The 10 Best Miles Davis Albums, Ranked

Our ranking of the 10 best Miles Davis albums puts Kind of Blue (1959) at No. 1, ahead of Bitches Brew (1970) and In a Silent Way (1969). The list covers every stage of his recording career, from the Birth of the Cool sessions of 1949-1950 to the funk of On the Corner (1972), and for each album we give the label, the recording dates, the band and the tracks to hear first.

The Top 10 at a Glance

This is an editorial ranking, not a poll. We weighed what each record changed in jazz, how well it holds together as an album and the playing, and we kept every major period of his career on the list. For the life behind the records, read our Miles Davis biography.

Miles Davis Albums Ranked from 1 to 10

1. Kind of Blue (1959)

Columbia, released August 17, 1959. Recorded on March 2 and April 22, 1959, at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in New York by Davis’s sextet: John Coltrane (tenor saxophone), Cannonball Adderley (alto saxophone), Bill Evans (piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Jimmy Cobb (drums), with Wynton Kelly replacing Evans on “Freddie Freeloader.” Produced by Irving Townsend.

Instead of fast chord changes, most of the five pieces give the soloists a few scales to work with, which leaves room for long melodic lines and silence; our guide to how modal jazz works explains the idea. There was almost no rehearsal; in the original liner notes Bill Evans wrote that “Miles conceived these settings only hours before the recording dates.” “So What” is 32 bars, 16 on D Dorian, 8 on E-flat Dorian and 8 on D Dorian again, with the bass stating the theme and the band answering. “Blue in Green” is a 10-bar cycle; the LP credits Davis, but Evans later said he wrote it, and his trio’s version on Portrait in Jazz credits both.

The Library of Congress chose it for the first class of the National Recording Registry in 2002, and the RIAA certified it five times platinum in 2019. Until August 2026, when A Charlie Brown Christmas reached 6x Platinum, no jazz album had a higher US certification. Start with “So What” and “Blue in Green.”

2. Bitches Brew (1970)

Columbia, released March 30, 1970, as a double LP. Recorded August 19-21, 1969, in New York with Wayne Shorter (soprano saxophone), Bennie Maupin (bass clarinet), Joe Zawinul and Chick Corea (electric piano, with Larry Young on some tracks), John McLaughlin (guitar), Dave Holland (double bass), Harvey Brooks (electric bass), Lenny White and Jack DeJohnette (drums), and Don Alias and Juma Santos (percussion). Produced by Teo Macero.

The band played long, loosely sketched pieces over rock and funk rhythms, often with two bassists, two or three drummers and two or three keyboard players at once, and Macero built the finished tracks from the tapes. According to Paul Tingen’s research, Zawinul’s “Pharaoh’s Dance” (20:07) contains 19 edits, and its stop-start opening was assembled in the studio from repeated loops. “Miles Runs the Voodoo Down” is the only track released exactly as it was played.

This is the album that popularized jazz-rock, and it is No. 1 on our list of the best jazz fusion albums. It reached No. 35 on the Billboard 200, won the 1971 Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, became his first gold record in 1976, went platinum in 2003 and entered the National Recording Registry in 2025. Start with “Miles Runs the Voodoo Down,” then “Pharaoh’s Dance.”

3. In a Silent Way (1969)

Columbia, released July 30, 1969. Recorded in one three-hour session on February 18, 1969, at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio with Shorter (soprano saxophone), McLaughlin (guitar), Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea (electric piano), Joe Zawinul (electric piano and organ), Dave Holland (bass) and Tony Williams (drums). Produced by Teo Macero.

Music writers generally treat it as Davis’s first fusion album, the point where the electric piano and bass he had tried on Miles in the Sky and Filles de Kilimanjaro (both recorded in 1968) took over a whole record. Macero assembled two side-long tracks from the session takes, “Shhh/Peaceful” (18:16) and “In a Silent Way/It’s About That Time” (19:52), each opening and closing with the same passage. Zawinul brought “In a Silent Way” with a full set of chord changes; Davis cut them away and left a simple melody over a pedal point. He asked McLaughlin, who had been in the United States for less than two weeks, to play the guitar as if he were a beginner. If Bitches Brew feels like too much at first, begin here, with “In a Silent Way/It’s About That Time.”

