The album that changed jazz, and still sounds like it. Some of its digital editions, however, fail to do it justice.
Kind of Blue arrived in 1959 and changed the direction of jazz in a single session. Miles Davis brought together Bill Evans, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb, and gave them modal sketches instead of chord changes. The result was something none of them had fully played before. That looseness is audible. The music moves with a patience that hard bop rarely allowed. Each instrument finds its own space and stays there. Fifty years on, it remains the best-selling jazz album ever recorded, and it still sounds like nothing needed adding.
What to listen for
- Analog tape warmth
- Gentle room reverb
- Hall depth
- Instrument detail