Kind of Blue |
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Released: August 17, 1959 Recorded: March 2 and April 22, 1959 Peak: 2 US (catalog albums), 63 UK Sales (in millions): 5.0 US, 0.6 UK, 6.5 world (includes US and UK) Genre: jazz |
Tracks:
Total Running Time: 45:44 The Players:
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Rating: 4.559 out of 5.00 (average of 37 ratings)
Quotable:“Kind of Blue has been called the most famous and influential jazz recording of all time.” – Steve Marshall, The Night OwlAwards:(Click on award to learn more).
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The Best Jazz Album of All Time?“Kind of Blue has been called the most famous and influential jazz recording of all time.” NO “Although it took three decades to sell one million copies, it has sold another four million since Davis died in 1991,” YN making it the best-selling jazz album of all time. This is the jazz record.” CQ “It has been for many the gateway to the world of jazz.” TBTrumpeter and composer Miles Davis “left his most lasting mark” TL with Kind of Blue, an album that “isn’t merely an artistic highlight for Miles Davis, it’s an album that towers above its peers” AM and “has influenced generations of jazz and other musicians.” YN “Many consider this recording to be one of the most important jazz recordings of any era.” NRR It is “a foundation album for jazz fans, the cornerstone of any jazz collection.” CS Clarke Speicher, of The Review, calls it “the most important, as well as one of the most beautiful albums, in the history…[of] jazz.” RV “Kind of Blue became a how-to of jazz recordings, a standard by which all others would be judged.” RV “Seasoned jazz fans return to this record even after they’ve memorized every nuance.” AM “It is advanced music that is extraordinarily enjoyable.” AM This is “a perfect album to curl up with on a rainy day.” CQ “It may be a stretch to say that if you don’t like Kind of Blue, you don’t like jazz – but it’s hard to imagine it as anything other than a cornerstone of any jazz collection.” AM Influence on RockThe album has found a place “even in record collections that are otherwise jazz free.” TB “When you find jazzers, rock and popular music followers actually unanimously unite over one record, then you know something must be right.” CL “It’s music that transcends jazz.” CM Davis “was jazz’s rock star.” VB “Davis’ modal scales inspired the rock improvisers that would arrive 10 years later with Santana, Pink Floyd and the Allman Brothers. His horn phrasing would be copied by James Brown and in the hypnotic work of Phillip Glass and modern composers.” CMThe Impact of Miles DavisDavis had “already remade jazz in his own image several times over.” TL “The Birth of Cool introduced a smooth, sophisticated approach, and then Walkin’ heated things up again. His classic ‘50s quintet raised the bar for small-group improvisation.” TL As Miles Davis’ son Erin said, his father “was never one to dwell on the past and always moved on to embrace new styles.” YNModal JazzKind of Blue is “the pinnacle of modal jazz” AM and reinforced Davis’ “rep as a trendsetter and innovator.” BL “Where much jazz before…is rule ruled by fast-moving chordal schemes, the Kind of Blue songs slow things down – they’re organized around droning single chords, known as ‘modes,’ that can last for a long time.” TMJazz had been “largely based on chord progressions, limiting soloists in their efforts to improvise.” CS “When modal music was rediscovered by early-20th-century composers such as Claude Debussy and George Russell, it allowed soloists a greater degree of innovation…as they could now wander freely through the scales rather than be compelled to revisit important notes in a chord.” CS “A minimalist revolt against bebop’s self-celebrating complexity, Miles’ jaded innovation in modal music reduced jazz to pure and gorgeous ephemera.” EW’93 Davis described it this way: “I think a movement in jazz is beginning away from the conventional string of chords and a return to emphasis on melodic rather than harmonic variation. There will be fewer chords but infinite possibilities as to what to do with them.” JI This was “a style that Davis had worked with prior to recording Kind of Blue, but perfected here.” CQ The Players“To feel out the possibilities of this new sound, he assembled a legendary group.” PM He brought pianist Bill Evans, who “drew on classical composers such as Béla Bartók and Maurice Ravel,” CM back into the fold because “Davis saw a linkage with the blues.” CM The “unprecedented all-star team” TL also included John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Julian “Cannonball” Adderley on alto saxophone, Paul Chambers on bass, Jimmy Cobb on drums, and Wynton Kelly on piano. “This is an exceptional band…of the greatest in history, playing at the peak of its power.” AMDavis and Evans created outlines for the tracks but gave the freedom to the players to “show off what they could do without overshadowing their colleagues.” CS The album’s “perfection stems directly from how elegantly this approach allows the improvisation between musicians.” CQ This collection “tells what happens when thoughtful jazz musicians pursue ideas across a profoundly uncluttered canvas.” TM The RecordingThe album was captured in “less than ten hours of actual recording time at Columbia Records’ 30th Street Studio” YN in Manhattan on March 2, 1959, and April 22, 1959. “The studio was a big space, a hundred feet square with high ceilings; it could hold a symphony orchestra and classical recordings were often made there. Engineers and musicians valued its reverberant sound, resulting from the natural wooden surfaces.” TB Evans said all the songs on the album are first takes. CS“The iconic trumpeter rewrote the jazz rulebook with this liberating celebration of improv and mood.” UT “Modal music requires an improviser to conceptualize and organize ideas differently.” TM In the album’s original liner notes, Evans says “the band did not play through any of these pieces prior to recording. Davis laid out the themes before the tape rolled, and then the band improvised.” AM They wouldn’t know if they were recording or not when Davis called them into the studio. He “liked to capture the raw, spontaneous energy that came with a musician trying a piece for the first time.” CS “The glorious results…are simultaneously delicate and powerful, and teeming with life.” TL This is “the sound of musicians honoring the simplicity of a setting by listening closely, playing less, and saying more.” TM The SongsHere are insights into individual tracks.“So What” “From that moment on, the record never really changes pace – each tune has a similar relaxed feel, as the music flows easily.” AM “His songs sound deceptively simple, but more complicated harmonies lurk just beneath the surface. The sparseness shows a more introspective direction from the fast and furious sound of be-bop that had dominated jazz.” RV “So What” features “a neat call-and-answer idea between the bass and the other instruments. Miles Davis said the inspiration for the music came from two sources. One was the African folk rhythms and timings he had recently heard when watching the Ballet Africaine perform. The second was American church music, recalled from childhood when he lived on his grandfather’s farm.” TB
“Freddie Freeloader” “Blue in Green” “All Blues” “Flamenco Sketches” Notes:A 1997 reissue added an alternate take of “Flamenco Sketches.” In 2008, a two-disc version added more studio outtakes and additional songs. |
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First posted 8/17/2012; last updated 12/8/2024. |
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