Reissue of Miles Davis' 'Kind of Blue' reignites the debate

[Lois Gilbert]

Reissue of Miles Davis' 'Kind of Blue' reignites the debate: Greatest jazz record ever?

12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, September 28, 2008
By THOR CHRISTENSEN / The Dallas Morning News
tchristensen@dallasnews.com

Kind of Blue was just 3 years old in 1962, but Miles Davis was already fed up with the spotlight that album and its successors were shining on him.

"It bugs me, because I'm not that important," the trumpeter told Playboy. "Why is it that people have so much to say about me?"If he were alive, the grumpy genius probably wouldn't be happy about the lavish 50th birthday party being given to Kind of Blue, which comes out Tuesday as a four-disc box set with a list price of $110.

Nor would he agree with its reputation as the best album in jazz history – although he'd have a tough time convincing the world. So many critics and fans agree on the greatest-ever label that it's all but etched in marble.

The problem is that as sublime as the album is, it's too mellow to be canonized as the ultimate achievement in jazz, a music born in rowdy bordellos, bars and dance halls.

As the title suggests, Kind of Blue isn't so much a jazz album as an experiment in the blues. It's mournful, melancholy and slower than molasses in January.

"Miles sounded lonely, like he was sitting alone on an iceberg on the North Pole," Kind of Blue drummer Jimmy Cobb said in Made in Heaven, a 2005 short film about the album.

That's exactly the remote quality Mr. Davis was going for.

"The music has to have air in it – you can't fill all the holes," Mr. Davis told the St. Petersburg Times shortly before he died in 1991.

In the spring of 1959, 32-year-old Miles Dewey Davis III was at a crossroads.

He'd found fame more than a decade earlier in saxophonist Charlie Parker's band, but he struggled to lead his own group after he and various bandmates got addicted to heroin.

Eventually, he kicked the drug cold turkey and put together a dream team for Kind of Blue, featuring sax ace John Coltrane. The glue was Bill Evans, a classically trained pianist-composer whose introspective style jibed well with Mr. Davis' less-is-more approach.

Both Mr. Davis and Mr. Evans were already experts at cool jazz, but they envisioned Kind of Blue as a total deep freeze. Their secret weapon was modal jazz – a then-new concept where musicians improvised over basic scales, or modes, instead of complex chords.

Mr. Davis didn't invent modal jazz. But in one grand stroke, he taught the world how liberating it could be.

"It's one thing to just play a tune, but it's another thing to practically create a new language of music, which is what Kind of Blue did," pianist Chick Corea said in the book Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece.

It was the language of simplicity. Recorded in the frantic era of rock 'n' roll, bebop and free-form jazz, Kind of Blue is a 45-minute meditation that holds its mood from the whispered start of "So What" to the last fading piano note of "Flamenco Sketches."

But the album wouldn't be nearly as haunting if not for its brilliant improvisation – especially Mr. Davis' solos, which recall Frank Sinatra's hushed ballad singing. Improv is a notoriously hit-and-miss art – as proven by the Grateful Dead – but Mr. Davis' whole band was so sharp that almost every song on Blue is a first take.

Released on Aug. 17, 1959, the album wasn't a huge commercial hit like Dave Brubeck's Time Out, the year's other cool-jazz classic. But critics raved, with Downbeat calling Mr. Davis' album remarkable and comparing the music to Maurice Ravel and Belá Bartók.

With time, the album's profile mushroomed so much it became one of the top-selling jazz albums ever, with three million copies sold in the U.S. and an estimated 10 million worldwide. Today, it's the only jazz CD a lot of people own: It's the rare album that works not only as art, but as background music for the bedroom.

"If you want a record to make love to, Kind of Blue is that record," Herbie Hancock said in Made in Heaven.

As Norah Jones reminded us with her 2002 monster hit, Come Away With Me, the world loves a romantic mood-setting album. But calling Kind of Blue the all-time best jazz album is like calling Joni Mitchell's Blue or Van Morrison's Astral Weeks the best rock albums ever. Sure, they're masterpieces, but they rarely rock.

