Kind of Blue

Miles Davis’ Magnum Opus

      According to the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), Kind of Blue is the best selling Jazz album of all time. Even more importantly, this recording changed Jazz profoundly, and may have had more influence on modern Jazz than any other recording in the music’s history. But what made the music so special? What were its influences? And, what made this recording so unique for its time?

      First of all, Miles Davis was one of the greatest at recognizing talent and being aware of what was progressive in music. People often look to his relationship with Bill Evans as being the crucial link to realizing the “sound” he envisioned for this recording. Upon further examination, however, it may be the relationship between Bill Evans and George Russell that became the catalyst for this sound coming to fruition. Once Miles became aware of the sounds coming from Russell’s camp, from pianist Bill Evans, in particular, he asked Evans to partake in the recording of Kind of Blue.

      “George Russell's theory proposes the concept of playing jazz based on scales or a series of scales (modes) rather than chords or harmonies. The Lydian Chromatic Concept explored the vertical relationship between chords and scales, and was the first codified original theory to come from jazz. Russell's ideas influenced the development of modal jazz, notably in the album Jazz Workshop (1957, with Bill Evans and featuring the "Concerto for Billy the Kid") as well as his writings; Evans later introduced the concepts to other members of Miles Davis's working band, which employed them in recordings beginning with the album Kind of Blue.”

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

      As Evans later introduced the concepts to other members of the Miles Davis working band, the band began to employ them in several key performances before the Kind of Blue recording. (Most notably, on So What) Although Evans had worked a short time with Miles’s new sextet, it was not until later that Davis and Evans prepared skeletal harmonic frameworks for Kind of Blue. These skeletal imprints generated a fresh and spontaneous improvisational approach to this new recording. It wasn’t until the day of the recording that the musicians saw these micro imprints. The collective effort by each and everyone to interpret these imprints made this a landmark event.

      The foundation to this fresh approach was the emphasis of modal music. Each and every composition on Kind of Blue was based on modal concepts. Musicians, like Bill Evans, loved this approach because it allowed them to explore the upper extensions of the scale, rather than base their improvisations on the obvious chordal structures.

      Modal music is defined as music that is based on a scale rather than a chord. Modal music has chords, but the chords do not follow traditional dominant/tonic resolutions, thus establishing a sense of key center (or the I Maj. of a particular key). In another words, as seen in the tune So What, the tune’s tonic center is sounded in Dorian mode, the second degree of the major scale.

      The effect of modal music on the listener is often profound. The melody produced by modal music often allows the listener to listen in a more contemplative manner. It also adjusts the way the player improvises. Colors in harmony could now be emphasized and musicians could actually use color in the way an artist paints a landscape.

      Built in Ironies

      Although Kind of Blue was built on these newly explored theories, it also contained music that was centered on very traditional values. Some of these traditions included a group that embraced a sense of swing, a traditional jazz orchestration, and a band that consisted of some of the world’s greatest improvisers.

      First and foremost, Jazz is a music that was built on the idea of how well one improvises. Maybe that is an obvious point, but in our day and age the composition is becoming ever more important. It may have been more common for musicians in Miles era not to be reading music. As I stated before, when Miles brought the band together for the recording of Kind of Blue, he put small pieces of scrap paper with skeletal harmony and melody prints in front of them to read. It then became up to the musicians to take these skeletal ideas and form a concept together in the moment. Thus, one of the great improvisational moments in history took place in the year 1959.

      This record also had a lot riding on the sound. We discussed some of the qualities of modal sound earlier, but this disc also delivered some very traditional sound bites as well. For instance, notice the band’s orchestration, three horns plus rhythm section. This ideal borrows from a much earlier era. By including trumpet, alto and tenor, I have heard it argued that Miles was envisioning everything from a small Big Band to the borrowed sounds of New Orleans. This New Orleans sound had the similar instrumentation of trumpet, trombone and a woodwind instrument of some kind on the frontline. (Most often clarinet) Although the group was exploring these newly found sounds in the Jazz idiom, Miles was definitely thinking from a previous, and possibly more traditional, era at the same time. Thus, a meeting between tradition and something completely new took place. It’s as if he’s saying, through the music, that the tradition is moving forward.

      Continuing on this thought, Miles allows the improvisational language on this disc to be extremely interpretive from a different mix of master improvisers. For example, as heard in So What, (see attached solo), Miles paints an improvisation based on the D and Eb Dorian (concert). There’s nothing more added to the harmony; the Dorian scale is simply emphasized. In comparison, Cannonball Adderley paints a Be-bop conversation by arppegiating D and Eb Dorian. His Be-bop harmony emphasizes up to 9 and 11 of the minor chord and you also hear occasional V7/I minor resolutions in his phrasing. His emphasis is on the minor chord sound even with his slight reharmonization. This was a common practice in be-bop and you can find similar examples in the solos of Charlie Parker.

      Coltrane, on the other hand, explored the upper extensions of Dorian and literally moved into melodic minor scale; thus we’re hearing some of the first modal interchange. Trane then takes the Dorian mode to D Melodic minor. The significance of this is that the leading tones of the melodic minor scale are heard. This results in Trane building an improvisation based on an arppeggiation of A7(b9) over D Minor. The difference between Trane and Cannonball is that Trane does not feel the need to resolve this sound. The result is some of the first documentation of “chord on chord” playing. This is a very common practice by advanced harmonitions. The idea is to allow harmony to paint more color into a landscape and then allow these sounds to unfold in one’s improvisations.

      With all this talk on harmony, the album is still based on a simple premise----groove and swing. In fact, drummer Jimmy Cobb laid down some classic tracks of cymbal work that have been emulated to this day. The influence of Jimmy Cobb laid the ground-work of drumming legends Jack DeJohnette and Tony Williams.

      Future Influences

      It was Miles Davis’s group that was possibly the leading group in this genre of the day. Why? Because of all of the future stars that came from these bands.

      People like John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, and Jimmy Cobb would become major influences on their perspective instruments. Later, people like Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Ron Carter and Wayne Shorter would take some of these ideals to another level of musical creativity and exploration.

      These players were able to expand the modal concept. This resulted in more extended improvisations, interesting rhythmic components, and expanded and irregular musical forms in compositions. Miles’s groups were also famous for their elasticity that stretched the parameters of “swing” and “groove” that are still being emulated to this day.

      In closing, Miles and his group were reaching such a high level of improvising proficiency that everyone in the Jazz idiom have wanted to emulate these bands of the 1960’s. Musicians also began to embrace the freedom that modal improvisation provided for them. Jazz had now opened its doors to improvisational and compositional expansion. Musicians to this day still follow this Opus Magnum concept that Miles introduced more than 47 years ago.