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​The chronicles behind Kind of blue (1959) say that this is a recording that did not have previous rehearsals. Merely some annotations by Davis and that the super sextet was conducted into the new boundaries of the modal jazz. Without pretending to reduce it to one sentence, Kind of blue gives the impression that the attention has been directed to the melody more than the chords. If this was musically sustainable I would like to offer an analogy. If harmony could be compared, at least in didactic terms, to architecture it seems that the melody, in this case, the modes are a type of sketch or drawings. This offers a freshness when it comes to listening to it that is very different from other jazz musicians introduced until now. I write this without denying the legacy of them in Miles Davis and rememberinghis early relationship with Parker (the bird). Kind of blue is perhaps to the ear what abstract expressionism was to the eye. These painted the same act of painting (Motherwell, J. P., Rothko…), while he played the unusual action of music in a permanent state of exploration and found in the musical modes the fastest way of descending into a sonorous genesis.

 

Melody as the vehicle of work in progress. The unexpected is perhaps the element that unifies the album. With this term I mean that to the listener every one of the tracks turns out to be unexpected not only because of their construction but also because it is uncertain in its resolution, which is even more important. There are no clichés or commonplaces for he who listens. One doesn’t predict Miles’ trumpet, which is without a doubt miles away! We go towards him. His modal and melodic approach is always further.

 

1) So What

The album opens with So What. The preparation of the theme sets up the mood so that the trumpet appears little after. It is about a discreet accompaniment, barely some quarter notes that offer new harmonic colours from the second measure. The contrast between the first compass and the second one is so intense. While in the first one the piano plays a sweet chord in the other there is already a light dissonance. What happens is not entirely well known and it is then that other rhythmic values appear (eight notes) to give way to a walking bass line.With the apparition of Davis in the track there comes a tone that offers a vibrato in certain notes. Leading on to the subject of the brass instruments… The melodic phrases of both Coltrane and Davis are distinguishable not only because of the obvious personality of their instrument but also because of the way in which it appears that each has to perform, not only the vibrato but also the legato notes. The dynamics of the drums and the bass (sometimes fortes and other times pretty subtle) allow the conformation of an ambiance or, if required, of a sound landscape. Only a few instants are needed to put in the spotlight what merely some seconds ago fulfilled a rhythmical function. The economy in terms of notes that the track has draws attention. There isn’t a saturation of notes.  On the contrary, silence is one of the essential elements of So what.

 

2) Freddie Freeloader

The track starts with Coltrane and Davis and the same time. This subject would be the one that apparently is most proximate with the Jazz tradition previous to Miles’ blue era. This can be perceived because in the case of the chords they seem to be integrated to the melody and rhythm. The brushes have the same feel. The upright bass also comp this. Therhythm is steady until the apparition of the first solo. Freddie Freeloader represents a great opportunity to get to know the differences between a tenor sax and the alto sax.

 

3) Flamenco sketches

A brief and slow appearance of Bill Evans takes off. Immediately a high note from a trumpet intervenes, with a very particular timbre, like a velvet and metallic timbre at the same time, so to speak… if that is at some time possible. We are witnessing the best example of the implementation of modes; far away Bill’s piano is perceived but the melodies both of Miles and Coltrane are, albeit originated in concordance with the harmony, a series of “musical sketches.” They are a formthat can very well flow without creating dissonances and they go changing little by little, in other words they come from the aforementioned sketches from different modes and in no moment they sound like just scales. In the minute 41.32: You can crearly indentify a phrygian phrase: All the flamenco-like sound. The bullfighthing vibe!

 

4) Blue in Green

As if with bees in his fingers, Evans plays a swift arpeggio. Coltrane and Adderley play the same note values but with a slight difference; they are not octaves but, I would say, sevenths. And it seems too that they fulfill a rhythmical function. If it is true that the time signature is different, these instruments accomplish something similar to a waltz cadence. It is clear that Davis’ track is in another time signature, however the saxophone dupla accomplishes this rhythmical function. Above all of this: piano and saxophones Miles appears in a discrete manner. There is a second part to the track where “the rhythmical cadence” is diluted little by little and this allows that first Miles and then Coltrane perform again new melodic lines. Coltrane’s last solo has, to begin with, a slight pentatonic flavor but it is very tenuous in that again there is a sense of exploration of modal phrases that prevent typecasting it into solely one thing.

 

5) All Blues

The perfect atmospheric ending for the album. This is a slow composition and with very piano to pianissimo dynamics. There is another role of Bill Evans’ piano and also for the bass. His greatest repercussion is that Bill only plays colour intervals many times: fourths, sixths and this is why it is possible to locate the tonic of the chord very well. This is a deliberate, mature and profound decision. At some moments these diads coincide with some notes in the melody of Coltrane but its by seconds that they are near and again Evans proceeds in placing new comps. The stillness is very singular because even when this is not the track with the largest majority of solos, who listens may observe that also calmness is constructed. This is the moment for Evans to carry out his goodbye, after Coltrane has already done it. With only one minute and 15 seconds left, Davis says goodbye with the following tender notes:

 

 

 

It is well known that Jimi Hendrix, as a young man, and Miles during his life kept a fascination for images to be drawn. All in all, music can be understood like a form drawn in time, right? For any lover of creation, art remains in the horizon of the probable; the eventual connection Miles and Hendrix would have originated another musical colour. Another kind of of purpBLUE? We must thank what Miles’ restless spirit managed to consolidate… When Miles Davis descended into the fountainhead of sound: he brought us colour.

 

J Coss