Hey, Community gang, Iām working up a new Community-driven playlist for next month with a companion blog. Iām always so impressed with your passionate music posts, and I thought itād be fun to share your thoughts on some of the prominent artists and selections it will feature. So thenā¦drumroll
All submissions are welcomed: subjective soliloquies, impassioned impressions, obsessive odes, feverish free-form fusillades, scintillating scholarly shoutouts, academic asides, expert essays, first experiences from your personal music journeys ā itās your thing, do whatcha wanna do. Iāll run them; there are no wrong answers.
Post here in the thread, or feel free to message me at @jamie. Please note that sharing means youāre okay with us publishing your wonderful music comments on our blog, etc.
Mr.Flibble
(Uncle Arnie fries them alive with his hex vision)
3
I listen to Kind Of Blue on vinyl almost every Sunday morning with a strong black coffee. A perfect start to any day IMHO, but I chose Sunday.
My grandfather was born a year before Miles. Miles died from (complications with) bronchial pneumonia which was also the condition that stopped my grandfather from being enlisted in 1943 for WW2.
Ah! Kind Of Blue! The best selling jazz album of all time. Itās just a beautiful, captivating piece of music. Miles was the king of BeBop. That album was recorded in Hackensack NJ. ( near my home) in a small house on prospect street. The person who lived there was an optometrist by the name of Rudy Van Gelder who decided that he wanted to be a recording engineer. And what a wonderful decision that was. RVG became the quintessential engineer of all time. But I digress. The story goes that Miles and his group, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderly,Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly ( pianists) ,Paul Chambers ( Bass ) and Jimmy Cobb on the drums , did not rehearse or even know what they were going to record. But Kind of Blue became album that is a must for any jazz aficionado. Itās just a beautiful piece of music; itās timeless and beautiful. Close your eyes and you just float away and all yours cares and troubles vanish. If you donāt have this album; get it, you wonāt be sorry
Over played, as in way, way, way, way over played. Yeah itās an important recording but jazz was not invented nor did it end in 1959. And of course the world really really needs even more Kind of Blue. Thank you setting up the 1,000,000,000th Kind of Blue Tribute, you know because the other 999,999,999 tributes arenāt quite enough.
3 Likes
Mr.Flibble
(Uncle Arnie fries them alive with his hex vision)
6
So if the only play that was ever taught in school was Shakespeareās Hamlet that would be okay? Iām pretty sure that by teaching only Hamlet the students would be getting a full understanding of all things related to theater, exactly the same understanding about jazz that one gets from listening only to Kind of Blue.
Once long ago, standing in a record store, I overheard someone nearby tell their companion, āIf starting a Jazz record collection, you should start with Kind of Blue, and work your way out from there.ā Good advice, imho.
I think Jazzfan may have a point depending on what the community driven playlist is about.
I think an interesting playlist would be āIām a rock music fan - whatās Jazz?ā -with a list of 20 - 30 Jazz tracks giving an indication of what Jazz is about. Generally people will throw in Miles which I think is tantamount to including Jimi Hendrix on the similar āIām a classical music fan - Whatās pop/rock?ā If someone hadnāt recommended Ben Webster meets Oscar Peterson to me I would have never got into any Jazz.
I think what @Jazzfan_NJ is trying to say is that this is like starting a thread (for Roon users) saying what can you tell me about Sgt Pepperās?
Mind you I would be interested as mentioned by @Brad_Burnside as to opinions about the different speed versions but this may be for a different type of playlist.
@jamie none of this is intended to dent your enthusiasm here, its great to have such a advocate for music on Roon employ - sometimes we can forget that this is what it is al about.
Rudy Van Gelder and Blue Note were not involved with āKind of Blue,ā and it was not recorded in Hackensack. Like The Dave Brubeck Quartet āTime Out,ā āKind of Blueā was recorded across the river in Manhattan at CBS 30th Street Studio and released on Columbia.
āThe truth is I did [write the music for Blue in Green]ā¦ I donāt want to make a federal case out of it, the music exists, and Miles is getting the royalties.ā - Bill Evans
Miles Davis eventually offered Bill Evans 25$ instead of royalties. They never played together again.
Forget speed corrected version and all the countless reissues (aka money grabs) and include the version shown below. Also for a better understanding of my feelings on the jazz worldās obsession with KOB please read up on stir created when this Mostly Other People version was released.
Oh boy! My bad! Donāt know what I was thinking!
I had just finished listening to kind of blue and a few other albums, including time out which you had mentioned and thatās why I probably wrote what I wrote after all I am 81 so please forgive me and thank you for correcting my mistake
Maybe a little snarky but @Jazzfan_NJ makes a valid point. Music is a performance art. Recordings give us a miraculous means of recapturing a single performance, but constant repetition makes most things, even the greatest, seem boring. Nothing beats the excitement of a great live performance.
Of course, like most Roonies, I have thousands of albums, but I try to see live concerts as well. Sometimes hearing an unknown band in a small club can give you an experience that even an LP from the same band canāt match. Same applies to classical music.
Kind of Blue is essential but I donāt return to it very often, probably by design. I keep my plays of it rare to make it something of an occasion. It is a foundation in jazz - both to explore what went before and after in the wider world of jazz, but also to explore Milesās own staggering development and diversity.
Iāve been enjoying āBirth of the Blueā session which used to be bonus tracks but has achieved a new name, a contemporaneous-looking sleeve design and the status of an album (as an expensive SACD or LP, or a very affordable 192/24 download) - beautiful if not essential in the same way as Kind of Blue itself.
Jazz police are looking through my folders
Jazz police are talking to my niece
Jazz police have got their final orders
Jazzer, drop your axe, itās jazz police
