Why Does Kind of Blue Endure?

Kind of Blue by Miles Davis is arguably the most famous jazz album of all time, and for non jazz lovers, or those just discovering jazz, it’s the gateway to a lifetime of incredible music. The album was recorded on two dates at Columbia’s historic 30th Street studios on March 2nd and April 22nd*,  1959 at Columbia’s immortal 30th Street studio. The famously includes five tunes that have all become standards. Contrary to popular belief the tunes were not done in one take. The sessions had multiple false starts, an incomplete second take of “Freddie Freeloader”,  an insert for the latter and a complete full alternate take of “Flamenco Sketches”, and wild studio chatter which has been known for decades by hardcore Miles Davis aficionados such as myself. The compositions were literally skeletal outlines that the trumpeter brought in for the sextet.  The music is indicative of massive strides in jazz to innovate, along with Time Out by Dave Brubeck, Mingus Ah Um by Charles Mingus, The Shape Of Jazz To Come  from Ornette Coleman, and Giant Steps by John Coltrane– 1959 has oft been termed “The Year That Changed Jazz”.  

This article will examine the historical background and events leading to the session, showing how Miles had originally investigated modal concepts as early as 1954 on the classic session for Prestige with Thelonious Monk,  Milt Jackson, Sonny Rollins and Percy Heath that produced the albums Bags Groove in addition to Miles Davis and The Modern Jazz Giants, on the track “Swing Spring”.  He had also explored quasi modal concepts in 1956 as will be detailed a bit later on.  As Davis told Nat Hentoff as reproduced in Dan Morganstern’s comprehensive liners to Chronicle: The Complete Prestige Recordings 1951- 1956:

[“It was meant to be like an exercise almost.” Miles told Nat Hentoff. “It was based [on a scale], and when you blow, you play that scale, and you get an altogether different sound. I got that from Bud Powell; he used to play it all the time.” Speaking of sound: Miles’ on this date is what he’d been working to achieve.] 

Miles had been looking for many years pre Kind of Blue as you see above for a way to dispense with the monotony of traditional 32 bar A-A-B-A form tunes as that was popular in both the standards  and the ballads he loved to play.  He looked for a way to reduce the complexity of chord changes and the finite ways on which changes can be improvised on– and that level of simplicity stayed to the very end.  Even in  the complex ways he attacked harmony in dense and often obtuse ways in “The Second Great Quintet” from 1965-68 with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, (which is my personal favorite band and era of Miles’ music–  because in my view; all Miles Davis has something of value.  He made some incredibly controversial records— a whole other topic that could fill another article) the ingredients of simplicity were always there.  In 1956 on his essential Workin’ With the Miles Davis Quintet for Prestige records,  on “In Your Own Sweet” Way composed by Dave Brubeck;  pianist, writer and scholar Ethan Iverson explains exhaustively how Davis used some quasi modal elements on the bridge.  

Fast forward to 1958.  The trumpeter was exploring new directions in music (not so ironically the seminal Bitches Brew exactly 10 years after Kind of Blue was subtitled Directions in Music by Miles Davis).Between February 4, 1958-March 4, 1958 Davis took his sextet, (five of the members– Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones who were in the “First Great Quintet” from  the Prestige recordings from 1955) were joined by the boisterous bluesy alto saxist from Florida; Julian Cannonball Adderley with whom Davis recorded Somethin Else  on March 9th of that year with Hank Jones, bassist Sam Jones (unrelated and not part of the Jones family including Hank, Thad and Elvin)  and Art Blakey for Blue Note under Adderley’s leadership.  For all intents and purposes this is technically a Davis album, which the trumpeter made as a favor to Blue Note founder Alfred Lion for whom he cut sides for between 1951-53.  Also, because Davis had signed with Columbia, contractually he was unable to lead the session. The Columbia 30th Street Studio sessions from March and April that year  yielded the album Milestones which is a precursor to the full on modal direction the trumpeter would soon partake in.  The track is important because as learn jazzstandards.com states

“Milestones” is a tune written by Miles Davis. It appears on his 1958 record “Milestones”. This tune is NOT to be confused with the tune “Milestones” written by John Lewis prior to this one.

It was originally entitled “Miles” but was later changed to “Milestones”.

This is a modal tune based off of Gm7 and Am7 and is a lot of fun to play! The chord charts below show the implied chords that compliment the melody, though it is really just Gm7 during the A section and Am7 for the B.

