Image © Don Hunstein. “Columbia” is a trademark owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Photo Illustration by Dylan Utz.
From left to right: Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, and John Coltrane at the second Kind of Blue session, April 22, 1959.
There’s an inherent weight the word timeless brings with it. The referent must meet numerous expectations: First, any said piece must deftly capture the prevailing cultural elements of its own time. Secondly, it must be capable of transcending future eras through new fashions and perceptions. And third, though unspoken: It must reflect the human condition.
Over six decades, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue became perhaps the most celebrated Jazz recording worldwide. Undeniably popular, collective opinion ensures highly-held positions on greatest-album lists spanning the 20th century. No status short of legend encircles its musicians, sessions, recording, and unmistakable allure. To understand why, we have to take a look at how the album came to be and the effect of its influence 60 years on.
In 1953, author George Russell published the book The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization, the only music theory with Jazz as its origin. At the time, Miles Davis, Bebop trumpeter and founder of the emerging Cool Jazz idiom, was a strung-out heroin addict.
After kicking the habit Davis readjusted the course of his career, playing at the 1955 Newport Jazz Festival to both high acclaim and a contract with Columbia Records. During this time he formed his “First Great Quintet,” with tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones. Fellow tenor saxist John Coltrane soon replaced Rollins.
A couple years later, at the suggestion of producer George Avakian to change settings, Davis reunited with arranger Gil Evans. Davis had known Evans since his days with Charlie Parker, and he played an integral production role in the 1949-1950 sessions that Capitol Records recently coined as “The Birth of the Cool” – a fundamental foreshadowing of later Jazz, and the beginning of the end for Bebop.
With Davis on flugelhorn and a 19-piece supporting outfit, these experimentations provided a tasteful alternative to Miles’ small-group material. Soon releasing the flowing Miles Ahead album, the duo saw a viable future with extended orchestral arrangements that came to be known as Third Stream Jazz.
In contrast, Davis felt his band’s music was reaching a point of diminishing returns; their efforts with Bop had hit its creative ceiling. The era’s leading Jazz musicians realized they were literally, and figuratively, repeating themselves, and began to perceive complex chord changes – the key to modern Jazz’s artistry and structure – as restraining.
When Davis returned to Paris, director Louis Malle asked him to record the soundtrack to his proto-New Wave film Ascenseur pour l’échafaud (Elevator to the Gallows). Davis accepted, wisely using the opportunity to experiment with a looser, feeling-based music determined from the film’s on-screen actions. Recorded in December, the improvised score complimented the visual tone of Malle’s noir.
The success of the flick in France and further inspiration stemming from a Ballet Africane performance Davis attended at the request of his wife, Frances, pushed him to extend a modal approach into the quintet.
Modal music is built on scales from each note, and differs greatly from the traditional chords and keys, requiring much more melodic invention, and in Davis’ case, improvisation.
Expanding the group to a sextet with Cannonball Adderley, they recorded the album Milestones in February and March 1958. The eponymous title track, a modal composition, represented the first deviation from Hard Bop in Davis’ small group.
Continuing in this direction required a change at the ivories. Red Garland stormed out during a Milestones session, but Davis now was seeking musicians best fit for his vision. After consulting Russell, Davis hired the classically-trained Jazz pianist Bill Evans, who had released his debut album on the Riverside label the previous year.
By then, drummer Jones’ drug troubles and unreliability led to Jimmy Cobb taking his seat. This band recorded several modal pieces throughout the year, such as “Love for Sale” and “On Green Dolphin Street.” The former, alongside “Stella by Starlight” and “Fran-Dance” comprised the B-side of 1958 compilation album Jazz Track; The A-side featured the full soundtrack of Ascenseur pour l’échafaud, which saw a 10” LP release over two sides on the Fontana label in France.
Largely due to audiences’ racial overtones, Evans grew uncomfortable performing live and Miles noticed his desire to return to recording as a leader in the trio format he felt most conformable in. When Evans left Davis’ band at the end of 1958, pianist Wynton Kelly was hired to take his seat. However, Davis’ concept with what he later considered his best-ever group still hadn’t been committed to tape.
Selecting five tracks based upon scales, Davis chose to shape the new album around Evans’ piano – or more specifically – his use of space. The band convened twice to record to three-track tape. The first session, March 2nd, saw the recording of two Miles compositions: live piece “So What” and “All Blues”, in addition to the Evans-penned ballad “Blue in Green”. The second session, April 22nd, produced recordings of Miles’ “All Blues” and Evans-Davis collaboration “Flamenco Sketches,” the design of which was developed mere hours before the session. Kelly replaced Evans on “Freddie Freeloader,” and Adderley sat out “Blue in Green”.
Columbia’s iconic 30th Street Studios in Manhattan boasted unique acoustics, often leading to sound meant for one microphone being picked up by others (which audio engineers term “bleed”) and reverberation from one of the studios’ echo chambers recorded live. The tape was mixed down to two-track and mastered; Lacquers were cut, and records soon followed: Kind of Blue hit shelves 60 years ago this month.
The album demonstrated the full possibilities of modal form. “So What” and “All Blues” moved. “Freddie Freeloader” kicked back. “Blue and Green” and “Flamenco Sketches” pondered.
Reverb resonated from the cement echo chamber. Microphone placement physically elevated the music’s presence, fashioning a fitting analogy for a band with a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
Growing over time, its accessibility promises unexpiring relevance. Kind of Blue’s greatest accomplishment – its ability to connect with all music audiences – is nearly unmatched. Long known as a study piece for improvisation, its influence broke boundaries for a Jazz work, reaching countless music artists, styles and genres across the globe.
From this reputation, the album acquires its duality: The intangible, thin-air magic seven musicians made in 1959, and its corollary, the tangible six-eye-label vinyl record, Columbia CL 1355 and CS 8163 – fixture of all Jazz collections, crown jewel of many.
Kind of Blue exists as it was created: in-the-moment. Several virtuosos sharing an otherworldly awareness, integrating their singular and instantaneous expressions to break artistic bounds. In recorded music, it is spontaneity’s high water mark.
And it remains – more than any other album-length work – a metaphor for why we are drawn to music, and in fact, all art forms. The idea that art can embody the human condition truly is timeless.