'Round About Midnight - Reception and Influence

Reception and Influence

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
All About Jazz	(favorable) link
Allmusic	link
The Guardian	link
MusicHound	link
Penguin Guide to Jazz	link
PopMatters	(favorable) link
Rolling Stone	link
Virgin Encyclopedia	link
Warr	link

On release, 'Round About Midnight received an average reception. Ralph Berton of The Record Changer described it as "orthodox, middle-of-the-road conservative progressive jazz." The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings states that the recording "sounds like a footnote" to the Prestige contractual obligation sessions (eventually released as the albums Miles, Relaxin', Workin', Steamin', and Cookin'), and that "the material is fine but somehow fails to cast quite the consistent spell which the Prestige recordings do."

Throughout the years following its initial reception, 'Round About Midnight's standing among critics has improved significantly. Music writer Eugene Holley, Jr. later praised the album in a review, writing:

Stylistically, Midnight encompasses standards (or soon-to-be standards) such as "Dear Old Stockholm", "Bye-Bye Blackbird", Tadd Dameron's "Tadd's Delight", and Jackie McLean's forward-thinking composition "Little Melonae." Miles and company reprise "Budo" from the historic Birth of the Cool sessions. The standout track is Davis's Harmon-muted reading of Thelonious Monk's ballad, "'Round Midnight", which is still a Miles standard bearer... If you want to hear the origins of post-bop modern jazz, this is it.

Bob Rusch of Cadence wrote, "everything about this date, from the black-and-white cover photo, washed in red, of Miles Davis, removed in thought behind dark glasses, to the performances, is classic. Not surprisingly, careful packaging and exquisite artistry have created a legend and, in this case, one of the essential recordings in the history of recorded music."

Considered by most to be one of the pinnacles of the hard bop era, the song selection on Midnight represents a summation of the earlier bebop era, with the performances tempered by Davis' inherent lyricism but rooted in the new style as promoted by hard bop pioneers Art Blakey and Horace Silver with the Jazz Messengers, and the Max Roach/Clifford Brown quintet, in 1956 featuring ex-Davis foil Sonny Rollins. Coltrane had yet to become an iconic figure in jazz history, his presence in the Davis Quintet a let-down to many in lieu of the aforementioned Rollins. His style, while embryonically frenetic and searching, was not quite the sheets of sound approach celebrated later in the decade. In April 1957, Coltrane's heroin use would lead to his leaving Davis and working with Monk, and under Monk's tutelage the saxophonist's playing style solidified considerably.