Day 259: Miles Davis – Ballads & Blues

I’m in the mood to take it as easy as I possibly can today. Step one to that is to choose an album by an artist I’ve already covered and step two is to choose a very chill album that I can relax to. I’ve covered Miles Davis on day 152 and day 188 so that’s half of my work done already, and the compilation album Ballads & Blues is nothing if not chill.

Album cover courtesy of Blue Note

The album consists of recordings that were done between 1950 and 1958, featuring artists like Cannonball Adderley, Horace Silver and Hank Jones. It also has a cover of a song that was written by a man called West Arkeen, who was best known for co-writing a lot of songs for Guns N’ Roses, which was a crossover I didn’t expect. It was compiled from the Birth of the Cool sessions and early Blue Note sessions, with one song taken from Cannonball Adderley’s album Somethin’ Else.

There’s no denying that it’s good: there’s a reason why this man is seen as the greatest of all time. But at least with my very limited knowledge and understanding of jazz, it wasn’t something that blew me away as something incredibly special. It’s a great album to have in the background while you’re doing something else, but a compilation album isn’t necessarily where you’d go to have a transcendent experience with music anyway.

That being said, while it’s not my favourite of the Miles Davis records I’ve listened to, it’s still a perfectly pleasant background album in and of itself. I might even put it on again in the future when I need something nice on that doesn’t take away too much of my attention. With that, I can’t go any lower than an 8/10.