"It Could Happen to You" is a graceful medium-tempo performance from Miles Davis's 1956 Prestige album Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet. Jimmy Van Heusen's 32-bar ABAC standard is taken at approximately 188 bpm in E-flat, providing an ideal canvas for the quintet's interactive approach to jazz improvisation. Davis opens with two trumpet choruses of lyrical beauty, his muted tone warm and inviting, his phrasing marked by the melodic logic that made every Davis solo sound inevitable. John Coltrane follows with three searching tenor saxophone choruses that push deeper into the tune's harmonic structure, exploring substitutions and extensions that expand the harmonic vocabulary. Red Garland rounds out the solos with two choruses of tasteful piano. The medium tempo brings out the best in both horn players, allowing Davis's cool lyricism and Coltrane's passionate intensity to coexist within the same performance. The rhythm section of Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones supports the soloists with a swing feel so natural it seems effortless, the hallmark of a group that had spent countless hours on the bandstand together.
