Kind of Blue Question for Members Who Were There At the Time

[Teasing the Korean]

For those of you who heard "Kind of Blue" when it was originally released: Could any of you have guessed what a massive seller (by jazz measures) and hugely influential album it would become over the decades to come? What was your reaction to the album at the time, relative to previous Miles albums or albums by contemporaneous artists?

[medjuck]

It was one of the first jazz recordings I owned and definitely the first Miles Davis I heard. I thought all jazz was going to sound like that. I was sort of disappointed when it didn't.

[JSngry]

Am I correct in thinking that Bitches Brew went gold before (and much quicker) than did Kind Of Blue?

[bertrand]

Those of you who heard it at the time, did you notice the pitch was off on side one? I'm always puzzled as to why Miles, if no one else, never complained about it.

Bertrand.

[xybert]

Really interesting question. I won't hijack this thread but i have a ton of "what was the word on the street?" questions about various eras, artists and albums.

[Teasing the Korean]

Am I correct in thinking that Bitches Brew went gold before (and much quicker) than did Kind Of Blue?

Probably, but like Dark Side of the Moon, Kind of Blue has remained a consistently strong weekly seller through several decades. If I'm not mistaken, it is on average the best selling back-catalog jazz title. As you know, it has also attained mythic status outside of jazz circles since at least the early 1990s if not earlier. Wikipedia, FWIW, reports that the RIAA certified it as selling quadruple platinum in 2008.

Edited March 3, 2014 by Teasing the Korean

[BillF]

When Kinda Blue reached best-selling-jazz-album-ever status, I just couldn't believe it. On release it seemed like just the next album from Miles, not essentially different in likely popularity from Milestones or Miles Ahead. The technical innovations of Kinda Blue passed clean over my head at the age of 19. It just sounded sophisticated, cool and hip. Milestones had been more of a shock with Coltrane doing sheets of sound and Cannonball taking on something of this, too. To a youngster bred on Bird, this was a lot to take!

[Joe]

I wasn't there, but, based on other evidence*, it seems like the big buzz at the time was more focused on Miles' collaborations with Gil Evans.

*Like, the the CBS television broadcast of April 1959.

[Don Brown]

I heard the music from Kind of Blue performed live a few months before the record was released. In July of 1959 George Wein brought a Newport Festival-type show to Toronto. The concerts ran for three days days - Friday through Sunday - and took place in the grandstand in the Canadian National Exhibition grounds. I can remember looking forward with great anticipation to hearing Davis's classic sextet and was more than a little disappointed to discover that John Coltrane and Bill Evans had both left the band. The personnel consisted of Miles, Cannonball Adderley, Jimmy Heath, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb. Most of the music played during the group's performance was from the forthcoming Kind of Blue album. Cannonball took charge of all the spoken introductions and talked with great enthusiasm about the Kind of Blue material. He made the audience aware of the fact that this music had been quite challenging for the players when they first played it in the recording studio. So I guess those of us who first heard it at this concert realized even before it was played that it was something special.

Edited March 3, 2014 by Don Brown

[John Tapscott]

I heard the music from Kind of Blue performed live a few months before the record was released. In July of 1959 George Wein brought a Newport Festival-type show to Toronto. The concerts ran for three days days - Friday through Sunday - and took place in the grandstand in the Canadian National Exhibition grounds. I can remember looking forward with great anticipation to hearing Davis's classic sextet and was more than a little disappointed to discover that John Coltrane and Bill Evans had both left the band. The personnel consisted of Miles, Cannonball Adderley, Jimmy Heath, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb. Most of the music played during the group's performance was from the forthcoming Kind of Blue album. Cannonball took charge of all the spoken introductions and talked with great enthusiasm about the Kind of Blue material. He made the audience aware of the fact that this music had been quite challenging for the players when they first played it in the recording studio. So I guess those of us who first heard it at this concert realized even before it was played that it was something special.

Great story. I can understand your disappointment at the personnel changes Don, but what we would give to see that exact band today!!

[Rooster_Ties]

Jimmy Heath - really?

[Joe]

Jimmy Heath - really?

Makes a certain amount of sense to me. Trane knew Heath from his Philly days, and Heath was among the first tenors (Bill Barron being another) to really understand Trane's music.

Oh, and Miles had recorded with Jimmy and Percy Heath at his April 20, 1953 session for Blue Note ("C.T.A.").

Edited March 3, 2014 by Joe

[medjuck]

I suspect that before Bitch's Brew, Porgy and Bess was the top selling Mile's Lp.

[AllenLowe]

I listened once, said "So what?" and went on to my Acker Bilk collection.

[king ubu]

Those of you who heard it at the time, did you notice the pitch was off on side one? I'm always puzzled as to why Miles, if no one else, never complained about it.

Bertrand.

How many musicians actually do listen to their own records?

Jimmy Heath - really?

Makes a certain amount of sense to me. Trane knew Heath from his Philly days, and Heath was among the first tenors (Bill Barron being another) to really understand Trane's music.

Oh, and Miles had recorded with Jimmy and Percy Heath at his April 20, 1953 session for Blue Note ("C.T.A.").

Didn't Miles plan to get Heath sometime later again ... around the time he then signed Mobley? Heath was out on parole and not allowed to travel, so he couldn't take the gig - that's how I remember the story.

[johnblitweiler]

I heard a Miles Davis quintet with Jimmy Heath, Kelly, Chambers, Cobb at the Regal Theater in Chicago in spring, 1961.

[Don Brown]

King ubu mentions that Jimmy Heath was on parole in 1959 which made traveling a big problem. Yet somehow he made it across the border with Miles to perform in Toronto. Oddly enough, another group that appeared in the same series of concerts that weekend, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, had to come on stage without their saxophone player. Hank Mobley had been detained at the border for possession of narcotics. So what we heard was the "Art Blakey Quartet" with Lee Morgan. Damned if I can remember who the pianist was. I seem to remember that Jymie Merritt was the bassist.

[Head Man]

Didn't Miles plan to get Heath sometime later again ... around the time he then signed Mobley? Heath was out on parole and not allowed to travel, so he couldn't take the gig - that's how I remember the story.

Yes, that's how I remember it too......from Jimmy's biography "I Walked with Giants". Interesting book.