As copyrights expire, under the 50-year rule, more and more great albums are starting to enter the public domain. You’ve been able to pick up dirt cheap reissues of 1940s greats – Sinatra, Ella and the like – for years, but mid-1950s masterpieces are now being reissued on el cheapo labels.
Elvis Presley’s 1956 recordings were the first to get the £2 supermarket treatment: the floodgates have opened.
The best deal I’ve seen so far is a new reissue of classic 1950s albums by Miles Davis’s first great quintet, including Coltrane, for three different labels – Prestige, CBS and Philips.
Last week, I bought Miles Away (3CD box, on the Not Now label) at Fopp for £5. Worth a punt, I mused – though it’s probably crappy off-air live recordings.
Not at all. It contains remastered versions of no fewer than six original must-have Miles albums: Cookin’, Relaxin’, Steamin’, Round about Midnight, Miles Ahead and l’Ascenseur pour l’Echafaud. A wonderful package.
If you’ve been thinking of sampling Miles Davis, but have put it off – now’s the time.
Classic Miles albums at 83 pence each? Whatever next?
Gerry Smith
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