And while Duke Ellington might have been generalizing with "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)," he had a point. Kind of Blue doesn't swing, at least not as hard as classic albums by Ellington, Coltrane and Parker, not to mention Mr. Davis' own jazz-rock masterpiece, Bitches Brew.

None of which detracts a bit from the brilliance of Blue – just from its debatable status as the greatest album in jazz history.

[Gentle Giant]

I was just thinking about this the other night. I could name parts of numerous albums - Love Supreme, Blues and Abstract Truth, dozens of others - that are perhaps "better" in some way than Kind of Blue, but then you spin KOB and it's like, DAMN! You think you know every note already and it shouldn't stand out like it does, but it does! There's a reason why it's so exalted. It's not the most complex music, it doesn't really burn, there's not a lot of chill-inducing solos, but taken as a whole, it achieves a perfection of a sort, in that it's pretty much objectively extraordinary music yet completely accessible at the same time. It may or may not be the best jazz album in history, but name one that could supplant it with less debate.

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by Lois Gilbert

As Norah Jones reminded us with her 2002 monster hit, Come Away With Me, the world loves a romantic mood-setting album. But calling Kind of Blue the all-time best jazz album is like calling Joni Mitchell's Blue or Van Morrison's Astral Weeks the best rock albums ever. Sure, they're masterpieces, but they rarely rock.

Very true, and you can add Pet Sounds to that list.

[Rob Damen]

The problem is that as sublime as the album is, it's too mellow to be canonized as the ultimate achievement in jazz, a music born in rowdy bordellos, bars and dance halls.

And while Duke Ellington might have been generalizing with "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)," he had a point. Kind of Blue doesn't swing, at least not as hard as classic albums by Ellington, Coltrane and Parker, not to mention Mr. Davis' own jazz-rock masterpiece, Bitches Brew. ... None of which detracts a bit from the brilliance of Blue – just from its debatable status as the greatest album in jazz history.

I fundamentally agree with TC in that I've always liked other albums, and Miles records like "Milestones" or "Porgy and Bess" or "Miles Ahead," better than KOB, but his rationale for lowering it is funny because it comes close to the "is it or is it not jazz" question that others receive heavy criticism for posing. That it comes from a critic just makes it hilariously hypocritical.

Why not "Sketches of Spain" while we're at it?

That's the biggest "jazz elephant" in the room on that question.

I recall David Marsh doing something similar to this when it came to Rock and Soul music, essentially dismissing anything within the last 50 years that wasn't based in R&B, meaning that lots of punk and post-punk became discommunicated. Later, he added the likes of U2, REM and Nirvana to his listings, but I'm still pissed, no, baffled, at his omission of Public Enemy while he continues to slather praise on rap groups that were far less important and accomplished. He likes rap but missed a lot of the great records people were listening to at the time.

Calling Kind of Blue the all-time best jazz album is like calling Joni Mitchell's Blue or Van Morrison's Astral Weeks the best rock albums ever. Sure, they're masterpieces, but they rarely rock.

Why ignore the biggest "rock elephant" in the room:

Sgt. Peppers' Loney Hearts Club Band

.. a masterpiece (no, THE masterpiece) that is most criticized for not being rock enough.

Paginig Jim DeRogatis ... Piero Scaruffi.

Cheers,

Rob

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by Rob Damen

Why not "Sketches of Spain" while we're at it?

I adore SOS so much that I never care to think whether or not it's jazz. And ultimately, what's the point of arguing what it is if what it is is so damn good in the first place?

Why ignore the biggest "rock elephant" in the room:

Sgt. Peppers' Loney Hearts Club Band

.. a masterpiece (no, THE masterpiece) that is most criticized for not being rock enough.

I criticize Pepper because it's just not good enough. I'd put at least four Beatles albums ahead of it alone.

[Rob Damen]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

I adore SOS so much that I never care to think whether or not it's jazz. And ultimately, what's the point of arguing what it is if what it is is so damn good in the first place?

Very nice! That's been my point here for years.

