Kind of Blue at Lenox Library on August 17

50th Anniversary of Release of Miles Davis Landmark

By: Charles Giuliano - Aug 15, 2009

The cover of the book on Miles by Berkshire based author Jeremy Yudkin.

Up close with Miles. Giuliano photos.

Digging into a note.

The regal Miles.

Miles was known to be indifferent to audiences.

Laying back.

Seeing red.

Gerry Mulligan performed with Miles on the seminal album "Birth of the Cool."

Bill Evans had an important period with Miles including "Kind of Blue."

After Miles Herbie Hancock went electric.

After "Bitches Brew" for a time Miles had both Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett in the group.

 

50th Anniversary Celebration of the Miles Davis' album, "Kind of Blue", at the Lenox Library on August 17, 2009 at 7:30 pm

It is a remarkable week of musical anniversaries. Most of the attention has focused on the Woodstock Festival, now 40 years on. No less notable it has been a half century since the release of  "Kind of Blue" by Miles Davis. The music originally released as an LP by Columbia records and reissued as a CD regularly ends up in the top tier of lists of all time bests compiled by critics. It represented a landmark for Davis just before his sidemen, John Coltrane, on tenor sax, and Cannonball Adderley, alto sax, departed for their own careers as band leaders and recording artists.

Recently I read Boston University Professor Jeremy Yudkin's insightful book "Miles Davis: Miles Smiles and the Invention of Post Bop" (Indiana University Press, 2008). He has organized a tribute to Miles to mark this occasion. Yudkin will be among the speakers in a program that will feature live music and memories. The press release for the event appears below.

Oh yes, I also sat in the mud in Bethel, New York forty years ago. But I don't recall seeing you there.

(Lenox, MA) The Lenox Library will celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the release of the most famous and successful album in jazz history, "Kind of Blue" by Miles Davis, on Monday August 17th at 7:30 pm. The varied program will feature performances by local jazz artists and combos, lectures, a panel discussion by musicians who perform Davis' music, poetry inspired by the album music and reminiscences by musicians who knew Miles Davis.

Among those appearing will be pianist Andy Jaffe, the Director of the Jazz Program at Williams College and Artistic Director of the annual Williamstown Jazz Festival, who will play with his son, bassist Marty Jaffe. The Bob Shepherd Trio, featuring Bob Shepherd on piano, Steve Murray on bass and Dick DiNicola on drums, will perform, along with Don Mikkelsen on trombone and Robert Kelly on piano, as well as pianist Daniel Yudkin. Also on the program will be guitarists Andy Kelly and Joe Finn. Jeremy Yudkin, Professor of Music at Boston University, will provide insights into the recording sessions for "Kind of Blue" while also addressing the assertion that the names of two of the album's songs were erroneously switched. Tom Reney, host of the long-running and very popular jazz show, Jazz a la Mode, on WFCR in Amherst will offer reflections on "Kind of Blue and its Legacy."

Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue," released on August 17, 1959, helped jazz earn its title as America's classical music and remains the bestselling jazz record of all time. The album brought together seven now-legendary musicians in the prime of their careers: tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, alto saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, pianists Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Jimmy Cobb, not to mention of course trumpeter Miles Davis. An innovative blend of Southern gospel, African finger music and influences from classical composers such as Bela Bartok and Maurice Ravel, the album was recorded with virtually no rehearsal and almost entirely from first takes.

Jazz critic Ashley Kahn has compared "Kind of Blue" to reading James Joyce. "Every time you go to it" he observed, "you come back with something new – a favorite track, a new solo in that track. If that's not a definition of a masterpiece, I don't know what is."
The program is free and open to the public.

History

Kind of Blue was recorded in two sessions at Columbia Records' 30th Street Studio in New York City, on March 2 for the tracks "So What", "Freddie Freeloader", and "Blue in Green", composing side one of the original LP, and April 22 for the tracks "Flamenco Sketches", and "All Blues", making up side two. Production was handled by Teo Macero, who had produced Davis's previous two LP's, and Irving Townsend.

As was Miles Davis's penchant, he called for almost no rehearsal and the musicians had little idea what they were to record; as described in the original liner notes by pianist Bill Evans, Davis had only given the band sketches of scales and melody lines on which to improvise. Once the musicians were assembled, Davis gave brief instructions for each piece and then set to taping the sextet in studio. While the results were impressive with so little preparation, the persistent legend that the entire album was recorded in one pass is untrue.

Only "Flamenco Sketches" yielded a complete take on the first try. That take, not the master, was issued in 1997 as a bonus alternate track. The five master takes issued, however, were the only other complete takes; an insert for the ending to "Freddie Freeloader" was recorded, but was not used for release or on the issues of Kind of Blue prior to the 1997 reissue.

Pianist Wynton Kelly may not have been happy to see the man he replaced, Bill Evans, back in his old seat. Perhaps to assuage the pianist's feelings, and also to take advantage of Kelly's superior skills as both bluesman and accompanist, Davis had Kelly play instead of Evans on the album's most blues-oriented number, "Freddie Freeloader". The live album Miles Davis at Newport documents this band. However, the Newport Jazz Festival recording on July 3, 1958 reflects the band in its hard bop conception, the presence of a Bill Evans only six weeks into his brief tenure in the Davis band notwithstanding, rather than the modal approach of Kind of Blue.