Jazz Sessions: Kind of Blue

Buy Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis HERE

The following is an excerpt from my upcoming book " Jazz Sessions: Lessons He Taught Me" .

Sunday afternoon brunch followed by Jazz vinyl’s certainly required cocktails, and so they began to flow.....

He appropriately began our session with ‘Kind of Blue’ by Miles Davis. He gave a brief history about this dynamic work, flashed the album cover, which displayed a much younger Miles, then slowly revealed it’s shiny black vinyl from the album’s sleeve. His large hands gently placed ‘Kind of Blue’ onto his turntable and with a single push of a button, the arm of the needle moved to its proper position. Out of two BOSE speakers emerged the most intriguing sound. The Crackling sounds of the needle against vinyl thus pleased our sense of sound heightening the fantasy even more. You could hear a pin drop as I anticipated what was to be expected. The piano intro suddenly caressed my ears and just like that, I was whisked away to a Sunday afternoon Jazz vinyl listening party.

This year 2019, marks the 60th anniversary of the recording of ‘Kind of Blue’. It was recorded on March 2nd and April 22nd 1959 at Columbia’s 30th street studios in New York City and released a year later on Columbia records.That day became my introduction to Miles Davis the legend, to Julian 'Cannonball' Adderly, Paul Chambers, Wynton Kelly, James Cobb, Bill Evans and to the essence of John Coltrane. While he dissected the brilliance of ‘Kind of Blue’, ‘So What’ and ‘Freddie Freeloader’ stayed on repeat. Hours later, I learned the meaning of ‘Flamenco Sketches’.