Kind of Blue - Mostly Other People Do the Killing

[mikeweil]

FWIW:

Ha, with the last band I played in I had the same idea of playing All Blues with the fourth bar shortened to 2/4 so you have an 11/4 groove ... but we kept the 4 x 3/4 for the bridge. Plus, our feel was more conventional, Oh Well ...

[David Ayers]

It's sort of sweet that you guys are so exercised by this but you are on the wrong tack. The whole idea is about what happens when you try to copy a whole album. Hint: if you want to hear the original KoB, listen to it. Though as I found when I finally played the copy out of the mono box, memory plays tricks, as do remastering engineers, and even the original is not the same.

[colinmce]

Fat lot of use having the facsimile of the original jacket, btw, as the tracks are listed in the wrong order. Still find it boring.

Nice to hear someone say that. I put it on last week too and was pretty unmoved, as usual. It's a one-of-a-kind album no doubt but it never totally pulls me in. "All Blues" remains the highlight to me while the slower tracks like "Flamenco Sketches" and "Blue In Green" just come off as dull. I'm not trying to suggest the album doesn't deserve its status-- but it does take up too much space. In a discography that encompasses Walkin', Milestones, In Europe, ESP, Nefertiti... I guess I get why this one rises to the top, but I also don't.

[clifford_thornton]

I mean, Kind of Blue is an amazing jazz record. Everything 'clicks' and it's very well recorded. The tunes are beautiful. For sure, there was no attempt or foreknowledge to make an "iconic" recording, just a need to document a band and a record's worth of ideas in Columbia's studios. Now, when you think about it that way, copying it note for note is more than a little strange, but I believe it's more a statement on the marketing of the music as well as how impossible it has for the jazz world to get beyond that "icon."

I was at an Ideal Bread gig last week and the between-sets music was KoB... or at least I think so. It could have been MOPDTK!

[AllenLowe]

well, from what we can see and hear, it had a powerful effect on jazz in the immediate aftermath - it seemed everybody was trying to write a tune that sounded like something from KOB. This in itself had major impact and significance,

[colinmce]

Undoubtedly.

[clifford_thornton]

I suppose not being around at the time it's hard for me to gauge, but you're right, it's fair to assume that the impact was pretty sizable on other musicians at the time. Certainly the modal thing began happening in earnest around that time.

[David Ayers]

Well obviously this is the breakout recording of modal pieces, that is well-known - the album is a sine qua non of ECM . The question is whether the musicians, who are unaccustomed to it, really manage to keep it interesting, and whether they find ways to maintain the tension which modalism was designed to slacken. The idea I think was not to produce a musical breakthrough so much as a consumer breakthrough - lifestyle music, jazz with less snap crackle and pop for use in your living-room. That part of it worked, of course.

Oh and in answer to the question I'd say part of the time they slacken, elsewhere they come up with some incredibly memorable phrases.

[Teasing the Korean]

... The idea I think was not to produce a musical breakthrough so much as a consumer breakthrough - lifestyle music, jazz with less snap crackle and pop for use in your living-room. That part of it worked, of course.

I have often wondered if KoB and Blues and the Abstract Truth were inspired by hi-fi private eye jazz, or space-age bachelor pad music in general. The latter genres featured a kind of stylized, Hollywood jazz, so why not take a cue from stylizations?

[David Ayers]

On another note, the playing order. The facsimile jacket has Flamenco Sketches before All Blues, as do Bill Evans' notes. But the CD (in the mono box) has the otherwise standard running order, All Blues before Flamenco Sketches. So, does anyone know the story on this?

[jazzbo]

That's the way the original release was, is that not so?

[David Ayers]

That's the way the original release was, is that not so?

That's what I don't know. Or if or why it changed. Or why the mono box doesn't restore the original running order.

[jazzbo]

The running order was always the same, the two tracks were misprinted as far as sequence on the original covers, stereo and mono. So this is in fact an accurate reproduction of the original.

[David Ayers]

The running order was always the same, the two tracks were misprinted as far as sequence on the original covers, stereo and mono. So this is in fact an accurate reproduction of the original.

Ok thanks. Is that definite? I don't have any of the Miles books and I don't have the Miles/Coltrane box. The notes to the Columbia stereo CD don't mention this issue.

The Wikipedia entry states "On some editions, the label switched the order for the two tracks on side two, "All Blues" and "Flamenco Sketches". " but there is no further clarification and no reference is given.

Edited October 28, 2014 by David Ayers

[jazzbo]

I'm not with my books but I'm pretty sure that's how it is. . . the cover had the track listing wrong, and the track sequence was always the same.

[David Ayers]

I'm not with my books but I'm pretty sure that's how it is. . . the cover had the track listing wrong, and the track sequence was always the same.

