Kind of Blue (1959)

Kind of Blue is a studio album by the American jazz musician Miles Davis, released on August 17, 1959, through Columbia Records. For this album, Davis led a sextet featuring saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, pianist Bill Evans, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb, with new band pianist Wynton Kelly replacing Evans on "Freddie Freeloader". The album was recorded at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City in two sessions on March 2 and April 22, 1959.

Influenced in part by Evans, who had been a member of the ensemble in 1958 and was called back for this album, Davis departed further from his early hard bop style in favor of greater experimentation with musical modes, as on the title track of his previous album, Milestones (1958). Basing Kind of Blue entirely on modality, Davis gave each performer a set of scales that encompassed the parameters of their improvisation and style and consequently more creative freedom with melodies; Coltrane later expanded on this modal approach in his own solo career.

Kind of Blue is regarded by many critics as Davis's masterpiece, the greatest jazz album ever recorded, and one of the greatest albums of all time. Its influence on jazz, rock, and classical music has also led writers to describe it as one of the most influential albums ever made. In 2002, it was among the first fifty recordings selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in the National Recording Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." In 2003, it ranked number 12 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time"; it was repositioned at number 31 in the 2020 revision. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified the album quintuple platinum in 2019, representing five million album-equivalent units in the United States. It remained the highest-certified jazz album until August 2026, when Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas was certified 6x platinum, making Kind of Blue the second-best-selling jazz album in the United States based on RIAA certification.

Background

By late 1958, trumpeter Miles Davis employed one of the most acclaimed and profitable hard bop bands in the business. Bassist Paul Chambers had been with the group from its beginning in 1955, alto saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley joined in late 1957, and tenor saxophonist John Coltrane returned in early 1958. Drummer Jimmy Cobb replaced Philly Joe Jones in May 1958, and pianist Wynton Kelly replaced Bill Evans in November 1958.

The Davis band played a mixture of pop standards, blues, and bebop originals by composers such as Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Tadd Dameron, and Davis himself. As with all bebop-based jazz, Davis's groups improvised on the chord changes of a given song. Davis was one of many jazz musicians growing dissatisfied with bebop, however, and saw its increasingly complex chord changes as hindering creativity.