4. Birth of the Cool (1957)

Capitol, released in early 1957. Recorded on January 21 and April 22, 1949, and March 9, 1950, in New York by a nonet with Lee Konitz (alto saxophone), Gerry Mulligan (baritone saxophone), Bill Barber (tuba), a French horn, trombone (Kai Winding, then J.J. Johnson) and Max Roach or Kenny Clarke on drums. Arrangements by Mulligan, Gil Evans, John Lewis and John Carisi.

Davis was 22 at the first session. The band took the French horn, tuba and vibrato-free sound of Claude Thornhill’s orchestra, where Evans, Mulligan and Konitz had worked, into pieces of about three minutes. On Lewis’s arrangement of “Move,” trumpet and alto carry the melody, baritone and tuba play counterpoint and trombone and horn fill in the harmony. Of the 12 sides, Capitol put eleven on the 1957 LP; “Darn That Dream” was added in 1972. These recordings are regarded as a starting point of cool jazz, which Mulligan, Lewis and Konitz carried through the 1950s. Start with “Boplicity” and “Move.”

5. Sketches of Spain (1960)

Columbia, released July 18, 1960. Recorded November 15 and 20, 1959, and March 10, 1960, at the 30th Street Studio with a large orchestra arranged and conducted by Gil Evans. It was the first Davis album produced by Teo Macero.

This is the third of the Davis and Evans orchestral albums, after Miles Ahead (1957) and Porgy and Bess (1959). Its centerpiece is a 16-minute version of the Adagio from Joaquín Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, a guitar concerto, with Davis playing the guitar melody on flugelhorn and later trumpet. Evans said they had planned to record only the Concierto, then got into Spanish folk music; “Saeta” is named for the songs sung during Holy Week processions. The record is often cited as a model of third stream, the blend of jazz and classical music that Gunther Schuller named in 1957. It won Davis and Evans the 1961 Grammy for Best Jazz Composition of More Than Five Minutes Duration, his first of eight Grammys from 32 nominations, according to the Recording Academy. Start with “Concierto de Aranjuez” and “Solea.”

6. A Tribute to Jack Johnson (1971)

Columbia, released February 24, 1971, as Jack Johnson; reissues carry the longer title. The two tracks were drawn mainly from an April 7, 1970, session with John McLaughlin (guitar), Herbie Hancock (organ), Michael Henderson (electric bass) and Billy Cobham (drums), which Macero edited together with material from February 1970.

Davis wrote the music for Bill Cayton’s documentary about Jack Johnson, the first Black world heavyweight boxing champion, and said he wanted to put together “the greatest rock and roll band you have ever heard” (quoted in Paul Tingen’s Miles Beyond). It is his most openly rock-based album. “Right Off” (26:53) rides a boogie groove with a riff based on Sly and the Family Stone’s “Sing a Simple Song.” “Yesternow” (25:34) is built on a slightly altered version of the bass line from James Brown’s “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud” and ends with actor Brock Peters speaking as Johnson. Start with “Right Off.”

7. Nefertiti (1968)

Columbia, released March 1968. Recorded over four dates between June 7 and July 19, 1967, at the 30th Street Studio by the Second Great Quintet: Davis, Wayne Shorter (tenor saxophone), Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass) and Tony Williams (drums).

On the title track the horns repeat Shorter’s melody again and again without taking solos while Hancock, Carter and Williams improvise underneath, reversing the usual roles. Davis wrote none of the six tunes: Shorter wrote three (“Nefertiti,” “Fall,” “Pinocchio”), Hancock two (“Madness,” “Riot”) and Williams one (“Hand Jive”). It was the quintet’s fourth album and Davis’s last fully acoustic one; his next, Miles in the Sky, brought in electric piano and bass. Start with “Nefertiti” and “Fall.”

8. E.S.P. (1965)

Columbia, released August 16, 1965. Recorded January 20-22, 1965, at Columbia’s studios in Hollywood, this was the first album by the quintet with Shorter, Hancock, Carter and Williams. Produced by Irving Townsend.

There are no ballads or standards here, only new tunes by the band: Shorter’s title track and “Iris,” Carter’s “R.J.,” Hancock’s “Little One,” Davis’s “Agitation,” and “Eighty-One” and “Mood” by Carter and Davis. Several of them break the usual 32-bar song form: “Mood” runs 13 bars and “R.J.” 19. The critic Brian Morton points out that “Eighty-One,” with its strong backbeat and repeating bass line, already leans toward rock, years before Bitches Brew. It is the natural first stop if you want to follow the quintet through Miles Smiles (1967) and Nefertiti. Start with “E.S.P.” and “Eighty-One.”

