"Airegin" from Cookin' with the Miles Davis Quintet is a blistering up-tempo performance of Sonny Rollins's composition, recorded during the famous 1956 marathon session at Rudy Van Gelder's studio. The tune, whose title is Nigeria spelled backward, is set in F minor with a 36-bar ABAC form at approximately 290 BPM. Miles Davis takes three trumpet choruses, his articulation crisp and his ideas flowing with controlled intensity at this demanding tempo. John Coltrane follows with three tenor saxophone choruses that display his growing command of fast harmonic movement, the "sheets of sound" approach that would soon transform modern jazz. The quintet's rhythm section of Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones provides a propulsive foundation that drives the performance forward with relentless swing. Rollins's composition, with its challenging harmonic structure and catchy melody, had already become a bebop standard by the mid-1950s, and the Davis quintet's treatment remains one of its definitive recordings. The Cookin' album, along with its companion releases Relaxin', Workin', and Steamin', documents the first Miles Davis Quintet at the peak of its powers, playing with the confidence and familiarity of a group that had spent months performing together nightly at clubs.
