{"id":407,"date":"2026-06-01T19:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T19:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodbridgestereo.com\/blogs\/?p=407"},"modified":"2026-06-01T19:28:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T19:28:35","slug":"kind-of-blue-by-miles-davis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodbridgestereo.com\/blogs\/kind-of-blue-by-miles-davis\/","title":{"rendered":"Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kind<\/em> of Blue<\/i>\u00a0is arguably Miles\u2019 greatest hit, the one album with which he is most associated. It is still one of the most popular jazz albums of all time, outselling most contemporary recordings and prized as a harbinger of modal jazz and revered as a paradigm of improvisation over reduced harmony\u2014creating a perfect balance of sound and space. Outside the jazz realm, it is consistently chosen by music historians and critics as one of the best albums of all time, alongside evergreen classics by The Beatles, Elvis Presley, and others.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Inspired by many ideas\u2014mood-painting, modal structures\u2014behind the soundtrack to\u00a0Elevator to the Gallows<\/i>,\u00a0Kind of Blue<\/i>\u00a0can be seen as Miles\u2019 signature work not only in its enduring popularity, but its attitude as well; in many ways the album\u2019s cool and aloof effect, with its minimal, almost dismissive musical gestures, serves as a sonic reflection of Miles legendary aloofness. The title of its famous opening track\u2014\u201cSo What\u201d\u2014is a perfect reflection of Miles\u2019 insouciant, sunglasses-at-midnight way of being.<\/p>\n

Numerous other elements specific to\u00a0Kind of Blue<\/i>\u00a0push it to the top of the \u201cBest Of\u201d lists: the all-star sextet Miles had assembled to accompany him, including three players (John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley) who would themselves prove to be jazz legends, and a rhythm section (Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb) that outswung any other in its day. There was the shared feeling of fresh discovery in the studio on those two days in 1959, as almost all the tracks were the first complete takes\u2014no edits, no second tries. There was Bill Evans\u2019 evocative essay on the album\u2019s back cover highlighting that idea of \u201cfirst-mind, best-mind\u201d, comparing their music to the spontaneous, unerasable ink-on-rice-paper work of a Japanese calligrapher.<\/p>\n

As the title suggests,\u00a0Kind of Blue<\/i>\u00a0was an exercise not only in primarily blues structures, but also in generating an abiding melancholy through the album\u2019s five tracks\u2014an emotional cohesion unlike any other title in Davis\u2019 catalog. As basic as the structures are\u2014a deliberate choice on Miles\u2019 part to move away from the harmonic complexity of bebop\u2014they proved that an emotional depth could be achieved by great improvisers utilizing simple scales or modes (hence \u201cmodal\u201d jazz) rather than chord sequences. All five of the tracks\u2014\u201cSo What,\u201d \u201cFreddie Freeloader,\u201d \u201cBlue in Green,\u201d \u201cFlamenco Sketches,\u201d and \u201cAll Blues\u201d\u2014today serve as a Bible on improvisation to musicians of all instruments and all levels: the solos as closely studied as the tunes themselves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Take Miles\u2019 \u201cSo What\u201d solo: it\u2019s a brief, two unhurried choruses that go by in no time at all, featuring the laconic, behind-the-beat phrasing of his skinny-tie period, unfolding in call-and-response patterns faintly echoing the opening theme. Paolo Fresu, one of Europe\u2019s premier trumpet and flugelhorn players who teaches at Universit\u00e0 di Bologna, uses it as a primer for first-year music students, showing \u201chow creative they can be, how much emotion they can get to, even at the beginning. \u201cIt is so easy and so clear. Most solos jump up and down octaves. Miles keeps it simple, like it\u2019s a new melody.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lasting value of a recorded masterpiece lies not only in the notion of reaching and grasping the music itself, but in using it as a doorway to other pathways.\u00a0Kind of Blue<\/i>, it can be argued, earns its accolades less for its continuing sales or critical popularity, and more for its long-serving role as the portal for so many who come to jazz for the first time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How did Miles himself feel about\u00a0Kind of Blue<\/i>? Ironically, he described it as a \u201cfailed experiment\u201d in his autobiography, explaining that the album did not fully realize the sounds he had been hearing in his head before the session. Nonetheless, in an 1986 interview, when pianist\/journalist Ben Sidran remarked that\u00a0Kind of Blue<\/i>\u00a0is probably the number one jazz record on virtually all the jazz critics\u2019 lists, his sincere answer was short but held a palpable sense of pride: \u201cIsn\u2019t that something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kind of Blue<\/i>\u00a0came and went in Miles\u2019 view, soon followed by another big band project directed by arranger Gil Evans, one which demanded many hours of takes and re-takes\u2014the opposite of the first-take ideal of\u00a0Kind of Blue<\/i>.\u00a0Sketches of Spain<\/i>\u00a0would prove to be another hit, a followup that helped cement Miles\u2019 musical stature through the 1960s and up until today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kind of Blue\u00a0is arguably Miles\u2019 greatest hit, the one album with which he is most associated. It is still one of the most popular jazz albums of all time, outselling most contemporary recordings and prized as a harbinger of modal jazz and revered as a paradigm of improvisation over reduced harmony\u2014creating a perfect balance of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music-we-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodbridgestereo.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodbridgestereo.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodbridgestereo.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodbridgestereo.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodbridgestereo.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodbridgestereo.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":409,"href":"https:\/\/woodbridgestereo.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions\/409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodbridgestereo.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodbridgestereo.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodbridgestereo.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodbridgestereo.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}