Further;  Guitarist Bruno Pelletier-Bacquaert  elaborates 

“Milestones” is considered a Modal composition where each 8-measure section only contains 1 chord.

The form is: AABBA

A SECTION:

Gm7 (G Dorian) implying the key of F.

We can also think Gm7/C which is Csus7. In this case it is usually preferable to resolve with FMaj7 at the end of each A section (the last 2 measures). That FMaj7 may even be played as FMaj7(#11) or F Lydian.

Here are some alternative approaches for soloing over this tune:

We can start some melodic ideas with any one of the following arpeggios:

Gm, Gm7, Bb, BbMaj7, Dm, Dm7

Coupling Triads also works well here:

Gm & Am coupled will sound like: Gm(9 11 13)

Bb & C coupled will sound like: Gm7(11 13)

The next idea is the same one that I already mentioned in a previous article on “So What/Impressions” (which you can read here: “So What/Impressions”). If we want to create a less static, less modal feeling, we can generate some motion by using the concept of “chordal thinking” where we will think of either one of the following 8-measure chord progressions while improvising:

1. | Gm7 | Am7 | Gm7 | Am7 | Gm7 | Am7 | Gm7 | (D7) ||

2. | Gm7 | Am7 | Gm7 | Am7 | Gm7 | C7 | FMaj7 | % ||

3. | Gm7 | Am7 | BbMaj7 | Am7 | Gm7 | C7 | FMaj7 | % ||

4. | Gm7 | Am7 | BbMaj7 | C7 | Gm7 | Am7 | Gm7 | (D7) ||

5. | Gm7 | C7 | Gm7 | C7 | Gm7 | C7 | FMaj7 | % ||

6. | BbMaj7 | Am7 | Gm7 | Am7 | BbMaj7 | Am7 | Gm7 | % ||

7. | BbMaj7 Am7 | Gm7 Am7 | BbMaj7 Am7 | Gm7 Am7 | BbMaj7 Am7 | Gm7 Am7 | Gm7 | % ||

(note that all the chords are diatonic to the key of F Major, so that we can somewhat retain the G Dorian modal sound)

As can be seen above, “Milestones” is similar in a sense to “So What” based on the fact the structure uses one chord for the A and B sections.  While Garland does acquit himself rather well to this new structure, he does not sound quite nearly as comfortable, as would Bill Evans or even Wynton Kelly would later demonstrate (on the tune “Teo” from Someday My Prince Will Come from 1961)”Teo”  was also John Coltrane’s final studio appearance with Davis.  Garland’s bag was the blues,  standards and ballads, something demonstrated quite prolifically on his trio albums for Prestige with Paul Chambers and drummer Arthur Taylor, or quintet dates featuring Coltrane and Byrd  from November 15, 1957 which are highwater marks for the pianist  .As Prestige sessions were done usually on Friday afternoons, the legendary engineer Rudy Van Gelder, using  previously set up mobile recording equipment traveled to Smalls’ Paradise in Harlem to record organist Jimmy Smith for Blue Note the same night!  John Coltrane is the most comfortable here besides Davis at navigating  the challenging form.  These days in the contemporary era, tunes like this are passe because they are so common, but in 1959, no. That is by no means saying the tune is mediocre, it’s timeless and still sounds pardon the pun, miles ahead of a lot of what else was being made today, but for students navigating the music in a serious manner like at New York Jazz Workshop they are invaluable teaching tools.   As I create music as a hobby and as a serious jazz fan and collector the tune serves two purposes: As a music lover I can really enjoy the tune and it’s artistry, but I can also say “ah, ok…. This is how x can be used here, really cool”. 

A very shy, quiet, man that looked a lot like a high school math teacher from Plainfield, NJ named Bill Evans joined the quintet that year, replacing Red Garland.  Evans had recorded his debut for Orrin Keepnews’ Riverside label in 1956 called New Jazz Conceptions.  Though the pianist’s style favored lush harmonies found in Debussy and Ravel, he was also an extremely hard swinger in the bebop/hard bop vein, and demonstrated exceptional bebop chops.  Evans’ first recording with the band was taped July 3, 1958 at the Newport Jazz Festival and released as  Miles Davis at Newport 1958.  The album was smoking featuring blazing renditions of tunes like “Two Bass Hit”, and “Straight, No Chaser” found on Milestones, but the album was also the first album for Jimmy Cobb in the band. C.H. Garrigues for the San Francisco Examiner discussed in his review of Kind of Blue on October 11, 1959  a Blackhawk engagement featuring Wynton Kelly as pianist and Cobb as drummer:

