Kind Of Blue
Description
Well, if you’re going to revamp your jazz catalog, you
might as well start with the greatest jazz album of all time! Includes a rare
alternate take of Flamenco Sketches , and the first three songs are in their
correct pitch for the first time. This is the one jazz record owned
by people who don’t listen to jazz, and with good reason. The band itself is
extraordinary (proof of Miles Davis’s masterful casting skills, if not of
God’s existence), listing John Coltrane and Julian “Cannonball” Adderley on
saxophones, Bill Evans (or, on “Freddie Freeloader,” Wynton Kelly) on piano,
and the crack rhythm unit of Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums.
Coltrane’s astringency on tenor is counterpoised to Adderley’s funky self on
alto, with Davis moderating between them as Bill Evans conjures up a still
lake of sound on which they walk. Meanwhile, the rhythm partnership of Cobb
and Chambers is prepared to click off time until eternity. It was the key
recording of what became modal jazz, a music free of the fixed harmonies and
forms of pop songs. In Davis’s men’s hands it was a weightless music, but one
that refused to fade into the background. In retrospect every note seems
perfect, and each piece moves inexorably towards its destiny. –John Szwed
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window.scroll(0, data.expander.$expander[0].offsetTop-100); }); }); Review “As
the painter needs his framework of parchment, the improvising musical group
needs its framework in time,” says Bill Evans in the liner notes to Kind of
Blue. “Miles Davis presents here frameworks which are exquisite in their
simplicity and yet contain all that is necessary to stimulate performance with
a sure reference to the primary conception.” Amen. During the past 40 years,
the performances Davis’ stimulated from Evans, John Coltrane, Cannonball
Adderley, Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb, and Wynton Kelly have become some of the
most storied in jazz, and all of them – classics such as “Freddie the
Freeloader,” “All Blues,” “Blue in Green,” and, of course, “So What”
(featured) – are featured on this Columbia/Legacy reissue.— JAZZIZ Magazine
Copyright © 2000, Milor Entertainment, Inc. — From Jazziz This first-take,
unrehearsed Miles Davis session from 1959, no less than a jazz/blues succes d’
estime, offers stimulation for the mind and satisfaction for the soul. The
late trumpeter and his fellow improvisers (notably John Coltrane and Bill
Evans) create shifting prismatic colors, textures given over to lyricism, and
intriguingly vague tonality within five compositions. A quiet, wondrous state
of equilibrium between tension and repose. — © Frank John Hadley 1993 — From
Grove Press Guide to Blues on CD See more
Features:
Product Details:
- Is Discontinued By Manufacturer : No
- Language : English
- Product Dimensions : 5.6 x 4.9 x 0.4 inches; 1.6 Ounces
- Manufacturer : Columbia / Legacy
- Item model number : 2012246
- Original Release Date : 1997
- Run time : 55 minutes
- Date First Available : December 12, 2006
- Label : Columbia / Legacy