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

I criticize Pepper because it's just not good enough. I'd put at least four Beatles albums ahead of it alone.

Regardless of your personal feelings, Pepper is widely considered the GOAT of rock music, much as KOB is in jazz. What's interesting is their status has attracted the exact same kind of criticism, namely that they're not somehow representative of their respective musical styles. That the argument is the same in two entirely different forms is most interesting. It goes to the very nature of critical thought when it must address a larger public and/or critical consensus.

As an interesting side note, Bach's "Mass in B Minor" holds much the same position in classical music, although many have noted over the years that it is not, in fact, how a formal mass would be presented or composed generally.

Cheers,

Rob

[Paul B]

Originally Posted by Rob Damen

As an interesting side note, Bach's "Mass in B Minor" holds much the same position in classical music, although many have noted over the years that it is not, in fact, how a formal mass would be presented or composed generally.

Cheers,

Rob

Not trying to be contentious, but can you provide some support for this? In more than thirty years of listening to classical music, I've never heard any single composition referred to as the piece the same way KOB is referred to as the jazz album. If there were rough consensus on such a piece, I'd guess it would be something more along the lines of Bach's Goldberg Variations, Beethoven's late sonatas, or the Chopin etudes and preludes—though of course another listener might come up with other choices.

Incidentally, the piece Lois posted up top seems pretty fatuous. KOB doesn't swing? Is too mellow? Come on. Comments like these essentially undermine the writer's other points. It's not my favorite jazz record, but it's not hard to understand why it's immensely popular.

[shrugs]

when will the Boomers shut the fuck up about the Beatles!?

They were ok for a few minutes when I was exploring all musics...

But on the same level as KOB or SOS or ALS?

[Paul B]

Originally Posted by shrugs

when will the Boomers shut the fuck up about the Beatles!?

They were ok for a few minutes when I was exploring all musics...

But on the same level as KOB or SOS or ALS?

Actually, I think the Beatles are great....For me, though, it's the White Album.

And the more I ponder the classical angle, it seems to me one of the few albums that approaches KOB's status would be Gould's Goldberg Variations. I can't think of many other classical records likely to be on the shelves of aficionados and general listeners alike.

[Rob Damen]

Originally Posted by shrugs

when will the Boomers shut the fuck up about the Beatles!?

They were ok for a few minutes when I was exploring all musics...

But on the same level as KOB or SOS or ALS?

Nobody's saying that at all.

It's a comparison between reactions to things that are considered the greatest in different fields and how they mirror each other.

Cheers,

Rob

[Rob Damen]

Originally Posted by Paul B

Not trying to be contentious, but can you provide some support for this? In more than thirty years of listening to classical music, I've never heard any single composition referred to as the piece the same way KOB is referred to as the jazz album. If there were rough consensus on such a piece, I'd guess it would be something more along the lines of Bach's Goldberg Variations, Beethoven's late sonatas, or the Chopin etudes and preludes—though of course another listener might come up with other choices.

Incidentally, the piece Lois posted up top seems pretty fatuous. KOB doesn't swing? Is too mellow? Come on. Comments like these essentially undermine the writer's other points. It's not my favorite jazz record, but it's not hard to understand why it's immensely popular.

No, not in the same way, exactly, as KOB. But I've read it in a few places here and there about the mass. I'm not at home so it might take a day or so to find a reference for you. Also, I'd throw in "Well-Tempered Klavier" in that group as it pretty much establishes the scale system for modern Western music.

And I agree with you on the article Lois posted. It's not my personal favorite, either, but it's easy to understand its place in the pantheon. We agree there.

Cheers,

Rob

[Rob Damen]

Originally Posted by Paul B

Actually, I think the Beatles are great....For me, though, it's the White Album.

And the more I ponder the classical angle, it seems to me one of the few albums that approaches KOB's status would be Gould's Goldberg Variations. I can't think of many other classical records likely to be on the shelves of aficionados and general listeners alike.

When it comes to the Beatles, it depends on my mood. I often think "Please, Please Me" and "A Hard Day's Night" are as great as their later stuff.

As for the classical ...

