Music |
Miles Davis: Kind of Blue
By
Published: Jan 21, 2020
Category:
Jazz
The biggest sellers in any category are often cringeworthy.
One notable exception is the biggest-selling jazz record: “Kind of Blue.” Released in August of 1959, it’s #12 on Rolling Stone’s list of "500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” [To buy the CD of “Kind of Blue” from Amazon, click here. To buy the MP3 download, click here.]
There are reasons why this album is so significant. The musical ones are technical but boil down to this: Miles Davis changed the language of jazz from improvisation based on chords to threads based on scales. That opened the music up and maximized the opportunity for melodic sweetness.
The sound here: Hard bop’s vanished, noisy improvisation’s been sent packing. The trumpet is breathy, spacey, minimal; it’s a late-night walk on a deserted Paris street. The band is made up of giants: John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley on saxophone, Paul Chambers on bass, Jimmy Cobb on drums, and the pianists Wynton Kelly and Bill Evans. They recorded with no rehearsal and minimal conversation — all the musicians had to work with were sketches of scales.
None of that really matters. What counts is what you hear — and the welcome news this time is that the music which breaks tradition and makes history is surprisingly easy to listen to. Most of the songs are slow, trance-like, relaxed; this is Barry White for hipsters. Any fool can hear this CD and feel space opening up and possibility enlarging — it’s at once totally serious and extremely accessible.
The proof is in the listening. And for half a century, the listeners and critics agree: If you own only one jazz record….
… but if you’re buying two by Miles Davis, click here.
