Craft Recordings is continuing its year-long Miles Davis centennial celebration with Miles ’56: The Prestige Recordings, a new box set focused on the trumpeter’s influential 1956 Prestige Records sessions, which turn 70 next year. Arriving June 19, 2026 the collection includes selections from Cookin’, Relaxin’, Workin’, Steamin’, and other material recorded during that time period.
The release follows Craft’s GRAMMY-winning Miles ’55 box set, which I previously reviewed and found absolutely stellar in both sound and presentation. Miles ’56 looks like a similarly serious archival project: all audio was transferred from the original analog tapes, restored by Plangent Processes, remastered by GRAMMY-winning engineer Paul Blakemore, and cut for the 180-gram 4-LP edition by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio.
The set will also be available as a 3-CD edition and in hi-res digital, with both physical formats including a new essay by Ashley Kahn and track notes by the late Dan Morgenstern.
The 1956 Sessions That Closed One Chapter and Built the Next
For Miles Davis, 1956 was not about reinvention. It was about execution. The first consistent working version of the Miles Davis Quintet had come together only months earlier, but the group was already operating like a band that had been on the road for years. The lineup was direct and effective: John Coltrane on tenor sax, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums.
After recording Miles: The New Miles Davis Quintet in late 1955, they spent most of their time doing what bands are supposed to do. Playing. Touring across North America, holding down residencies, and sharpening a set that leaned on what worked. Ballads, burners, and blues. Standards like “My Funny Valentine” sat next to bebop staples like “Salt Peanuts,” with material from Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, and Ahmad Jamal mixed in. Davis originals such as “Half Nelson” and “Four” were part of the rotation.
By 1956, Davis was drawing attention from everywhere that mattered. Critics, labels, other musicians. He signed with Columbia Records while still under contract with Prestige Records, with Bob Weinstock agreeing to let him finish out the deal on his own terms. That meant two long sessions at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in Hackensack on May 11 and October 26. Hot dogs at Hirams in Fort Lee would follow those very long and productive recording sessions in northern New Jersey.
Those sessions were not treated like careful studio productions. They were run like live sets. The quintet walked in, played what they knew, and moved on. No overthinking, no polishing things to death. The result was a body of work that ended up spread across four albums: Cookin’, Relaxin’, Workin’, and Steamin’. Different release dates, same core material, same band, same approach. Unlike the Toronto Maple Leafs and New York Rangers in 2026 — there were no passengers watching Miles do his thing.
There was also an earlier 1956 session on March 16 that gets folded into this story, even if it does not quite fit the same mold. That date brought in Sonny Rollins on tenor and Tommy Flanagan on piano, alongside Chambers and Art Taylor. It marked Davis’ final studio session with Rollins and his only recorded collaboration with Flanagan. The material included “Vierd Blues,” “No Line,” and Dave Brubeck’s “In Your Own Sweet Way,” later released on Collectors’ Items.
And here’s the part nobody should ignore: these sessions are not exactly buried treasure. They’ve been issued, reissued, remastered, and given the full audiophile treatment across vinyl, CD, and SACD more times than most catalogs get in a lifetime. Which makes this new set less about discovery and more about execution. The real question is simple; how does it sound compared to everything that came before it? Having already spent a considerable amount of money on all of them — many audiophiles will want to know before they commit.
Where to pre-order: $139.98 at Amazon (4 LP) or $35.98 at Amazon (3 CD)
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