For most of us who jammed the club night after night (and particularly for us who crowded our way into the little area set aside by Blackhawk tradition for critics, columnists, disc jockeys, record executives and freeloaders in general) this was, man for man, the greatest jazz group ever formed. There was no trumpeter in the world like Miles; there had been no alto since Bird to compare with Cannonball; Coltrane (though he confessed himself in a period of musical stalemate) was still blowing the most interesting tenor in the business. Great as the front line was, the rhythm section matched it: Chambers’ bass seemed to “belong” to the group as no other bass ever could; Wynton Kelly was proving himself as great a pianist as Red Garland and Jimmy Cobb a more tasteful, knowledgeable drummer than Philly Joe Jones.

Though the rest of Garrigues’ review of the album is positive, the statement “this was, man for man, the greatest jazz group ever formed” within the lens of that time period it’s absolutely credible, because jazz was still evolving. The statement is problematic with the viewpoint of Eurocentric criticism because it extends the narrative that acoustic jazz is the only “serious” jazz.  There was a common opinion of Philly Joe that was incredulous at the time, that also was directed at Art Blakey, overplaying.  In  hindsight, this is ridiculous as the drummer  was also a tap dancer  and his absolutely unwavering right hand on the ride cymbal was like watching the footwork of Sugar Ray Robinson, with balletic grace.  His punctuations on the snare were like throwing multiple punch combinations, his rudiments were non pareil, and his doubles on the kick drum were as exciting as any speed metal drumming– while Tony Williams is generally thought of  as the original creator of the blast beat; Max Roach pretty much invented it.  Jimmy Cobb on the other hand, approached drumming with elan defining his entire career, but at that early stage in his career, on the Newport recording; he  revealed the influence of the drummer in his playing, as every new member of the trumpeter’s bands till his passing represented an unbroken lineage in most cases of each member understanding the contributions of the other.

On Miles’ birthday, May 26th 1958, the sextet with Evans as a replacement for Wynton Kelly, recorded 4 tunes: “On Green Dolphin Street”, “Love For Sale”, “Stella By Starlight”, and the “Put Your Little Foot Right Out”, “Fran-Dance” written for Davis’ fourth wife Frances.  The album has been issued multiple times originally as Jazz Track, with the A side featuring music from the moody soundtrack Ascenseur Por L’efaud (Elevator To The Gallows) ‘58 Miles, as bonus tracks on the 50th anniversary edition of Kind of Blue and the audiophile label Analogue Productions  oddly titled Birth Of the Blue.  On this session, the synergy of the sextet was already there, Bill Evans’ impressionistic fourth based voicings, Jimmy Cobb’s floating on air brushwork, and powerful flams punctuating sections of the form, Cannonball’s jolly bluesy infectious swing, Trane’s searching, fitting every possible note of the chord, exciting soloing.  

Finally, we arrive at Kind of Blue.  Like all avant garde, not everything is appreciated at the time, but years, decades, or even centuries later,  the consensus  was pretty immediate and well  received in most cases.  The album is simply perfect.  It is, along with Sketches of Spain, arguably the perfect introduction to Miles Davis, and if you could only take one, Kind of Blue would be it.  The first session, recorded March 2nd, “So What” “Blue  and Green”, and “Freddie Freeloader” were recorded.  Each tune is a certified jazz standard, but “So What” and “Blue in Green” contain some of the biggest innovation in jazz at that time. “So What”, is a simple tune, a jazz staple at jam sessions, live performances and recorded as covers on countless albums.  The tune is simple, consisting of two chords Dm7 and Ebm7 in two 16 bar sections.  However the intro played by Evans contains a real harmonic revelation.  In the bebop and hard bop eras, from Monk to Bud Powell, thirds were used.  Evans uses fourths instead which create a lighter, floating timbre.  As for the form,  Guitarist Dan Adler refers to Bill Evans’ original liners and explains:

And in the liner notes, you know back in the day ~ there used to be liner notes on records. And so the original liner notes were written by the pianist on the day which was Bill Evans.

And he explained the tune in this way: “So What’, which is the name of the tune “is a simple figure based on 16 measures on one scale, 8 of another and 8 more of the first. Following a piano and bass introduction and free rhythmic style“.

Adler continues

So here is the form as Bill Evans explained. 16 bars of one chord, which in this case is D Minor 7. And then it goes up a half step for 8 bars.

