Day 152: Miles Davis – Kind of Blue
As a general dork, I’m loving that I’m growing my musical knowledge with this project. If we say the albums on my list have had ten songs, that’s 1520 new things in my internal rolodex of music — after a full year, I’ll be unstoppable. But jazz is an area where I’m still sadly lacking, so today’s album is a classic of the genre, Kind of Blue by Miles Davis.
Album cover courtesy of Columbia Records
Miles Davis was an American trumpeter, composer and bandleader from Alton, Illinois. He made a name for himself as a groundbreaking jazz pioneer who tried a variety of musical directions throughout his career, from the psychedelic jazz fusion album Bitches Brew to the electronic funk record On the Corner, but his biggest record is his 1959 release Kind of Blue, which is frequently found on lists of the greatest albums of all time.
Kind of Blue was named after the mood that Davis said it conveys, and it featured saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, pianist Bill Evans, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Jimmy Cobb, as well as Wynton Kelly on the piano on "Freddie Freeloader". John Coltrane had previously been fired from the group by Miles Davis for his drug excesses, but he returned after he got sober and found God.
Bill Evans described how the album was made in the liner notes, with each band member getting a set of scales with parameters for their improvisation rather than chords:
Miles conceived these settings only hours before the recording dates and arrived with sketches which indicated to the group what was to be played. Therefore, you will hear something close to pure spontaneity in these performances. The group had never played these pieces prior to the recordings and I think without exception the first complete performance of each was a "take."
Kind of Blue is just impeccably simple and elegant where even for a jazz neophyte like me, it’s not hard to hear why it’s so appreciated. I was listening to it while I was cooking salmon and veg, a meal I’ve done about a million times before, but it was just subtly elevated by what I was listening to. I have this thing where I struggle a bit with being in the moment, but music like jazz and classical helps quiet the chattering in my brain and makes it easier to reach some sort of a flow state. I think it has to do with a lack of lyrics and variation. Frankly, it’s a miracle I’ve not discovered jazz sooner — I think it’s because of the inaccessibility and hoity-toity reputation, which is probably working as intended by keeping plebs like me away.
Going through some of the classic jazz albums feels like another world is opening, which is almost the point of this whole project. Kind of Blue is a solid 9.5/10, I learned something and had a great time doing it. I’ve got a few more classic albums to trawl through to build the base knowledge before I can get to Davis’ more experimental stuff.