Kind Of Blue
by Miles Davis

From goeie-oko 04/20/2015 19:56 | #139921 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

So, this album.

I have a bit of a strange relationship with this album,
I first listened to it a year or so ago, and it was my first jazz album ever. Needless to say, I was a bit confused. Not because of the music, since that isn't really that abstract or anything, no, I was confused about why this album got so much praise as it did, Since it really didn't seem to sound that different to other jazz to me.

I remember thinking that I just hadn't heard enough jazz to fully appreciate it (which is probably still the case). So, I rated the album 85/100 thinking that people probably know what their talking about when they say this album's great, and I should just believe them, even though I didn't see the same thing in this album.

Okay, cut to a few months later, and I have listened to the thing three times. While it was still not grabbing me like it was grabbing other people, I did appreciate the cool & calm nature of the album. (which made it great for doing homework, but I digress)

Well, soon after that, I thought I needed to listen to some more jazz, since it was by far the genre I had heard the least from (aside from maybe country).

So, I started with the classics: John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, and even Miles Davis's very own In a Silent Way, and I realised that I really liked these albums, (even going as far as puuting The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady in my top 100), and while listening to these albums, I started liking Kind of Blue less and less. "How could people say this is the best jazz album, when these other ones are clearly better?" I thought to myself.

I guess it's good to not have opinions like everyone else, but I would would love to see what so many of you see in this album.

Maybe I need to listen to it some more times, or listen to some more jazz before and after this album came out, and I'll appriciate the influence and relavency this album has, or maybe I'm looking to deep into it, and I just don't like an album as much as other people do.

The wierdest thing is, I really do expect me doing a complete 180 and loving this album in a couple of months, I mean, it happened before with albums like funeral, which is now in my top 10.

I will probably post another comment if I start really liking the album, and I'll say how much of an idiot I was for not seeing the pure genius in this album, but for now, it's a fine album, but not exceptionally great in my opinion.

From Graeme2 TOP 100 COMMENTER 08/10/2021 19:49 | #272425 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Great record though it seems to always be touted as some jazz gateway record which I've never really understood. I bought it way back without any jazz knowledge and didn't appreciate it at all. I only loved it after other avenues into jazz via hip hop, funk, jazzfunk etc. If you don't like this at first maybe this isn't your gateway. It doesn't mean you can't get into jazz, you just need another road in. Then come back to this. (Edited)

From JoaoMoreira 03/21/2018 15:26 | #211428 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Ok, so this is what I think:
I like Paul Chambers (bass) minimal approach but half of the time the lines are just boring.
Bill Evans (piano) is the best musician on this album.
Coltrane and Cannonball Adderly are clearly restrained (by themselves or Miles) and that makes them redundant (I'm a big Coltrane fan).
There are some good moments but the compositions are lazy or way too simplistic. Most of the time it feels like Evans' just dropping some chords and the rest are improvising on top of it (don't need to explain modality to me, I'm instructed).

I know that this is considered one of the best records ever recorded and was a game changer in its time, but it is not a great record if you have nowadays' knowledge.

Jazz is surely the most important musical genre of the 20th century. And the album "Kind Of Blue" is by far the best jazz album of all time. Even if you do not like jazz, you have to love this incomparable masterpiece. The album is probably one of the coolest album of all time (still today, while this album at over 50 years old). Miles Davis conveys emotions through this record such as melancholy, romance, joy ... This album is also revolutionary for jazz, it is the inventor of modal jazz and the New Age movement. Miles Davis is actually an artist who touches me. This is my favorite musician: these melodies are so beautiful. He is a really important artist. I think this album is the greatest musical emotion of all my life. I even learned all the pieces of the record at the piano so much I'm a fan. I recommend this classic to 10000%.
 
10000/10

Best track: All the 5 tracks

An album that with one listening you're already hooked. One of my favorite albums, it's just something else! Bought the album with Flamenco Sketches (alternative take) and it's still brilliant, definitely doesn't take away from it's magic.