So you can see it is going to E-flat Minor 7 and then it goes back down for 8 more bars of D Minor 7, which is the first chord.

So all we’re talking about is two chords. One is a D Minor 7, then the next is up half a tone. And then what happens with the form again is 16 bars of the first. Its 2 times 8 bars ~ so there’s 2 groupings of 8 bars, and then there’s another grouping of 8 bars half a tone up. and then there’s another grouping of 8 bars which is similar to the first.

So if you look at this form people usually call this A, A, B, A meaning the first set of 8 bars is the first A. The second set of 8 bars is the second A and the last one is an A again. And the 3rd one is kind of a different one. Its moved up half a tone. And so this one is called a B. Again it’s just structural components of this form.

He then completes a thorough analysis where the complete form is 32 bars as 8 4 bar sections equaling 32 bars.  Miles’ solo is such a great teaching tool because it’s so melodic, and throughout his two choruses he references and transmogrifies a motif used in the first chorus and developed in the second chorus.  Trane follows next, with a very down to earth line but per his examination of multiple notes in the chord at the time the solo becomes increasingly more dense.   Yet; it is still easy to follow because even as the saxophonist explored the cosmos in his most expansive music prior to his death; he would always bring things back with a preacher like cadence or bebop reference.  Cannonball follows next, and his bluesy exaltation is often accompanied by runs that reflect Trane’s influence.  Evans’ uses more of the fourth based harmonies and probing lines that recall Debussy and Ravel, and the particular melodic currency he is dealing in keeps interest. Chambers walks a bit, the head returns again as the tune closes.

The term “modal jazz” as applied to this album can be a bit misleading.  The tunes have changes, but the solos are based on modal scales.  The next track “Freddie Freeloader” is a conventional 12 bar blues form.  Davis found that for most of the music, Bill Evans was the best choice for piano as the quiet introverted nature of Evans’ solos matched Davis’ own.  However on this track, the trumpeter chose his new pianist, Wynton Kelly (who is the uncle of both Marcus Miller and L’il Kim!) as Davis felt Kelly played the harmonically advanced style of Evans in addition to a blues based funkiness of Red Garland whose aplomb was amply demonstrated on both standards and blues mentioned earlier.  Kelly had been on the scene since 1951 recording for Blue Note, and most famously, Riverside.  He offered an incredible mix of fluent bop chops, and churchiness.  He and Bobby Timmons frequently utilized adjacent and shared vocabulary, including the slurred triplet which the late trumpeter Freddie Hubbard remarked in an interview he couldn’t understand how the pianist pulled it off.  Everyone on the track solos brilliantly.

“Blue and Green” is a tune oft miscredited to Davis (as is “Solar” written by Chuck Wayne).  The track is a kaleidoscope of mood, created through Evans direct quotation of his “Peace Piece” for the intro.  According to italianpiano.com 

Blue in Green actually is not a true modal piece, as it does not abandon the rules of tonal harmony at all. In fact, the piece is in the key of D minor, then modulates to the key of B flat major at measures 4-5 and to the key of A minor at measures 8-9.

Nevertheless, Blue In Green is an innovative piece for at least three elements: melody, form and metrics. Let us begin with the melody; while remaining within a tonal framework, with cadences and modulations, the melody almost always uses notes outside the chord, or rather notes of tension.

For example, on the first chord Gm7, the melody is on the thirteenth E. In the second measure, the chord is A7 and the melody sings C, the augmented ninth. A complete analysis of the melody follows, along with the relationship of the various notes to the underlying chords. We observe that the melody is very unusual, the theme almost seems to contradict the underlying chords, it almost always stops on tense notes.

The piece is also unusual in terms of form, as it has a duration of ten measures. Jazz standards are normally built on eight-measure phrases; there are numerous 32-measure pieces, for example, with the form AABA or ABAC. There are also 16-measure pieces, such as Summertime or Lady Bird, and of course the classic 12-measure blues.

Blue in Green, with its ten measures, therefore has an unusual form. Moreover, the beginning on the IV degree and the very sophisticated melody tend to make the beginning and end of the harmonic progression unclear, giving the feeling of a circular form.

Miles’ solo can be described as silken threaded beauty, John Coltrane’s stanzas are some of the best he ever recorded, and Bill Evans’ solo is everything he’s known for in this period.

