Get free downloads of rare material from Miles Davis, Human Arts Ensemble

A recent perusal of selected music-sharing blogs turned up three St. Louis-related jazz albums available for free downloading.

Via Penny Tray, Miles Davis All-Stars Live in 1968-59 featuring John Coltrane collects a number of radio airchecks (recordings from live broadcasts) of Miles Davis from the time when his group included such now-legendary players as saxophonists John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderly, bassist Paul Chambers, pianists Red Garland and Bill Evans, and drummers Philly Joe Jones and Jimmy Cobb.

It features a good chunk of the band's customary pre-Kind of Blue repertoire, as performed at Birdland and Cafe Bohemia in NYC and the Spotlight in Washington D.C., as well as one cut from a TV appearance featuring Miles, Cannonball, Garland and an all-star band.

The next two albums come from Nothing Is. First is Miles Davis: Philly May 12 & 17, 1975, a bootleg of a show from a Philadelphia club called Just Jazz. The band includes Davis on trumpet and organ, Sam Morrison (soprano sax, tenor sax, flute), Pete Cosey (guitar, percussion), Reggie Lucas (guitar), Michael Henderson (electric bass), Al Foster (drums), and James "Mtume" Foreman (conga, percussion).

Regarding the session's origins, the post by NI blogger James Benjamin says, "Don't know much about this one other than that the recording is from May of 1975 right as Miles was getting ready to retire. The set is pretty much what one might expect to hear at a Miles gig around that time. Sound quality is a bit dodgy (as one would expect from a bootleg live recording), but gives a decent idea of how Miles and band were sounding at the time."

Finally, also from Nothing Is comes the Human Arts Ensemble's Streets of St. Louis, ripped from a long out-of-print 1978 Moers Music LP. This session was recorded September 6, 1974 at NYC's Studio Rivbea by a band including Charles "Bobo" Shaw (drums), Lester Bowie (trumpet), Hamiet Bluiett (baritone sax), Julius Hemphill (pictured, alto sax), Joseph Bowie (trombone), Abdul Wadud (cello) and Dominique Gaumont (guitar). The cuts include "Streets of St. Louis", "Miles Beyond", "Entensity Big" and "Hard Light".

As always with these sorts of things, there's no telling how long these downloads will be available, so if you're interested, it would be best to act quickly.