Miles Davis Kind Of Blue by: Greg DeGraves Mon:20-Aug-07 Label: Columbia Year: 1959 WB rating 94 out of 100

Kind of Blue is the archetype, a monstrous, multi-headed, innovative beast, both elegant and swing-heavy – the type of record blurted out of smoke-filled dormitories, tweed-coated ivory towers and beatnik coffee houses – Miles Davis changed jazz with this cool concoction, he did it by simplifying, moving away from the homeland, thinking solely about melody, leaving the complex changes to the stupefied masses still pottering about with bebop, clinging to their II, V, I’s and ‘standards’.

There’s heaps to like and love, to rave about on Kind of Blue: Innovation, exploring modal songwriting not just with one or two cuts of ingenuity nestled amongst non-committal fallbacks or learning curve filler, but a space-to-space continuum of action-paced groove, frightful soloing, dynamics-to-boot, quintessentially cool; Maturity: yes, sometimes notes are flying thick-and-fast like profanity from the mouth of a Tourettes sufferer with a stutter – like ‘Trane’s wailing-and-flailing, breaking light runs on ‘Freddie Freeloader’ – but there’s no toe-treading, no scene-stealing, the themes are left sparkly and bright, singable, the solos close-knit, tight upon one another, allowing the chanteuses the space to plaster their character and dilate the song’s eye.

‘So What’ is the godfather of groove on Kind of Blue, it’s that sexy-strut of the bass’ and punctuation of the horns that is the motion, drummer Jimmy Cobb literally igniting Miles with his positively electric sounding ride; and Davis is all emotion here, his trumpet existing between broken-and-belching (drunken and hoarse) and soulful smooth, he is the steady undercurrent, – a erudite power of restraint forever his calling-card – the folly for the controlled chaos of Cannonball and ‘Trane; it is Miles and the comp-happy piano of Bill Evans who colour and distorts any idea of ‘So What’, or Kind of Blue, as cyclic composition.

But for all his space-creating smarts Miles knew that Evans couldn’t handle the blues like running mate Wynton Kelly whose ‘Freddie Freeloader’ licks – his only piano performance on the album – were picked from the teeth and spit of the ancestral stench-ridden saloons, cut with the kind of soul that some have sold souls for; Cannonball burns down buildings at the climax of his solo, screeching runs cascading into sparse four-note flourishes before the next idea floats from his brass beast; Davis, caught in the moment, proves human (entering the theme one bar before his cast), even the fuck ups somehow an essential piece of the legacy.

The sultry balladry of ‘Blue in Green’ is a playground for the rich lashings of Miles, rarely has an instrument sounded so human, so haunting as his introductory, soul-squeezing performance; the rhythmic interplay of Chambers, Cobb and Evans nowhere more spectacular than in Evans’ second chord-driven solo, splitting the groove down the middle and resting the rhythm on pin-hair precision; Evans’ acme, his indelible touch lifting ‘Blue in Green’ towards a romantic wash.

The theme heavy ‘All Blues’ denies this, hinting at Bitches Brew fortune-telling in the dissonant chord and dynamic interplay; actively Cobb splashes and crashes his way through the groove as if existing in a sphere of his own –  the psychedelic, synth-like drone of Evans’ initial piano refrain another sign of the moody underbelly, the electric fusion that Miles would explore and master a decade later; by mid-section though any hint of this cluttered introduction is denounced, the ‘all blues’ moniker rearing-and-reviving the devastating swing-and-strut so ingrained in the first two cuts –  like a well-wound, freakish, carnival won Jack-in-a-box waiting to pop from the can, by the eleventh-and-a-half minute it’s hard to know where the wind up began.

The contemplative closer ‘Flamenco Sketches’ is demonstrative of the sparse, inviting atmosphere that permeates Kind of Blue, a tone that can only be described as elevator music for ascension.

Recorded in two sessions, sketched out, unrehearsed, improvised, a fore father of modality,  the greatest selling jazz album of all-time, the best example of cool jazz, influential (Dark Side of the Moon-era Floyd, Allman Brothers, Zappa), Kind of Blue  is the archetype.