During the era when Miles Davis played his vaunted stint at the Plugged Nickel in 1965, he had two distinct personas. When playing live, Davis led his "second great quintet" in the performance of lots of standards and familiar tunes from his own book. When recording in the studio, Davis turned over much of the composition to his young band, creatively advanced members (including Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock). But on these tunes the personalities merged, using the familiar to create great trampolines to edgy improvising. Shorter sounds beyond inspired, opening every phrase to vertical and horizontal inspection while (very young) drummer Tony Williams throws rhythms in every direction. If this collection whets the appetite for more, there"s also the deep and wide eight-CD Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel and the single-CD distillation, Highlights from the Plugged Nickel. --Andrew Bartlett