Book Review: "Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece," by Ashley Kahn

"Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece," by Ashley Kahn, 2000.

John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis, and Bill Evans at the session for "Kind of Blue," 1959.

I just finished Ashley Kahn's 2000 book, "Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece." It's a terrific read, and I would recommend it to any jazz fan, or anyone who is interested in learning more about how this remarkable album was created.

To anyone who doesn't know, Miles Davis's 1959 album "Kind of Blue" is widely regarded as the greatest jazz album ever. It's a landmark of small group jazz improvisation as its finest. The band Miles assembled was one of the greatest ever. On the album, Miles started to explore modal jazz, a very different way of playing jazz. In his book, Kahn explores Miles's career during the 1950's, and what led him to make the album.

Kahn did a great job of researching this book, and he interviewed Columbia Records photographer Don Huntstein and drummer Jimmy Cobb, the only two people still alive who actually witnessed the recording sessions. Sadly, when pianist Bill Evans died in 1980, just twenty-one years after the album was recorded, that left only Miles and Jimmy Cobb still alive from the "Blue" band. Which is really odd, considering that Miles was the oldest member of the band in 1959, at just 32 years old. John Coltrane died at age 40 of liver cancer in 1967, bassist Paul Chambers died at just 33 of tuberculosis in 1969, Wynton Kelly died at 39 in 1971, and Cannonball Adderley died in 1975 at 46.

Kahn should be praised just for the simple fact that we actually get some insight as to how this classic album was made. The answer is, pretty easily, at just two recording sessions. There was only one complete alternate take from the sessions, an earlier version of "Flamenco Sketches." But that doesn't mean that these were all first-take performances, despite what Bill Evans claimed in the liner notes. Miles would end takes if they weren't going well, giving the players terse directions.

Pianist Bill Evans is probably the person other than Miles most responsible for how "Kind of Blue" sounds. Miles even said, "I wrote that album around Bill Evans's piano playing," even though Evans had quit as a member of Miles's working band by the time of the sessions. Both Evans and Davis loved classical music, even though Evans had more classical training. (Miles had quit Juilliard after just one year.) Davis would often spend time checking out classical scores from museums and libraries, and didn't understand why he couldn't get other jazz musicians to accompany him. But in Evans he found someone similar to explore his ideas with. Miles wrote of Evans in his autobiography, "Bill had this quiet fire that I loved on piano. The way he approached it, the sound he got was like crystal notes or sparkling water cascading down from some clear waterfall." Which would also be an accurate way of describing Miles's playing style in the late 50's. Since Miles was not an explosive bop virtuoso like Dizzy Gillespie, he had to get his playing across in a different way. So he started using space more in his solos, (influenced by the pianist Ahmad Jamal) and playing fewer notes to get the emotion of a piece across. He also started playing in the middle register of the trumpet more, as opposed to players like Dizzy who would fire off a rapid series of extremely high notes. Miles also started using a Harmon mute on ballads, which gave his playing a breathy, smoky, late-night sound.

According to Evans, he and Miles wrote "Blue In Green" and "Flamenco Sketches" together, despite the credits on the album listing Davis as the sole writer of all the tracks. When Evans recorded a version of "Blue In Green" for his own album, "Portrait in Jazz," he insisted that his name be listed alongside Davis's as co-writer. Both songs sound like Evans, and it would seem likely that he got screwed out of his writing credit. But Evans also kind of screwed himself out of his credits, as he wrote the liner notes to "Kind of Blue," and in them doesn't make any mention of his co-writing role. Who knows what really happened between Davis and Evans, but a telling factor would be that Miles never performed "Blue In Green" and "Flamenco Sketches" live, at least not on any known recordings. (He also never did "Freddie Freeloader" live, which seems odd because of its bluesy structure.)

The alchemy that made "Kind of Blue" possible never came together again. Evans had left Miles to form his own trio, and within a year Cannonball and Coltrane had each formed their own groups. And Miles didn't seem interested in revisiting former glories by trying to record another album with the same sound. "Kind of Blue" would remain a unique masterpiece in jazz history. And thanks to Ashley Kahn's book, we get to feel like we were there at the creation.

Miles Ahead: An Essay on the Music of Miles Davis

Miles Davis

Miles Davis was an incredible musician. Okay, now we're finished with the understatement of the day. I'm reading Ashley Kahn's book "Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece," and I'm amazed by the success Miles had in so many different styles of jazz. He certainly wasn't content to rest on his laurels. As soon as he had success in one field of jazz, he was on to a different challenge. He was on the cutting edge of jazz for 20 years, pioneering several important jazz movements.

