Sphinx's Music Blog - Miles Davis: Kind of Blue
This week’s music blog is super special to me. In fact, I will go out and say this album has had the greatest impact on my life. I am talking about the masterpiece, Kind of Blue, by Miles Davis and his sextet. The album is celebrating its 60th anniversary this month, as it was released on August 17, 1959. It is the top selling jazz album of all time. If anybody has any jazz collection at home no matter how small, more than likely this album is there. If it isn’t, they need to go out and get it now. In fact, if anybody that has a pulse has not heard this album, even if you don’t like jazz, give it a listen as soon as you can. The reason this album still sells well even today is because of how accessible it is to all listeners. Miles is on trumpet, with John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Julian “Cannonball” Adderley on alto saxophone, Bill Evans or Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Jimmy Cobb on drums.
From left to right: Cannonball Adderley - alto sax, Paul Chambers - bass, Miles Davis - trumpet, John Coltrane - tenor sax
Why do I say this album has impacted me greater than all others? Simply put, it is the reason why I am the music fanatic I am today. Ever since I was a little boy, music has always impacted my life in a strong way. Ask my folks - I was singing country songs into my little fisher price microphone at 3 years old, and would go to the Wilson Barn Car Show in Livonia every summer with my family not for the cars, but because of the live bands that would play on the stage all throughout the day. In 5th grade I moved away from the toy instruments I had and instead picked up a trumpet. Sure, it took me a while to get good at it, but by 8th grade I was first chair, and never looked back. My band teacher Mr. Holfreter gave me confidence to move beyond the trumpet, and I was self teaching myself piano and trombone. It was also in 8th grade I started to gain a little interest in jazz, but it was in 10th grade when my band teacher Mrs. Jasin gave me a scholarship to attend Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, and that summer changed me forever. After that I couldn’t get enough jazz: playing it, listening to it, reading about it - it totally absorbed me. It was at this time I was spending my own money on these albums, and being the trumpet player I was, this album hit me hard when I first heard it in its entirety.
My chops had improved so much that by 11th grade I started my own little jazz combo - piano, bass, drums, alto sax, and me on trumpet. What songs did we play? Obviously it would be what you hear on this record. I wanted to sound like Miles Davis. The music was in my veins at this point, and I wanted to play this music in front of a crowd, share my own interpretations of this music, and get others to dig it as much as I have. I even continued playing into my college years as well; but unfortunately life starts to happen and my playing days have been at an end.
The music has never left me however. I’ve always felt like a man out of time with the music I enjoy. There are very few people my age that are as into this music as I am, but that’s ok. Maybe with me writing about it as I have now started to do can get others to give this music I love a try. Now let’s get on with the album.
The pianist Bill Evans says the following in the liner notes on the album’s back cover: “There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous. He must paint on a thin stretched parchment with a special brush and black water paint in such a way that an unnatural or interrupted stroke will destroy the line or break through the parchment. Erasures or changes are impossible. These artists must practice a particular discipline, that of allowing the idea to express itself in communication with their hands in such a direct way that deliberation cannot interfere. The resulting pictures lack the complex composition and texture of ordinary painting, but it is said that those who see will find something captured that escapes the imagination".
This perfectly summarizes the art that is this album. In the two days of studio time this album took to make, Miles Davis showed up with little more than scraps of paper, with rough outlines and ideas of what he wanted from each song. Nobody else in the group had any idea of what they were going to record until minutes prior. This album does not use modern techniques of studio editing; musicians aren’t recording their part of the song by themselves for a separate track, in a separate room. These musicians are in the room together, feeding off each other with what they hear, and then interpreting it in their own way. What they create is pure genius. Miles was famous for bringing up new music to his band this way - he always wanted to challenge his players and have them rise up to the occasion. To be in the best band you had to play like you deserved to be there. So what you hear are the first takes of these songs allegedly (there has been some debate this might not be totally accurate). Herbie Hancock once said that Miles liked to record his musicians and their first discovery of his songs, for that it would create the best spontaneity on the record itself.
The music itself is revolutionary. Up to this time (for the most part), jazz was heavy in chords chord progressions. It restricted the freedom and flexibility a soloist could make on their improvisations, as they had to follow the structure that was given to them. Miles Davis threw this idea out the window for this album based on some new musical theories at the time. Instead of a chord, he used a musical mode, or special scale that you could use to improvise on. A song like “So What” which mainly sits in a D Dorian mode, means that the soloist has the freedom to improvise however they want within the construct of that mode. This shift in musical composition has moved on to all genres of music today.
