A Kind of Miles: The Making of "Kind of Blue" And The Legacy It Left For “Miles From India”

Written by Sujit Sinha (@stijus) - TRC Community Member

It was the spring of the year 1959, often considered as the greatest year of Jazz that one of the greatest Jazz musicians of all time, Miles Davis gathered a set of brilliant jazz musicians into the famous Columbia’s 30th street studio also known as “The Church”, an old reconstructed Greek Church in Manhattan, NY. 

We take a look at what went behind the making of arguably the greatest Jazz album of all time – Kind of Blue, thereby also touching briefly on how Miles and Kind of Blue influenced Indian musicians leading to the release of “Miles From India” in 2008, almost after five decades since it was first released in 1959.

Miles From India is an album that features songs associated with Miles Davis but performed in new arrangements by American jazz musicians and performers from India.

Coming back to Kind of Blue, despite being quite unique, this album is ubiquitous among music lovers. Lovers & friends continue to give the album to each other even after 63 years of its release! 

For many music lovers Kind of Blue is the only jazz album they possess. The ultimate album that one is most likely to have heard at a retail store, Starbucks, or at a friend’s place who claims to be a Jazz expert.

Yet, despite all those playing over the years, the record manages to still hold on and still sounds fantastic and inspirational, justifying all the attention it gets.

➡ Recording Sessions and Personnel:

There were two recording sessions, the first one commenced on March, 2nd and the second session was recorded on April, 22nd in 1959. ”43079” was the project number that Columbia had assigned the yet unnamed Kind of Blue session.

There was no written music given to the musicians by Miles and he had brought only sketches of what everybody was supposed to play as he wanted a lot of spontaneity in the playing.

As Bill Evans, who wrote the liner notes of the album puts it, “Miles conceived the setting only hours before recording dates arrived with sketches which indicated the group, what was to be played”

Kind of Blue was recorded with seven now-legendary musicians in the prime of their careers: tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, alto saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, pianists Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Jimmy Cobb apart from the leader of the session himself, trumpeter Miles Davis.

Wynton played only on Freddie Freeloader in the original album. An interesting anecdote mentioned in Ashley Kahn’s A Kind of Blue book recalls how Wynton was surprised to see Bill Evans at the studio and almost left before Miles explained to him that he wanted Wynton also in the first recording session.

➡ The tracks of Kind of Blue

1. So What:

The album opener “So What” is one of the most famous compositions in jazz and is as energetic as the Kind of Blue album can get. Davis and Gil Evans were influenced by composer and pianist George Russell, author of The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization, a radical book of “modal” jazz theory. 

The Piano chord played at the start by Bill Evans, another student of Russell is strongly reminiscent of the opening of Debussy’s “Voiles”, composed in 1909.

The melody and use of chords are also reportedly inspired by a tune called Pavanne by Ahmad Jamal who was one of the favorite Piano players of Miles Davis.

So What also inspired the personal theme of the fellow jazz legend and sideman for this session, John Coltrane. Coltrane recorded his tune “Impressions” a number of times in his career which he used to refer to as “So What” before settling the name as Impressions in 1962.

So what continues to be a Guitar player’s favorite, notably covered by Grant Green in 1961 and George Benson in 1971. Jerry Garcia along with David Grisman covered this for their 1998 acoustic jazz album of the same name.

[Watch the video of ‘So What” which was first aired, as part of the program titled “The Sound of Miles Davis” on July 21st, 1961 after being recorded in 1959]

2. Freddie Freeloader:

Freddie Freeloader is inspired by a colorful street character named Fred Tolbert who was friends with Miles in the heyday of the sextet. One of Tolbert’s business cards read simply “Freddie Freeloader” acknowledging his lifestyle.

Bill Evans wrote on the liner notes, that this is a 12-measure Blues form given new personality by effective melodic and rhythmic simplicity.

3. Blue In Green:

Despite Miles calling out that this was solely his composition, to this day this composition is credited to “Davis-Evans” on various albums by Evans.

As per Bill Evans, "Blue in Green" is a ten-measure cycle following a short four-measure introduction and played by a soloist in various augmentation and diminution of time values 

Blue in Green is often considered the only composition from the album bordering on absolute minimalism in its expression and construction.

4. Flamenco Sketches:

A tune again claimed to have been composed jointly by Evans, This remains the most modal composition on Kind Of Blue. As Ashley Khan writes in his book, Kind Of Blue, this is also the most prismatic tune on the album, refracting a variety of influences (classical, impressionistic, exotic) into a haunting, pan-cultural theme covering a wide emotional range.

5. All Blues:

It was the last of the five tracks recorded which Miles once described as a slowed down version of his earlier composition “Milestones”. The interplay between Davis and Bill Evans is one of the highlights of the album.