The April 6* session yielded “All Blues”, and “Flamenco Sketches”– a tune that extends the Moorish influence found in Sketches of Spain  released a year later.  “All Blues”, is a jam session staple, but it’s considered an incredibly simple tune, but it is deceptively so… it’s bluesy but not a blues, whereas most blues tunes in jazz are based in F (think “Back At The Chicken Shack” by Jimmy Smith) the tune is in G, and 6/8. the transcript of studio chatter after the analysis will show just how hard it is! www.jazzadvice.com explores why the piece is a challenge, and below is a brief example.

The unfamiliar key – most blues tunes are not in G

The unfamiliar time signature – most tunes are not in 6/8

The unfamiliar dominant chords – the V7 altered chords in bars 9 & 10

And when you listen to All Blues, it doesn’t matter who you are, whether your ears are well trained, or you’re just a jazz fan…measures 9 & 10 naturally pop out at you because of the inherent tension in the chords as contrasted with the rest of the tune.

I’m talking about these two measures…

And these my friend, are the 2 bars that mess nearly everyone up when trying to take a solo on All Blues.

The tune is so challenging, this amusing bit of studio chatter between producer Irving Townsend and the musicians occurs after take 1:

Edited (3:03) on Columbia 42057; faded out on all issued versions
	“CO 62294, number two, take one…” Davis counts off. False start (0:03). Chambers: “Let’s start over again, sorry…” Davis: “Bill will start it off, you just come in. Ready? One two three, one two three…” As the tune winds down Adderley(?) says,: “Whew!” Chambers (panting): “God damn, that’s a hard mother…” Evans (?): “Boy, if I didn’t have coffee, I’d…” Townsend: “What?”

Live, the tune would be just as challenging– in a concert at Koncerthuset in Stockholm, Sweden on March 22,1960– this tour of Europe would be John Coltrane’s last tour with the band.   The saxophonist gets “stuck” on a classic blues cliche as a motif  using multiphonics and for over  3 minutes, he wrestles with it, not sure what to do– cramming in as many notes as possible, Wynton Kelly gets down home with a trill, Cobb is playing his rhumba between a cross stick on the rim, and a double on the tom– but there’s still stasis.  Finally, Trane resolves the phrase.  As much as I love Trane and have devoured his output since age 13, finally “getting” his late period around age 21, not everything he played was gold.  This is one of those moments and it’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard. It’s so absurd.  I never fail to crack up and it’s a long running joke with a friend who is a Trane fanatic.  We always laugh  at this moment and phrase.
Finally the album concludes with “Flamenco Sketches”.  A beautiful ballad where each soloist moves through five modes.  It speaks to the fact that while evolution in real time of bands isn’t so cut and dried- evolution and innovation on records come fast.  Though the trumpeter would keep some of this material  and occasionally play in live performances until 1969 past the release of Bitches Brew (of which the original title was supposed to be Witches Brew or Now Hear This) Davis had already moved on, exploring the fringes of avant garde and psychedelic rock, and intensely polyrhythmic African grooves replete with Miles using a wah wah and effects.  No matter how you view Kind of Blue no level of theoretical analysis will do it justice as Bill Evans discussed in the liners.  Just enjoy the music!

*per Peter Losin’s discography regarding the second date of April 22, 1959 for recording: Evidence for the date of this session is contradictory, but the date seems certain:The notes to Columbia C6K 65833 and Mosaic MQ9-191 confidently place this session on “Wednesday, April 22, 1959 (2:30 to 5:30 pm).”The “Quintet Timeline” in the notes to the same release places the second Kind of Blue session on April 6th.In her notes to the original gold Master Sound edition (CK 52861), producer Amy Herot claims that “Sessions for Kind of Blue took place on Monday, March 2, and Monday, April 6, 1959. Two other sessions were scheduled for March 10 and April 22; these may have been booked and canceled; in any case, no tapes from them survive.”In his book Dis Here: A Bio-Discography of Julian “Cannonball” Adderley (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000), Chris Sheridan places the session on April 6, adding that “this date is sometimes given as April 22, but that session, although booked for Miles Davis, seems to have been canceled.”In his book Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece (New York: Da Capo, 2000), Ashley Kahn places the session on April 22. He also includes a photograph of the session log which clearly lists the date as April 22. (This would seem to settle the matter.)All of the items above are included on The Making of Kind of Blue (Kind of Blue KOB-001), Another Tracks of Kind of Blue (Core Collections CC-001), and The Sessions of Blue (Mega Disc Legendary 1959).