Miles Davis, I Know That Name: What Did He Do?

I came home from the office today and a nap was in order for me. I headed to my "standby" compact disk stack and found the quintessential "cool jazz" album on top: Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. Please understand this is not a comprehensive review of Kind of Blue or the music of Miles Davis; books have been written on that topic. Allow this to serve as a primer for what I hope will be your further interest in Miles, his music and influence on those he worked with.

Kind of Blue reinvented the sound of jazz, a true American art form, in 1959. To my ears, the entire album is an exploration of the relationship of two notes to each other. You hear it in the opening track, da--dat.... da--dat.

Listen below...

Another Miles Davis release you might enjoy is the landmark release a decade after Kind of Blue, the jazz fusion album, Bitches Brew. With the arrival of this release one can hear the way the music had changed from the exploration of two note to Miles' desire to explore ALL notes within the music.

And how could even an abbreviated story on Miles NOT mention John Coltrane? Shortly after Coltrane completed his work with Mr. Davis on Kind of Blue, he was back to the studio to record his own groundbreaking album. Giant Steps was the result. Phil Spector had his Wall of Sound, critic Ira Gitler described Giant Steps as "sheets of sound."

Enjoy...

Well, there you have it... Send me your musical discoveries and rediscoveries!

'Keep listening until you hear IT.' - The Duck