Released: 17 August 1959
I like my comfort zone. It’s safe, it’s warm and there is always Coco Pops in the cupboard. Bruce Springsteen blasts from the speakers. Super Mario World is set up on the TV. The bookshelf creaks under the strain of the entire works of Stephen King. Everything is wonderful. So, when something grabs me and rips me away from my comfort zone, kicking and screaming like a fat toddler, I don’t like it. When it comes to music my comfort zone is simple – guitar, drums, bass, singer. Maybe a piano if you’re lucky. Jazz pioneer Miles Davis is about as far away from what I would normally listen to as to make it seem like music from another planet. And perhaps, that is what makes this record so enticing…
I play a little guitar (very badly), but I just don’t have the musical vocabulary to properly write a review of this album. I can offer my emotional reaction to it, and a few words sourced from a jazz loving friend of mine. Let’s start with the former. I was cautiously optimistic when I first dipped my toe into the hazy waters of Kind of Blue, and on the opening track So What the waters were warm!
‘Come in!’ the waters said.
So What is a jumping jack of a song based around a simple but irresistible beat which confirmed to me the only thing that I did already know about jazz. These boys can seriously play. But then the water turned icy cold on track two – Freddie Freeloader. This song… is not for me. This is how every jazz song sounds in my mind. A feat of playing yes, but a mess of a melody and an arrangement that is almost aggressively unlistenable. Perhaps I wasn’t ready to step out of my comfort zone just yet?
Happily, Freddie Freeloader is an outlier. Davis slows it down for the three remaining tracks and each one is a maudlin, night time trudge through the streets of New York City and Illinois. The lack of a vocal had jarred with me on the opening track, but by the time I was halfway through Blue in Green, I had forgotten all about this absence. I was lost in a cloud of dramatic piano, insistent trumpet and almost whispered drums. My jazz friend tells me that it is this slower, relaxed style that made Kind of Blue so revolutionary, so influential,that it remains the starting point for anyone thinking of buying a hat and some really small cigarettes, so they too can become a fan of jazz and the cool.
All Blues is more upbeat with a hypnotic but sultry hook running through it. Importantly, it still sounds like an actual song despite clocking in at 11 and a half minutes in length. This is all a precursor to the stunning main event however. Flamenco Sketches is the last song on Kind of Blue and it is also its finest moment. A nine minute jazz odyssey that is as rueful as it is comforting. A warm blanket of a song that never fails to reach new heights with each passing moment.
Maybe it’s because I’m not really accustomed to jazz, or maybe it’s the old monkey brain again, but it is wild to think that this album, and particularly Flamenco Sketches, is over 60 years old. It all sounds so fresh, so vital.
Kind of Blue won’t be for everyone, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stomach Freddie Freeloader, but for the willing, there is a whole world to be discovered here. Step out of your comfort zone and find it.