I have to chime in here and say that my jazz education didn't
really begin until I came across "Kind of Blue."
It was also my first Miles Davis album (although hardly my
last. I own about 20 now. Nothing after 1968, though. I don't
like his forays into fusion in the 22 years before his death
in 1991). No less a musical light than Duane Allman (who knew
a thing or two about atmospheric music) used to listen to it
backstage every night before a gig as part of his warm-up
ritual. He said that every time he listened to it, he picked
something else up.
And no wonder. Recorded in 1959, "Kind of Blue" found Davis
and his band in transition. Davis' quintet had recorded and
released a series of seminal hits during the mid-50s:
"Relaxin," "Workin,'" "Steamin,'" "Cookin,'" (all "With the
Miles Davis Quinet") which yileded such current jazz
standards as "Blues by Five," "Aerigin," "Surrey With The
Fringe On Top" (Davis' jazz arrangements of beloved Broadway
show-tunes were real crowd-pleasers), and "Salt
Peanuts."
But by 1958, the gloss had begun to come off. Davis was
hard-headed, a notorious perfectionist (something that people
as visionary as Davis are often called, and rightly so,
still, he was not always a picnic to work for), and not above
playing his trumpet with his back to his audience (something
that drove certain jazzmen crazy). Late in 1957/early in
1958, Davis fired his drummer Philly Joe Jones and his
pianist Red Garland (who promptly formed their own trio,
later luring Davis bassist Paul Chambers away to join them),
replacing them with Jimmy Cobb and Winton Kelly,
respectively, then adding another horn player,
alto-saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, turning the
"quintet" into a "sextet." Tenor Saxophonist John Coltrane
had also grown restive, interested in striking out on his
own, and made no secret of his plans to do so sooner rather
than later.
So by early 1959 this was a band in transition. Kelly quit in
the middle of the recording of "Kind of Blue," to be replaced
by future piano legend Bill Evans (Bassist Paul Chambers
would also go on to play with Kelly's own trio a lot during
the 1960s). This is also John Coltrane's final album with
Davis before he went on his own, and it's Bill Evans' only
album with Miles. Their playing is electric. Cannonball
Adderley's alto saxophone rounds out the quintet into a
sextet, with a three-horn attack. It's wonderful. He appeared
on a couple of live albums ("At The Plaza" and "At Newport,"
both circa 1958), but I think this was his sole studio
appearance with Davis. Bassist Paul Chambers never sounded
better before or after this, and his duet with pianist Evans
to open up the first song on the album ("So What") is one of
the most quoted bits in jazz history.
And for all that, I still think that "All Blues," track
number 4 on the album, is possibly the finest piece of music
Miles Davis ever produced. By turns haunting and evocative,
yearing and despairing, so full of so much, all coming at you
at the same time. "All Blues" is precisely that. It still
blows me away every time I listen to it: by turns hypnotic
and compelling, defining obsession and longing, and always
with that insistent brushbeat, and the piano driving the
whole thing along. Davis the player has never sounded better,
Davis the bandleader never got better performances out of his
sidemen, and Davis the arranger deserves all of the accolades
he got here. Add in such terrific tracks as "Freddie
Freeloader," "Blue in Green," and both takes of the gorgeous
"Flamenco Sketches," and you've got what one music critic
referred to as "a record generally considered as *the*
definitive jazz album, a universally acknowledged standard of
excellence."
For me it also could have served as the soundtrack for any of
a number of fifties-era noir films I've seen.
This is Davis before he tried to be a jazz-rock god by
embracing the fringes of fusion in the late 60s, before he
started wearing that curly wig, before the heroin got to him,
before he holed up in his Hollywood mansion, snorting line
after line of coke and beating the crap out of Cicely Tyson,
not seeing anyone else except for the pizza man (he ordered
them nearly every day) or the odd cop who pulled him over
when he was speeding one of his sportscars through Laurel
Canyon. This is Miles Davis of the sharp Italian suits, the
Miles Davis who took a beating from a couple of Detriot cops
after he told them to fuck off when they tried to stop him
from getting into a cab with his caucasian French girlfriend
after a gig at a Detroit nightclub.
This is genius, this is a visionary with an eye for talent
that led him to discover and launch the careers of a
constellation of future jazz stars: pianists like Bill Evans,
Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Keith Jarrett; sax players
like Coltrane and Wayne Shorter, bassists like Paul Chambers
and Ron Carter (who is still playing today!), drummers like
the died-too-young-yet-still immortal Anthony Williams, and
guitarists like Mahavishnu John McLaughlin.
And he put this one together in the same year that he teamed
up with arranger Gil Evans to produce their most successful
collaboration, "Sketches of Spain," which is as sun-drenched
as Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" and also as foreboding as
anything penned by a Woolrich or a Highsmith, or a Holmes, or
a Cain. "Sunny and Noirish?" you say. "Impossible." Give it a
listen.
Look up impressario and you ought to find a photo of Miles
Davis. He was that much of a world-shaker.
And by the way, miker, if you don't like "Kind of Blue," send
it to me, and I'll refund your purchase price and the cost of
your shipping. I'm that sure of your reaction to it.
All the Best-
Brian Thornton
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Robison
To:
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 6:11 PM
Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: Kind of Blue
Mark wrote:
Get thee to a music store! The bestselling jazz
album
of all time. Not that bestsellerdom is
necessarily an
endorsement, but the popularity of this one is
well
deserved.
***************
Thanks, Mark. On your recommendation, I'll give
it a
shot. Other than that, I quit a long time ago
buying
books and music based on mentionings in novels. I
got
burned a couple times real good.
miker
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