Yeah, you can tell me whatever you want, but “Freddie Freeloader” is next, and then it mellows to a fine re-telling of the first two songs, in gentler terms. This is a perfect album, say some; the perfect album, claim others such as me when I’m listening to it, as I am now.
Why do unschooled peons such as I think like this? What makes this recording (which apparently has some serious production faults) my favorite jazz recording ever?
And yes, feel free to rag on my taste. But I don’t think this is the Boone’s Farm of jazz albums. There’s something remarkable going on here, and I’d like to know what people think it is. Thank you for your ridicule and observations in advance.
I was at a sales meeting in early August, and one of the other reps and I were talking jazz over dinner. We both agreed that (and I quote) Kind of Blue is the “best album ever.” After dinner, during the period of much free alcohol at the hospitality suite, someone put–you guessed it–Kind of Blue on the CD player.
Free booze, good conversation, and the best jazz possible; it doesn’t get any better than that.
(Cookin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet comes in a close second)
That isn’t an album. Beethoven’s 9th can be played by any competent orchestra, sure some are better than others, but it isn’t an album in the proper sense. No one could cover KOB. I think it is the best jazz album ever made, and maybe the best album of any genre.
Side note: If you buy KOB on CD make sure to get the remastered and speed correct version.
** Sofa King ** , I read the OP shortly after you posted it and strongly resisted the urge to respond in a shoot-from-the-hip manner. I wanted some time to reflect on why this is my favorite album, and the only answer I can provide is “I don’t know.” I strongly agree with your assertion, however, that “there’s something remarkable going on here” and damned if I can’t figure out what it is. What I do know is that as I read the title of the thread the album began playing on continuous loop in my head and the goosebumps began.
I have a very, very tasty remastered gold disc of it. It is indeed great music. So you want a performance, or modern artist album qua album? Solti’s 9th is my favorite, and very middle of the road. Sgt. Pepper, Revolver, Abbey Road. Sticky Fingers. Layla. Aja. Tunnel of Love. Together Again for the First Time. Folk Singer. The Doors. Take Five. The Wall, Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here. The Band, The Band. That’s without working up a sweat. You want more Davis: Cookin’, Smokin’, Relaxin’. Some Coltrane? Blue Trane. Songs for Swinging Lovers.
Best albums ever is kind of a drinking game. There is the 9th Symphony containing the Ode to Joy, and then, there is everything else.
Like Sgt. Pepper and several other of the albums *I am Sparticus refers to, Kind of Blue is an album one listens to too many times and then gets sick of. While I cheerfully admit it’s a classic, it’s not a disc I reach for at ALL any more. Never ever bought it on CD, which means I haven’t consciously wanted to hear it for over 15 years.
Try Cannonball Adderley’s Somethin’ Else, which has the exact same personnel as KOB. The sound is similar, and it’s a whole new playlist!
It may be, Ike, that, like with so many other things, familiarity breeds, if not contempt, then at least indifference. You may have listened to Kind of Blue so often (or, I suspect, so closely) that you’ve gotten the message or heard whatever it was you were supposed to hear in the music. The music really doesn’t have anything else to say to you anymore. I can see where that would be possible in a small band arrangement (particularly with such spare arrangements as are on Kind of Blue).
I find myself doing the same thing. After I play a piece for a bit, I often get ahead of the music even as it is playing - sort of “I know where they’re going with this.” I used to do that quite a bit at Dead shows, which, for all their espousal of the “different set, every time” mantra, became fairly predicatable. If I jump ahead and know what’s coming next, that means I’m not listening right here and now - the music no longer holds my attention.
Kind of Blue is a wonderful work. But then again, so is “Bitches Brew.” They’re also as different as night and day. Instead of rating one as “the best album of all time in any genre” I look at them as part of a continuum, and I try to look at music that way in general. Artists have different things to say at different times in their careers, and for artists that have long careers that can mean some pretty divergent stuff (I always felt that Davis was the jazz equivalent of Bob Dylan - you never knew what he was going to come up with next and chances were pretty good that at first listen you weren’t going to like some of it. They both require active listening.)
In any event, I agree that Kind of Blue is a keeper and should be in the collection of anyone who says they’re a fan of good music. But then again, so should “Ring of Fire,” by Johnny Cash, “The Gershwin Songbook,” by Ella Fitzgerald, "Revolver, by the Beatles, … well, I could go on. Each great, each different.