The playing of Evans mimics a kind of strumming the instrument which probably was one of the qualities that attracted the legendary Guitarist Duane Allman, whose version of this tune titled “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” became one of the big hits for the Allman Brothers Band.

➡ Flaws at the Time of Release:

Despite all the admiration the album garnered over the years, it also came with certain flaws. The Columbia designated A&R man and producer of this album, Irving Townsend failed to make an impactful distribution of the records to Disc Jockeys, Magazine reviewers and stores in a form that would command attention.

The cover close up of Davis taken by Jay Maisel from a show at Apollo Theater, a few months earlier was hardly inspired though the photograph of Miles taken by another photographer and featured on the back cover, relaxing on a stool during the recording session proved iconic. 

There was confusion in naming the artistes with references like “Wyn Kelly”, “Julian Adderly” and “James Cobb”.

The titles of the second side listed Flamenco Sketches followed by All Blues, a reversal of the true order under which these appear on the record.

Another significant flaw that remained undiscovered for almost thirty years was that the Side A of the record was mastered at the wrong speed, infinitesimally faster than their true values. The error was rectified with Columbia’s MasterSound audiophile CD release in 1993 and in every subsequent release which happened after that. 

Some of the prominent reissues are pictured below.

MasterSound CD (1993)

Mobile Fidelity (2015)

Analog Productions (2021)

➡ Kind of Blue & Miles From India:

The first fusion album of Miles that used Indian instruments was On the Corner released in 1972. In the late 60s and early ’70s, Miles used to patronize a restaurant on 125th Street in NYC called the Bombay India Restaurant owned by Eshad Ali.

Bombay India Restaurant inspired Miles Davis' On the Corner especially the idea of Indian instruments in a jazz fusion setup. Miles frequented the restaurants to partially soak into the music being played by the proprietor.

Later in 2007, it was noted producer Bob Belden, who had directed the Miles Davis reissue series, once was having a conversation with the owner of Time Square Records music label, Yusuf Gandhi on the use of Indian instruments during the recording of On the Corner sessions.

As All Music Guide puts it, “Belden wondered aloud what it would sound like if Indian musicians played Miles' music. Gandhi replied "Miles from India," and nearly a year later Belden delivered this brilliant set that not only features a number of India's finest musicians but a veritable who's who of Miles' own sidemen.

Along with India’s master jazz musician Louis Bank, Belden started recording in Mumbai nonstop for 10 days taking only one day off. What was planned to be a single CD soon turned out to be a bonanza of riches as Belden wrote in the liner notes of the 2 CD, compilation aptly titled “Miles From India”.

He further mentions that in fact the most radical of all transpositions were the arrangements of the compositions from Kind of Blue. Three classics from Kind of Blue received the most radical reworking. They were So What, Blue in Green, and All Blues.

So What featured a fantastic Piano solo from the late great Pianist Chick Corea with a Raga bases Bassline from the living legend Ron Carter alongside Ndugu and the other Indian drummers locking in.

Blue In Green was conceptualized as a symphony where the melody is sung by Shankar Mahadevan.

All Blues was turned from 6/4 into 5/4 and features a very soulful Sitar solo from Ravi Chari, a bright Piano solo by Louis Banks along with swinging Jimmy Cobb and Ron carter with a beautiful Sax solo by Gary Bartz complemented by a brilliant duet with American Indian Alto Saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa.

Miles From India in general received a favorable response. AMG noted that the beauty of Miles From India is how the players from different cultures and backgrounds meet on Miles' turf with their individual voices completely intact calling it an amazing celebration of music. 

Largely appreciated, Kind of Blue tracks from Miles From India were also received with mixed reviews by a few Jazz purists. For example, New York Times jazz writer Nate Chinen wrote that with the songs from Kind of Blue, “the musicians had to work a lot harder at translation. It never quite came together, though their effort was worth hearing.

The album has several other tracks taken from Miles Davis’s discography almost making it a sort of a Greatest Hits compilation. Other non-Kind of Blue tracks included in the album are “In A Silent Way (Intro)”, “Spanish Key”, “Miles Runs The Voodoo Down”, “It’s About That Time”, “Great Expectations”, a fast as well as a slow versions of “Ife” and “Jean Pierre”. The only exception is the title track “Miles From India” composed by another Davis' alumni and a legend of Jazz fusion on his own, John McLaughlin.

➡ Recommended Listening:

Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis

2. On The Corner by Miles Davis:

3. Miles From India by Various Artists:

➡ References & Further Reading:

Kind Of Blue by Ashley Kahn

The Blue Moment by Richard Williams

Improvisation in Jazz (Liner Notes of Kind of Blue) by Bill Evans

Session Pictures Credit: Kind of Blue (50th Anniversary Edition CD)

➡ Check out our Miles Davis collection!

 Also read: John Coltrane's Journey From World War II To Free Jazz Pioneer