9. ‘Round About Midnight (1957)

Columbia, released March 4, 1957, his first album for the label. Recorded on October 26, 1955, and June 5 and September 10, 1956, by the first great quintet: John Coltrane (tenor saxophone), Red Garland (piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Philly Joe Jones (drums). Produced by George Avakian.

Avakian was in the audience at the 1955 Newport Jazz Festival when Davis played Thelonious Monk’s “‘Round Midnight” in an all-star jam session, and Columbia signed him soon after; the studio version of that tune opens the album. The October 1955 session that produced “Ah-Leu-Cha” was the quintet’s first studio recording. To finish his Prestige contract, the same band cut the 1956 sessions that became Cookin’, Relaxin’, Workin’ and Steamin’. Ralph J. Gleason gave it five stars in DownBeat in May 1957. For hard bop listeners, this is the Davis album to own first. Start with “‘Round Midnight” and “Bye Bye Blackbird.”

10. On the Corner (1972)

Columbia, released October 11, 1972. Recorded on June 1, June 6 and July 7, 1972, in New York with a changing cast including Michael Henderson (bass), John McLaughlin (guitar), Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea (keyboards), several drummers, electric sitar and tabla, with Davis’s trumpet run through a wah-wah pedal. Produced by Teo Macero.

In his autobiography Davis described the music as a mix of ideas from Paul Buckmaster, Sly Stone, James Brown and Karlheinz Stockhausen, plus what he had absorbed from Ornette Coleman. He hoped to reach young Black listeners who had moved to funk; instead it was one of his worst-selling albums, and jazz critics scorned it. The sleeve credited no musicians. Its reputation has grown since, and many writers outside jazz now hear it as a forerunner of post-punk, electronica and hip-hop. Start with the opening suite, four titles run together over one groove, then “Black Satin.”

Which Miles Davis Album Should You Start With?

• New to jazz: Kind of Blue, then ‘Round About Midnight for the first quintet and Sketches of Spain for Davis with an orchestra.
• Comfortable with standards and bebop: E.S.P., then Miles Smiles and Nefertiti.
• Coming from rock, funk or electronic music: In a Silent Way, then Bitches Brew, A Tribute to Jack Johnson and On the Corner.

Near Misses

Milestones (Columbia, 1958) added Adderley to the quintet, and its title track points toward Kind of Blue. Miles Ahead (1957) and Porgy and Bess (1959) are the other orchestral albums with Gil Evans. The four Prestige quintet albums from 1956 and Miles Smiles (1967) were close calls, as were Filles de Kilimanjaro (1969), Get Up with It (1974) and Agharta, recorded live in Osaka in 1975. For the wider picture, see our list of the best jazz albums of all time, and for Davis on his own work, our collection of Miles Davis quotes.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best Miles Davis album to start with?

Kind of Blue (1959). The tempos are relaxed, most tunes rest on a few scales instead of fast chord changes, and the band includes John Coltrane and Bill Evans. Then try ‘Round About Midnight (1957) or Sketches of Spain (1960).

What are Miles Davis’s most important albums?

Four albums mark the biggest turns in his career: Birth of the Cool (recorded 1949-1950), a starting point of cool jazz; Kind of Blue (1959), the landmark of modal jazz; In a Silent Way (1969), generally seen as his first fusion record; and Bitches Brew (1970), the double album that brought jazz-rock to a large audience. Kind of Blue and Bitches Brew are both in the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry.

Is Kind of Blue the best-selling jazz album?

Not any more, if you go by US certifications. The RIAA certified Kind of Blue five times platinum in 2019, and for years no jazz album had a higher certification. In August 2026 Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas was certified six times platinum, which puts Kind of Blue second.

How many albums did Miles Davis record?

The Miles Davis discography on Wikipedia counts at least 60 studio albums and 39 live albums, plus 46 compilations and 27 box sets, and archival releases keep adding to it. He recorded for Prestige and other labels in the early 1950s, for Columbia from 1955 to 1985, and for Warner Bros. after that.