Ike - thanks for the referral to Adderly’s album - I wasn’t familiar with it - I can hardly wait!!
As for the comments regarding whether familiarity breeds contempt, looks YMMV, but Kind of Blue is part of the essential fabric of music in a way very few other jazz CDs have become.
Just because Impressionist art has become suffused into our culture and is used on greeting cards and on college posters doesn’t change the fact that, should someone choose to “go deep” and really look at what those paintings have to offer, in may cases, they have the depth to provide am ample return on someone’s efforts.
Same thing with KOB - for whatever reason (Miles certainly didn’t think of it as anything as anything other than another album when recording it, to my knowledge), it captured lightning in a bottle and became the legend that crossed over so that even non-jazz buffs know to cite it. But you know what? The depth is there. I agree with the Gershwin songbook, Revolver, etc. - hell, I love those CD’s - the spirit of the OP is solid - Kind of Blue is legendary both because, at this point, its own hype as “the greatest” propels it along, but also because there is something genuinely there worth listening to of the highest quality…
[nitpick]Actually there are only two players in common between the two albums.[/nitpick]
Well yes, I rarely need to hear Kind of Blue anymore or many other albums I’ve known for years. But actually you should get the CD as it does permit you to hear the music freshly. The original album had a major botch (one side was too fast, much to the annoyance of anyone who’s ever tried to pick up the solos on the piano, since they’re sharp); & the sound could have been better. The newest reissue is actually quite revelatory.
The same must be said for Bitches Brew in the newly remastered version. Like a lot of early fusion albums (e.g. the notoriously badly recorded Emergency! by Tony Williams’ Lifetime) the original engineers didn’t get a very good sound out of it, & the original CD issue has murky, dull sound. The new release is a considerable improvement.
I’ll agree that the idea of naming any “greatest album” in an genre is completely absurd.
Well, it was recorded in March of 1958, so the time period’s right. And anyone who likes KOB will still love this one. Ain’t nobody gonna bitch about a rhythm section containing Hank Jones, Sam Jones, and Art Blakey.
I didn’t mean to imply that repeated listenings breed contempt, but rather that the things to be found (even by “going deep”) have probably already been mined after the 100th spin of the disc (if you’re really listening - if you just the disc on so the house won’t be so quiet while you’re doing the dishes that’s another thing entirely). I’ve heard musicians say essentially the same thing about performing (or, more accurately, NOT performing) certain pieces of music again. Essentially, the comment is “I played it. I wrung everything I could out of it. I couldn’t say anything else through it.” I think that the same circumstance occurs for the listener as well - the music, no matter how good, becomes sonic wallpaper, if for no other reason than that you know from repeated listenings what the piano solo sounds like, where the cymbal crash comes in, and how the phrasing of the vocals goes.
plnnr - I agree with everything you said. As a listener and as a player, I appreciate the opportunity to walk away from some songs or albums and let them breathe - then, when I return to them, either listening or playing, I increase the likelihood I will find something fresh, or at least I will once again appreciate what brought me to them in the first place. Heck, one of the reasons I haven’t embraced MP3’s is that I love cover art and liner notes - often, looking at the CD is enough to “get the hit” off the music that I look for.
So, bottom line, isn’t Kind of Blue one of the CDs worth wearing out to the point where you have burned it into your consciousness and perhaps need to take a break from it? And not in a trendy “wow, that CD sure represents that period of time for me” sort of way, and not in a “wow, I have a personal weakness for that sort of music” sort of way, but in a “wow, this represents the pinnacle of achievement for what it is trying to do” sort of way - Kind of Blue is one of the pillars of quality against which other music can, and should, be judged. And that is a very cool thing - kind of like Kevin Costner’s “I know what I believe in” speech from Bull Durham - I know I believe in Kind of Blue, and it defines a part of me in a dependable sort of way.
I think an indicator of why this recording is so great is that it transcends time, and swings like a mo fo. I bought it about 5 years ago and was floored by why I heard, and I listened to a lot of music before and after that. I don’t know if there’s anything made in 1950’s that’s as good. Did I mention it swings like a mo fo?