Kind of Blue is one of those albums you see everywhere– best of lists, college dorm rooms, your father’s vinyl record collection, a poster in a music store. It’s undoubtedly the de facto initial phase of the “I’m expanding my musical tastes and diving into jazz” starter pack that all music lovers hit somewhere around their 18th birthday, a coming of age record of sorts that marks a transition into adulthood. And that’s a great thing because the album absolutely kicks ass for all the reasons you’ve been told it kicks ass since you started listening to music.
Featuring the legendary jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, backed by a sextet that includes saxophonists John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley, pianist Bill Evans, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb, the album was recorded over the course of two sessions in the spring of 1959 at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in New York City. And as with every influential jazz record from that time, the album marked a departure from the hard bop style of the early 50’s and explored more unconventional fare– on Kind of Blue Davis embraced modal jazz, allowing each performer greater creative freedom. Modal jazz is basically a reaction to the chord-change-heavy bebop that was popular earlier in the decade. Instead of implementing chord changes every few beats, the chord would last for 8 bars or more. This led musicians to a more horizontal (scale-based) rather than vertical (chord-based) approach to playing, and led to a different approach to dissonance and chord voicings.
That approach is what Kind of Blue is known for, and is why this album is widely regarded as Davis’s masterpiece and one of the greatest jazz albums ever made. Its influence spans jazz, rock, and classical music, leading many to consider it one of the most important albums in history. And we’d be remiss if we also didn’t mention how it led to one of the most iconic references in the Adam Sandler 1995 classic movie Billy Madison– “if peeing your pants is cool consider me Miles Davis” will forever remain as a recognizable line for every millennial, further cementing this album as a must-listen for anyone remotely interested in the history of music.
Standout Songs: “Blue In Green”, “Freddie Freeloader”, “So What”