Gould's "Goldberg Variations" is a good one.

Solti's Ring Cycle is the one I've heard a lot, too.

Cheers,

Rob

[Cem]

Originally Posted by shrugs

when will the Boomers shut the fuck up!?

fixer-upper...

[Rob Damen]

Paul B,

I'm not totally sure, but I think the first place I read that the "Mass in B Minor" was the greatest composition of all time might have been in the liner notes of John Eliot Gardiner's recording of the mass. I seem to recall it went through the history of that notion throughout time.

Cheers,

Rob

[Lois Gilbert]

Idaho jazz cats discuss the legacy, influence of Miles Davis' 1959 masterpiece
Somewhere, somehow, you hear "Kind of Blue" for the first time and you're never the same.

Miles Davis' 1959 masterpiece, re-released Tuesday in a 50th anniversary collector's edition, has that effect on people, especially modern jazz cats who grew up with the album embedded in their DNA.

"It really is a central point of who I am as a musician, and as a jazz musician in particular," says Curtis Stigers. "It's a big part of the foundation of how I hear music, how I play and how I improvise."

Treated like any other Miles Davis album upon its release on Aug. 17, 1959 (and overshadowed by the arrival of free-jazz player Ornette Coleman), "Kind of Blue" has in the past half-century become the jazz album, the one musicians study like Scripture and listeners cite as their gateway drug to the genre.

"If you want to turn someone on to jazz, you give them 'Kind of Blue,' " said Brent Jensen, saxophonist and assistant music professor at the College of Southern Idaho. "It has a little something for everybody."

Indeed, the appeal of "Kind of Blue" crosses generations, genders, races and tastes. It can be found in heavy rotation on the hi-fis of jazz scholars and listeners who own no other jazz albums. It is praised by musicians who have memorized the album's solos note-for-note and people who can't tell the difference between a trumpet and a trombone.

"There's more than one way you can listen to this record," Stigers says. "You can listen as a real jazz fanatic or student, or you can in fact, God forbid, cook pasta to it."

Its influence, in jazz and popular culture, simply cannot be overstated.

Not only did it change the way jazz musicians approach composition and performance, it was influential in the development of a structured academic system for teaching jazz.

The noir-cool "Kind of Blue" sound, meanwhile, pervades modern music, and not just jazz. Film and television soundtracks, in particular, are indebted to the album's cinematic moods.

"There's that real atmospheric quality of Miles that people have been able to tap into and use in other mediums. 'Kind of Blue' is a good blueprint for that," Jensen says.

But what is it that gives "Kind of Blue" its magic?

First and foremost, "it's accessible," says pianist Paul Tillotson, a Boise native and one of the Young Jazz Lions (along with Stigers) who met as teenagers at Gene Harris' Tuesday night jam sessions at the Idanha Hotel. "It's not so crazy out there."

If not in sound, Davis' vision for "Kind of Blue" held something "out there" for his all-star cast of jazz heavyweights - Cannonball Adderley on alto sax, Paul Chambers on bass, Jimmy Cobb on drums, John Coltrane on tenor sax and Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly on piano.

A break from the complex hard bop that Davis' revered quintet and sextet had been playing since the mid-'50s, "Kind of Blue" is a powerful mix of familiarity and simplicity.

True to its title, the album partially draws from one of the most likeable and recognizable forms of music, the blues ("Freddie Freeloader" and "All Blues" are based on the standard 12-bar blues pattern).

Unlike the hard bop that preceded it, which was characterized by furious soloing over rapid-fire chord changes, "Kind of Blue" is a mix of finger-snapping, mid-tempo numbers ("So What," "Freddie Freeloader," "All Blues") and mellow, romantic ballads ("Blue in Green," "Flamenco Sketches").

With the familiarity and simplicity came a new way of playing that challenged the seven musicians in spite of its less-is-more philosophy.

Modal jazz, as it is known, uses musical scales as the basis for improvisation as opposed to chord progressions, which had dominated jazz composition since the rise of bebop in the 1940s.

Chords still are used in modal jazz, just not as many. "So What," for instance, has only two.