On the opening track, So What - it begins with a little back a forth intro with the piano and bass. Bassist Paul Chambers then sets the groove, and is given the main melody, unique to give that to the bass. The horns chime in with the backup harmonies, and then that cymbal crash by drummer Jimmy Cobb as Miles first enters with his solo gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. This is possibly the most perfect improvised solo in the history of music. I have the whole thing memorized and could play it on my own horn. It’s so sweet, bluesy, and swings like crazy. Then a completely different path is created as John Coltrane storms in. His horn sounds like something never heard before or ever since. It's the tone he has on it, the fact that he likes the higher registers of the tenor sax, you can immediately tell on any recording when it's John Coltrane. As Miles is all about playing the fewest notes but making each one count, John is playing up and down the scale with the bop style that dominated the decade. Then Cannonball comes in like a wrecking ball, a perfect complement to Coltrane’s solo. Then Bill Evans piano solo sound similar to Miles in its simplicity - a few notes, but making each one count.
The next song is Freddie Freeloader - and after the main, basic blue melody we get the great Wynton Kelly on piano to take the first solo. Then Miles chimes in. His sound is intoxicating. Everything you think of about jazz comes from that horn: the midnight cellar jazz club, with a smoky room, glasses clinking, and soft conversation with a brick wall behind the musician that’s front and center. Everything Miles does screams the blues. But it is the recording engineer’s capture of Coltrane’s sound that lets him steal the show on this track if you ask me. So much energy and ferocity in his playing, Coltrane provides an emotion you thought you could only get from a singer, but sit and listen to him play and you just hear genius. Blue in Green is a short ballad with tons of emotion. It’s the sound you imagine in a film noir scene, and we get the first taste on the album of Miles using the harmon mute, which he made more famous than any other trumpet player if you ask me. The metallic sound it brings pours his heart and soul into his solo as he starts and finishes the song, with Evans back in at piano and Coltrane providing some simple melodic solos in between.
Side 2 begins with another masterpiece song, All Blues. It’s a 12 bar blues in 6/4 time, which gives it a very unique sound. Miles again has the lead with the harmon mute, with Evans playing a simple trill on the piano, and Coltrane, Adderley and Chambers providing a simple beat in unison behind Miles. For the solo Miles takes off the mute, and shows the beauty that rhythm can bring to a tune. Throughout his solo he always goes back to one single note, but the rhythm he uses has so much swing to it that it’s all he needs to put you in a trance. Cannonball Adderley takes the next solo and jumps all over the range of his instrument.
The final track, Flamenco Sketches, is perhaps the most beautiful piece of music ever recorded. I find few words to explain it, apart from the fact that each musician provides a sound that jabs at your insides. From a technical point of view, Miles’ solo is one of the most physically demanding on the trumpet, as he is jumping from octaves at what sounds like such ease but is incredibly difficult to master. Adderley and Coltrane offer solos that are masterpieces of their own. So melodic, so perfect in their delivery. Listen to this song and remind yourself that this is pure improvisation.
Everybody needs something in their life that they can use to calm themselves down, to lower their stress, to get away from their troubles and just sit and chill. This album is as close as I’ve ever gotten to talking to a therapist, cause when I put this on, I’m alone with my thoughts and the world clears up around me. It reminds how beautiful this world is, how everybody needs that mental break from time to time. This album is therapeutic for me, a drug that regulates my body and mind. It’s why jazz is such a great, authentic, and true art form that no other music genre can compare to.
As I close on this blog I want to let those in the metro Detroit area know that the 40th Annual Detroit International Jazz Festival is this Labor Day weekend. While I love the sound of jazz going through my speakers, nothing beats seeing it live. I have gone every year since I have been able to drive a car (this will be year 17 for me). If you have the opportunity, head down there for a few hours and enjoy this great art form. Contact me too if you want to hang!
I opened up a lot about myself this week - but was necessary when talking about this album. Have your own thoughts on this album, or jazz in general? Any albums that you feel this way towards? Please share either on social media or on the Gamezilla Media discord. In addition, if you love gaming and movies, check out the five podcasts on Gamezilla Media, and consider being a patron on Patreon!
You can listen to this album and the other albums I have reviewed here on my Spotify playlist. Please consider being a follower on Spotify!
Sphinx