Miles started out playing with Charlie Parker in the late 1940's. Parker was one of bebop's biggest stars at the time, and Miles was some kid just out of East St. Louis. But Parker took Miles under his wing. But just as Miles was making his ascendancy in the world of bebop, he changed styles. He made the album, "The Birth of the Cool" in 1949-50 that ushered in a quieter, more subdued style of jazz called "cool jazz" or "West Coast jazz." Miles was heavily influenced by classical music, and the "Birth of the Cool" sessions are the antithesis of the frenzied bebop soloing. One of the featured members of the "Birth of the Cool" band was Gerry Mulligan, who formed a group with the trumpeter Chet Baker that achieved great success in the early 1950's. But Miles didn't make any more records like "Birth of the Cool," at least not until his sessions with Gil Evans. (Who arranged some of the "Cool" sides.) Once Miles got his act together again, and kicked his heroin addiction, the records he made in 1954-55 pointed the way towards hard bop, which was in some ways a reaction to the prevailing West Coast "cool" style that Miles himself had helped usher in. He lead all-star sessions for Prestige records that produced classics like "Bag's Groove." The lineup on "Bag's Groove" is a who's who of 50's jazz: Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, Milt Jackson, Horace Silver, Percy Heath and Kenny Clarke. Wow.

In 1955, Miles set about putting together a steady group he could lead. He found one of the greatest rhythm sections in jazz history; pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones. And he took a chance on a journeyman tenor sax man from Philadelphia: John Coltrane. Miles and Trane's partnership would change the course of jazz history. This band was known as Miles's first "Classic Quintet," and the recordings they made together set the standard for hard bop playing. And then Miles fired Coltrane because of his heroin addiction. (Trane got clean in 1957, played with Monk for 6 months, and then Miles re-hired him.) Miles also made the decision to record an album with a large ensemble arranged by Gil Evans, it would be called "Miles Ahead." The albums Miles made with Gil Evans aren't my favorites, but the people who like them really like them, and they are considered the best albums of their kind. Miles was changing things up yet again.

On his 1958 album "Milestones," Miles added alto sax player Cannonball Adderley to the group, and started the path towards modal jazz, which led to "Kind of Blue." I can't claim to totally understand all the differences between modal jazz and non-modal jazz, but I think it boils down to this: in modal jazz, you improvise with or against the scales, not the chords, as in most styles of jazz. In a modal song, you might only have two chords, so you can't improvise with or against the chord changes. This was the opposite of bebop, where the chord changes were everything. It was a totally different way of improvising. (This really sounds like I know what I'm talking about, doesn't it?) Anyway, from what Kahn says in his book, that's how I understand it.

The gold standard for modal jazz was Miles's 1959 album "Kind of Blue." It's regularly cited as the greatest jazz album ever, and even shows up in rock magazine polls of great albums. If you haven't heard it, go out and buy a copy. Right now. When you've finished listening to it, please return to this blog entry and keep reading. I'll wait for you...done? Wow, wasn't it great? Again, Miles put together an amazing band full of musicians who would continue to make great jazz as solo artists. The "Kind of Blue" group was: Miles, Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb. Wow. Within a year, Cannonball and Coltrane had both formed their own groups, as had Bill Evans. (Evans technically left Miles's group in late 1958, but returned for the "Kind of Blue" recording.)

But rather than keep plowing the modal fields until nothing was left, Miles kept changing his sound. He never made another album that sounded like "Kind of Blue." In 1963, Wynton Kelly left, taking Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb with him to form their own trio. Miles had to form a new band, from the ground up. Eventually, in 1964, the new lineup became Wayne Shorter on tenor, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Tony Williams on drums. This group became known as Miles's second "Classic Quintet." Miles's playing became harsher during this period, as some of that ballad softness seemed to slip away. By 1968-69, Miles was experimenting with more open song structures, electric pianos, and grooves influenced by James Brown and Jimi Hendrix. It was the start of fusion, heralded by Miles's albums "In a Silent Way" and "Bitches' Brew." I have to confess, I don't like fusion. I don't really get it. But I can understand that it was an important movement in jazz, and once again, Miles was on the front line, leading the charge.

Miles's music post-1969 doesn't hold a lot of appeal for me, and from what I've read, it doesn't sound like he broke a lot of new ground after fusion. But that really doesn't matter, because in twenty years at the forefront of nearly every major movement in jazz, Miles had broken enough boundaries for many lifetimes. Honestly, most artists, in any genre, don't get to say they started or heavily influenced as many different styles as Miles did.

So those are some of my thoughts on Miles Davis, one of my favorite jazz musicians. I'm just intrigued by the way he kept searching, kept moving. He could have tried to make 10 albums just like "Kind of Blue," but he didn't, which I admire. Miles did not do things the easy way, and he definitely did them his way.