The Blue Moment: Miles Davis's Kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music
Over 50 years ago, Miles Davis and his sextet walked into a church basement in midtown Manhattan that had been converted into a music studio. The album that emerged just nine hours later,Kind of Blue, not only changed jazz in a dramatic way, but it also changed popular music forever. As music critic Williams points out in this often exceptional, though sometimes pedantic, reflection, Davis introduced listeners in the Western world to a music suffused with a kind of mild exoticism that had its roots in Eastern philosophies. Many contemporary critics weren't exactly sure what to make of the album, but others recognized the powerful tremors that Davis's album sent through the music world. While the story of the making of the album has been well told before (as in Ashley Kahn'sKind of Blue), Williams traces the deep influence that the album had on a wide range of musicians, from John Cale and the Velvet Underground to Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, and Duane Allman. Williams's inspired reflections demonstrate the ways that luminous music can pervade other cultural forms and usher in momentous changes throughout all parts of culture.(Apr.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.