Miles Davis' Kind of Blue: Modal Masterpiece

By the end of 1958, the trumpeter Miles Davis was at the peak of his creative powers and was considered by some to be the most influential musician in jazz. It had been almost a decade since his Birth of the Cool sessions had changed the course of jazz music, launching the "West Coast" style and the careers of many of the musicians involved in the recording. In the intervening years, Davis had survived a nearly fatal heroin addiction. He had also put together what many regard as the greatest jazz group of all time--his sextet with Jimmy Cobb on drums, John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley on saxophones, Paul Chambers on bass, and Bill Evans on piano. By March 1959, when Davis assembled the group to record in Columbia Records' studio in a converted church on Manhattan's East 30th Street, Evans had already left the band to go solo. But he was persuaded to return for the sessions that would become arguably the best-known jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue. 
 

Evans, the only white member of the band, had perhaps the greatest impact of anyone other than Davis on the direction the music would take. Davis later denied claims made by Evans and others that the pianist was responsible for co-writing the music on the album. He acknowledged, however, that he had "planned that album around the piano playing of Bill Evans." And he credited Evans with having introduced him to Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand and Orchestra and Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 4, both of which Davis would cite as having a direct impact on Kind of Blue. In addition to these European influences, Davis was inspired by gospel music he had heard as a youth in an Arkansas church. He also tried a new type of improvisation based on modes, rather than chord changes, that he had begun experimenting with in 1958 on his Milestones album. Davis described the modal form as "seven notes off each scale, each note. It's a scale off each note, you know, a minor note." Based on ancient Greek theory, modes give the musician access to a scale for each note of the key in which a song is based. According to Davis, when improvising in this way, "you can go on forever. You don't have to worry about [chord] changes . . . you can do more with the musical line." Improvisation based on modes, rather than chords, created limitless possibilities for the soloist, who was freed from following the chord changes of a song and could play virtually anything.

The musicians involved in the sessions (with the exception of Evans's replacement on piano, Wynton Kelly, who played on "Freddie Freeloader," one of the album's five tracks) had been playing together for about two years. But there were no rehearsals for the Kind of Blue recordings. In fact, no one but Davis knew what music was to be played until after the musicians showed up at the studio. As Evans explained in the album's liner notes, "Miles conceived these settings only hours before the recording dates and arrived with sketches which indicated to the group what was to be played." Remarkably, the very first completed performance of each song played by the group was the one chosen for inclusion on the record, achieving what Evans describes as "something close to pure spontaneity in these performances."

Kind of Blue had a far-reaching impact, eventually becoming one of the most popular albums in jazz history and selling well more than 1 million copies. The modal form of improvisation soon replaced chord-based bebop and its descendants, becoming the dominant sound of jazz. Classic recordings by John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, and others contributed to the lasting impact of the music. The spontaneity and musical freedom embodied in Kind of Blue also led to even more experimental music, including the free jazz movement pioneered by the saxophonist Ornette Coleman and others. The album has even been cited having influenced musicians far removed from the jazz idiom, such as the rock-guitar legend Duane Allman.

Davis, however, while acknowledging that others consider Kind of Blue to be a masterpiece, always contended that he failed to achieve the sound he was aiming for on the album. Indeed, his tireless quest for novel sounds would lead him to new innovations. Before another decade had passed, he would change the shape of jazz again with his use of electronic and acoustic instruments on In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew.