Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue at 60: A New Video Essay Celebrates the 60th Anniversary of the Iconic Album

As Josh Jones observed yes­ter­day, Miles Davis’ leg­endary jazz album Kind of Blue turns 60 this week. Today, we want to keep the par­ty going a lit­tle longer and fea­ture this video essay from Sweet­wa­ter. They write:

In 1959, Miles Davis went to Colum­bia Records in Man­hat­tan to forge a new style of music impro­vi­sa­tion. With the com­pa­ny of oth­er leg­endary musi­cians, like John Coltrane and Bill Evans, Kind of Blue was record­ed; the great­est sell­ing jazz album of all time. Miles chose to take an inter­pre­tive dance approach to impro­vi­sa­tion, devel­op­ing ideas and using space to cre­ate his unique style. This new style of modal jazz pushed musi­cians to express them­selves through melod­ic cre­ativ­i­ty. Take a look into the his­to­ry and music the­o­ry of Kind of Blue with Sweet­wa­ter’s Jacob Dupre (piano/trumpet), accom­pa­nied by Michael Pat­ter­son (bass) and Sean Parr (drums). Karl Stab­nau (alto sax) per­forms the solo on “Blues For Alice,” as played by Char­lie Park­er.

For a more in-depth study of the time­less album, read Ash­ley Kah­n’s well-reviewed book, Kind of Blue: The Mak­ing of the Miles Davis Mas­ter­piece.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Miles Davis Icon­ic 1959 Album Kind of Blue Turns 60: Revis­it the Album That Changed Amer­i­can Music

1959: The Year That Changed Jazz

Kind of Blue: How Miles Davis Changed Jazz

Her­bie Han­cock Explains the Big Les­son He Learned From Miles Davis: Every Mis­take in Music, as in Life, Is an Oppor­tu­ni­ty

The Influ­ence of Miles Davis Revealed with Data Visu­al­iza­tion: For His 90th Birth­day Today