FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 2000. All Rights Reserved

Music by John C. Reid Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece by Ashley Kahn Da Capo Press In Mark Gridley’s fine textbook, Jazz Styles, he calls trumpeter Miles Davis’s sextet on Kind of Blue the greatest combo in jazz history. At the time, emerging tenor saxophone giant John Coltrane was moving into his prime. In the same year, 1959, Coltrane recorded Giant Steps, perhaps the epitome of harmonic-based jazz improvisation. The additional presence of Charlie Parker-influenced alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley created a friendly, competitive atmosphere between the two saxophonists. The rest of the personnel – Davis, pianists Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmie Cobb, were all in the top rank on their instruments. But, most importantly, Davis introduced the idea of modal improvisation – using a scale or mode rather than rapidly changing chords as the basis for improvising. It has been the combination of stellar personnel and innovative music that has made jazz insiders suggest that if new collectors were to purchase one recording, Kind of Blue should be the one. It is with this background that Ashley Kahn set out to write the story of the making of this important recording. Happily, Kahn has honoured this special project by doing detailed research and carefully documenting the sources for his comments. He was given access to Sony/Columbia Music’s archives and went behind the scenes to talk to everyone who is still alive that was there (Cobb, the last remaining musician, wrote the foreword). Kahn sets the stage by providing an overview of Davis’s career from 1949 to 1955. This period covers his time with Charlie Parker, in which Kahn hears the seeds of Kind of Blue being sown. Kahn introduces us to Davis’s musical soulmate, Gil Evans, and takes us through Miles’s decision to decline Duke Ellington’s offer to join his orchestra. Davis opted instead to finish the landmark Birth of the Cool sessions with Evans. Kahn’s stage-setting touches on Davis’s restrained, understated, cool nature and his addictions, and also covers the formation in 1955 of the Classic Miles Davis Quintet with John Coltrane. The two days of recording, March 2 and April 22, 1959, are examined carefully and the five musical works are presented in detail. It is interesting to hear about the issue of the physical tape that was used and its durability during the intervening 40 years. In preparing reissues of the session, there was some pitch alteration in one of the tapes, and so a different safety has come to be used in production as a result. A TV show was made with the group in the interval between sessions and the evolution of the album’s most preeminent tune, "So What," is also discussed. Finally, the selling of the album and its lasting legacies are also examined. I was happily transported by this book to a magical time, a golden era in jazz. If you are going to buy one book for the jazz lover this season, this is it.

| Back To This Issue Table of Contents | Back To Main Index |