It was this sort of freedom from the confinements of jazz music's increasing chordal complexity that Davis and his sidemen were seeking.

"What you have is a reaction to bebop," says Mike Samball, Boise State associate music professor and Boise Jazz Society manager/artistic director.

"Miles and Coltrane and all of those guys had been through that. The importance of ('Kind of Blue') was, let's see what we can do with something simple, so simple that it turns out to be hard. It's more difficult to play slowly and come up with creative ideas over one chord."

"It's this whole new direction," Stigers says.

"It was so unlike anything that was happening and so unlike the stuff that he had done previously."

The simplicity of the modal structure - in spite of the improvisatory challenge this new way of playing presented the musicians ("They came into the studio, wrote down a few chords and talked about playing," Samball says) - put the emphasis on melody, resulting in five inviting, memorable tunes that 50 years later are nearly all jazz standards.

"You go to any jam session in the world, they're going to play 'All Blues' and maybe 'Freddie Freeloader' and 'So What.' They've just become tunes everybody knows," Jensen says.

But it took them a while to get there. Though it received mostly favorable reviews, "Kind of Blue" was not recognized as an instant classic upon its release.

"It was really quite a bit later people looked back and said, 'Oh, that was kind of a turning point,' " Jensen says. "Everything kind of changed on that album. But that was really in retrospect. Nobody at the time was really thinking about it."

For jazz educators, the rise of modal playing in the wake of "Kind of Blue" resulted in a structured teaching method that is still in place today.

"Up until the 1960s, when a person learned to improvise or become a jazz player, they essentially imitated and memorized the solos of previous great players," Samball says.

"If you were a saxophonist and you wanted to learn how to play jazz, you just mimicked Charlie Parker solos. (Now) we can take young kids as early as they can blow on a horn and teach them how to improvise using four or five notes. They don't have to try to play all the notes over a chorus - they can just focus on a few notes. That comes out of the modal concept."

The enormous influence of "Kind of Blue" - on academia, on music, on pop culture at large - speaks to the durability of an album that, as musical trends have come and gone, has not aged since the summer of '59.

"It's not far away from what we hear today, and that's an amazing thing about that album," Samball says. "It's always fresh, and that's what makes it a work of art."

http://www.idahostatesman.com/life/story/518669.html

[Dr Dave]

Reissue of Miles Davis' 'Kind of Blue' reignites the debate: Most re-packaged jazz record ever?

I wonder whether Darryl Thomas will buy this one too...I'm not. I'm just not gonna do it. Columbia has now gotten all the money they're ever gonna get out of me for this performance.

[John L]

Kind of Blue doesn't swing? You could have fooled me.

[Scott Yanow]

Funny, Kind Of Blue never meant all that much to me. I remember the first time I heard it, I was disappointed that it didn't have the burning tempoes of Milestones. Much more important in my musical development was hearing Louis Armstrong's Hot Five recordings, Benny Goodman's 1938 Carnegie Hall recording, Bird & Diz in 1945, John Coltrane's My Favorite Things and Eric Dolphy with Mingus (particularly The Great Concert of Charles Mingus). I originally grew to appreciate Miles through 'Round Midnight, his 1951-53 Blue Note recordings (the beginnings of hard bop), Miles Ahead, Four & More and Miles Smiles, eventually discovering Kind Of Blue. But I guess that particular recording has meant a lot to a lot of people.

[José Domingos Raffaelli]

It is interesting to note that three of the tunes are blues and one of them has the same line of Benny Goodman's warhorse Soft Winds.

[Gary Sisco]

Man, this subject is tired. KOB, like it, love it, or whatever. I happen to love it but I've heard it so many times I don't need to hear it again. Never mind buy it again. More print's been wasted on that subject than on Rollins' bridge time. Which is saying a lot about jazz writing. Saying too much about jazz writing.

The Beatles, too. Enough already, although I will say that I prefer their early recordings to their later ones. George Harrison once said he thought that, so far as rock and roll music goes, they were at their peak in Germany. I'll take him at his word.