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Well this is THE jazz album to start off with. I'm sure you've all heard that before, but, it's quite true. From Freddie Freeloader to All Blues, we are constantly reminded of what a genius time it was for jazz in that period. Just look at the all-star line-up on here, Cannonball, Coltrane, Bill - simply amazing! This is a disc that everyone has heard before at some point in their life whether they were aware or not. The saying that this is the most influential jazz record may be true, I tend to think its the most rewarding. This re-release version is superb! It contains an alternative version of "Flamenco Sketches" and original photo package to boot. the sound is by far the best this recording has ever seen. This is a recording the word masterpiece is reserved for. An absolute must own!

If this is your first jump into real jazz might I suggest, Cannonball Adderly's "Somethin Else" or Coltrane's "Love Supreme", both make excellent companions to "Kind of Blue".


Both classic and historic   December 26, 2002
 122 out of 135 found this review helpful

KIND OF BLUE (1959) has a stark, hushed, understated, but very heady nature, a staggering difference from the previous year's MILESTONES. KIND OF BLUE went on to become a mega-classic, historic and trend setting. It introduced modal tunes to jazz, which provide much more space for improvising on each chord compared to conventional jazz tunes and standards. Consider "So What," which opens the album. There are but two chords, D minor 7th and E-flat minor 7th, and there are spots were 24 bars pass, all on the D minor 7th. This allows the soloist to--as Miles put it--stay in the mode. The song initiated a wave of influence and inspired a host of modal tunes, including John Coltrane's "Impressions" (built on the same chords and structure). "So What" also has the very rare instance of the melody being played by the bassist (but this was Paul Chambers; check out his Blue Note album BASS ON TOP from 1957). For those who don't know, the late Bill Evans is a jazz-piano icon. This brilliant innovator contributed two compositions here: "Blue In Green" and "Flamenco Sketches." Bill's hypnotic vamps and harmonically rich voicings add to the heady atmosphere that Miles typically created with his sparse, cerebral style.

It's difficult to pick out high points; the whole album is on such a high level. Coltrane, Adderley, Evans...these guys could play. The solos throughout are haunting and magical. All of the compositions exhibit unusual and sometimes subtle characteristics, like the altered blues changes in "Freddie Freeloader" (on which Wynton Kelly plays piano) and the 10-bar, "A"-section-only form of "Blue In Green." In "All Blues," pay special attention to the harmonic treatment during the last eight bars of its 24-bar blues-waltz structure. You don't have to be a music student to recognize the unique magic or the mood-inducing power that pervades this album. With players of this caliber, the music making is magnificent and amazing. The talent and importance of these truly monumental musicians cannot be stressed enough. And, the importance of KIND OF BLUE as a record is deserving of all the hoopla that can possibly be mustered on its behalf. This is a legendary recording by a legendary band.

Another reason this album is historic is the introduction of what came to be known as "So What" chords. They are the chords that answer the melody line in "So What." Here are the two chords Bill Evans played there:

E below middle C, up a fourth to A, up a fourth to D, up a fourth to G and up a major third to B.

D below middle C, up a fourth to G, up a fourth to C, up a fourth to F and up a major third to A.

If you're so inclined, try playing those two chords to answer the melody and you will hear the heady magic they produce. To use this chord elsewhere, just remember it's the root, eleventh, seventh, third and fifth of a minor seventh chord.
Cheers,
Murray


The Bible of Jazz   November 11, 2005
 69 out of 74 found this review helpful

Many, many, many things in life are over-hyped. Especially things that were huge and revolutionary at their times, things you have been told to check out and haven't gotten around to. Movies in particular are like this for me. I'll put on a movie like the Graduate or the Shining, things I've been told are great, and please don't tell anybody but I can't believe how bored I can be. I like them only because I know I'm supposed to like them to show how truly sophisticated I am.

Kind of Blue is the exception to this rule. It is hyped, it is the one jazz album you are told to own if you only own one jazz album, and it is absolutely worthy of the adulation. I promise.

When I first started collecting jazz albums, I was told by an old Chicago cat that Kind of Blue was "the Bible" and Coltrane's rendition of "My Favorite Things" was the national anthem. He was right. No matter how my collection has grown, no matter through how many different alleyways and conduits my taste has wandered, no matter what's stewing in my synapses, I always return to So What, Freddie Freeloader, Blue in Green, and All Blues (that's right, I skip Flamenco Sketches, but So What?). Buy it and listen to it until it seeps into your dreams, becomes the soundtrack to your strut, and fills your soul with the sacred expanding nothingness.


What Next, After Hearing the Best?   August 22, 2001
 46 out of 49 found this review helpful

First, please take as read another rave review of this amazing album. It is one of the few celebrated works of art that lives up to the hype and then goes a few steps beyond. This was the first jazz album I listened to, and I only wish I'd had a bit of advice as to what to listen to next - I thought just buying a few other Miles' albums and a few of Coltrane's would do, but this proved a bit tough, given the huge range of styles covered - in fact, this approach probably slowed my appreciation of jazz - for me at least it was just too difficult to assimilate the divergence from the sound presented on 'Kind of Blue' - even 'Sketches of Spain', recorded not long after, is a completely different soundscape. So here, with the benefit of initial years of pain, suffering, bewilderment, and, ultimately, yet more years of joy and ecstatic immersion, are a few recommendations as to what to try next - 'Somethin' Else', Cannonball Adderley; 'Saxophone Colossus', Sonny Rollins; 'Ella and Louis Again', Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong; 'My Favorite Things', John Coltrane; 'Ahmad's Blues', Ahmad Jamal; 'Search for the New Land', Lee Morgan; 'Let Freedom Ring', Jackie McLean; 'Whistle Stop', Kenny Dorham; 'Live at the Blue Note' (Disc III) Keith Jarrett - I think these albums, some more than others, move in the same musical world as 'Kind of Blue' and should be accessible (which is not to say that any album recreates the unique mood captured on this masterpiece (oops, I'm raving))...oh, and if you're interested, what did I in fact buy next? : 'The Major Works of John Coltrane', and 'Miles Smiles' - great albums, but a bit of a jump (i.e. across the Grand Canyon).


A Quick Note of Praise, Audio-Technically Speaking....   December 8, 2002
 39 out of 43 found this review helpful

If there's one jazz album in the world that doesn't need my two cents worth, it's Kind Of Blue. But I thought I'd throw in an interesting bit of info for the musicians out there. For twenty-five years, I struggled to retune my guitar to play along with the original vinyl issue of KOB, trying to pick up the the great modal scales and sequences used by Davis, Adderly, Coltrane, Chambers, and Evans. A major pain, as any musician who's tried to do the same will testify, due to the fact that even though Miles wrote and the group performed, for example, "So What" using the basic chords/keys of D-minor 7th and E-flat-minor 7th, the album, when played on a stereo, came out largely in the keys of D-minor 7th + 5/8ths and E-flat-minor 7th + 3/5ths, or some such incomprehensible bizarrity. This out-of-tuneness, it turns out, was due to a mixing error back in 1959 that SPED THE MASTER TAPE UP--changing the pitch. And I blamed my turntable and tape deck all those years. To the point: this reissue, with an alternate take of "Flamenco Sketches" included, has been remastered at the proper speed, so that the key of D-minor actually sounds like--ta dahhh!--D-MINOR! So, thanks to the engineers who remastered this classic, and to all those musicians out there who thought they had suddenly developed a tin ear when listening to Kind Of Blue . . . you didn't.