use of a syncopated harmonic progression which typically appears near the end of the composition's form. It considers how the feature operates as a compositional release, one that operates in the absence of standard bridge sections or harmonic turnarounds at the end of the repeating form. It also highlights Wayne Shorter's improvisation on “Vonetta”, and Miles Davis's and Herbie Hancock's improvisations to “Prince of Darkness.”

This chapter outlines the studio recording of the album E.S.P., the first album where the members of the Davis quintet steered away from their hard bop roots. It first provides a brief overview of the innovations made during the studio recording, mainly emphasizing the reliance on slow harmonic rhythm, softer dynamic range, and a heightened use of space. It examines the singles “Iris”, “Little One”, “E.S.P.”, and “Agitation”, and analyzes their harmonic progressions and chorus structure. It also examines the individual harmonies from the standpoint of underlying modal/scalar collections, showing how some of the harmonic progressions reflect modal changes that shift by a single pitch.

This chapter discusses the musical structure of the album Nefertiti by the Miles Davis Quintet. The album became a pivotal event for the group in terms of harmonic structure and composition. The chapter describes the album's unusual step of performing without improvisations by trumpet, saxophone, and piano; and how it only consisted of repeated statements of the melody, with shifting accompaniment provided by the rhythm section which effectively reversed the roles for horns and rhythms. It explains the reasons for these changes, stressing the group's continuing practice of highlighting compositional melody on the recordings. It also analyzes the album's singles, “Hand Jive”, “Nefertiti”, “Madness”, “Pinocchio”, and “Riot.”