The contents of the box include: two CDs (running time over two hours); a newly-produced black-and-white documentary DVD (55 minutes); a full-size 60-page book of critical essays, annotations and photography; and an envelope chockfull of memorabilia.
The box also includes the 12-inch LP package pressed on 180-gram blue vinyl and an enormous 22x33 fold-out poster of Miles.
Released in 1959, "Kind of Blue" is RIAA triple-platinum status in the U.S. and is No. 12 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums Of All Time."
'KIND OF BLUE' ANNIVERSARY BOX SET IN SEPT: Release marks seminal album's 50th birthday.
Kind of Blue is an album by jazz musician Miles Davis, released August 17, 1959, on Columbia Records, in both mono and stereo, CL1355 and CS8163. Recording sessions for the album took place at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City on March 2 and April 22 of 1959.[1] Following the inclusion of pianist Bill Evans in his sextet, Davis followed up on the modal experimentations of the 1958 Sessions and Milestones by recording Kind of Blue, which he based entirely on modality, in contrast to his earlier work with the hard bop style of jazz.[2]
Though precise figures have been disputed, Kind of Blue has been cited as Davis' best-selling album, and as the best-selling jazz record of all time. As of January 16, 2002, it has been certified triple platinum in sales by the RIAA.[3] The album has been regarded by many critics as the greatest jazz album of all time and ranks at or near the top of many "best album" lists in disparate genres.[4][5][6][7] Kind of Blue's influence on music, such as jazz, rock and classical music, has led critics to acknowledge it as one of the most influential albums of all time.[8][9] In 2002, Kind of Blue was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.[10] In 2003, the album was ranked number 12 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.[11
By late 1958, Davis employed one of the best and most profitable working bands pursuing the hard bop style. His personnel had become stable: alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, pianists Wynton Kelly and Bill Evans, long-serving bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb. His band played a mixture of pop standards and bebop originals by Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, and Tadd Dameron; as with all bebop-based jazz, Davis's groups improvised on the chord changes of a given song.[12] Davis was one of many jazz musicians growing dissatisfied with bebop, and saw its increasingly complex chord changes as hindering creativity.[13] In 1953, pianist George Russell published his Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization, which offered an alternative to the practice of improvisation based on chords. Abandoning the traditional major and minor key relationships of Western music, Russell developed a new formulation using scales or a series of scales for improvisations; this approach came to be known as modal in jazz.[14]
Influenced by Russell's ideas, Davis implemented his first modal composition with the title track of his 1958 album Milestones and his first sessions with Bill Evans, the '58 Sessions. Satisfied with the results, Davis prepared an entire album based on modality. Pianist Bill Evans, who had studied with Russell but recently departed from the Davis band to pursue his own career, was successfully drafted in to the new recording project—the sessions that would become Kind of Blue.[15]
No comments:
Post a Comment