Likely what you say is right. Let's see if others wade in.

[kh1958]

Yes, the back cover of the LP has Flamenco Sketches and All Blues listed in the wrong order. This is the case on both my trashed 6 eyes pressing and my 1970s pressing.

[Hot Ptah]

... The idea I think was not to produce a musical breakthrough so much as a consumer breakthrough - lifestyle music, jazz with less snap crackle and pop for use in your living-room. That part of it worked, of course.

I have often wondered if KoB and Blues and the Abstract Truth were inspired by hi-fi private eye jazz, or space-age bachelor pad music in general. The latter genres featured a kind of stylized, Hollywood jazz, so why not take a cue from stylizations?

That is interesting. I have heard quite a lot of both genres, because of a weekly public radio show in my local area, hosted by a very knowledgeable and enthusiastic programmer, Darrell Brogden. (The show is called the Retro Cocktail Hour, on Kansas Public Radio). I don't really hear the connection with Kind of Blue and Blues and the Abstract Truth, but maybe there is one--I am not the most astute listener. I hear more of a direct link to crime jazz (as Darrell Brogden calls it) and the bluesy Charles Mingus songs on his "Blues and Roots" and "Oh Yeah" albums.

[JSngry]

The notion that Kind Of Blue was created as a stealth Lounge album, that it was really music for and about affluent white hipsters and/or swingers, is one of the great (and one of the few remaining) unexplored avenues of jazz scholarship. People need to start getting in line for their grants to write their book, because once this gets figured out, EVERYBODY'S gonna want to do one.

[Hot Ptah]

The notion that Kind Of Blue was created as a stealth Lounge album, that it was really music for and about affluent white hipsters and/or swingers, is one of the great (and one of the few remaining) unexplored avenues of jazz scholarship. People need to start getting in line for their grants to write their book, because once this gets figured out, EVERYBODY'S gonna want to do one.

The marketing avenues this opens up for Sony--it boggles the mind. Think of the different packaging options for different reissues every two years or so. The 'Kind of Blue" CD could come with little umbrellas to put your drink for the regular price. For $79.99, you could get the "Kind of Blue" CD and a set of martini glasses, with "Kind Of Blue" etched in the glass. For $129.99, you could get the CD, an accompanying book, the glasses, and a working Tiki torch. For $999.99, you could get the CD, the book, the Tiki torch, the glasses, and a sterling silver martini making set, with the words "Kind of Blue" engraved in the various silver pieces.

The marketing slogan: "'Kind of Blue'--where the jazz is shaken, not stirred."

(I have to admit that I stole that slogan from the regular announcement on Darrell Brogden's Retro Cocktail Hour radio show).

Edited October 28, 2014 by Hot Ptah

[JSngry]

Ok, now make it the Kind Of Blue Martini.

The more it makes you wanna vomit, the more marketable it will be, so don't be bashful or anything like that.

[Spontooneous]

If it's conceptual art, I find the concept flawed because they didn't do the alternate take.

[David Ayers]

If it's conceptual art, I find the concept flawed because they didn't do the alternate take.

They did. It will be included in 2064, when it is released as...well, nothing will be 'released' in any 'format' any more, we will all simply have the whole of everything implanted directly in our heads....

[Guy Berger]

Fat lot of use having the facsimile of the original jacket, btw, as the tracks are listed in the wrong order. Still find it boring.

Nice to hear someone say that. I put it on last week too and was pretty unmoved, as usual. It's a one-of-a-kind album no doubt but it never totally pulls me in. "All Blues" remains the highlight to me while the slower tracks like "Flamenco Sketches" and "Blue In Green" just come off as dull. I'm not trying to suggest the album doesn't deserve its status-- but it does take up too much space. In a discography that encompasses Walkin', Milestones, In Europe, ESP, Nefertiti... I guess I get why this one rises to the top, but I also don't.

So this is obviously a matter of taste, but I've found that these tracks grew on me a lot over time. I'm a big Coltrane fan and he's magnificent on these - "Blue in Green" is one of his best performances on record, "Flamenco Sketches" not far behind.

[jazzbo]

I admit Kind of Blue has really grown on me too over the years. Thinking of what these cats did in the studio with the material they were given. . . this is a magnificent exploration that seems so polished and perfected when there was so little time to do so. Boggling in a way. And some excellent solos, and the engineering captured it so well. (Plus, as a drummer or former drummer, what Cobb does on this record intrigues me every time, just the right amount of support and propulsion and with his intrinsic grace and essential motions).

That is what makes the "Blue" such an interesting listening. This is not invention, this is re-creation and a studied one. The engineering is different. The whole experience is different. For at least a bit more spins I think I'll find a fascination in the comparison. Glad I bought it and didn't just dismiss the idea and product.

Edited October 29, 2014 by jazzbo