The story behind puzzle No. 1
Miles Davis · Kind of Blue · Columbia · 1959
Two notes from the horns, answering a bass line that sounds like a question. That call and response opens one of the best-selling jazz albums ever made, and it still sounds like the coolest room you have ever walked into.
Miles Davis recorded So What on March 2, 1959, at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York. It became the first track on Kind of Blue, an album that has sold millions of copies and still turns up on almost every list of essential jazz records.
Miles came into the sessions with sketches instead of fully written tunes. According to Bill Evans's liner notes, Miles worked out these settings only hours before the recording dates, so the band was hearing much of the material for the first time. That freshness is part of why the record breathes the way it does.
So What is built on almost nothing: 16 bars of D Dorian, 8 bars of the same mode a half step up in E flat, then 8 more bars back in D. There are no fast chord changes to navigate. Instead, each soloist has to build a melody over one sound for a long stretch.
That approach, called modal jazz, was a break from bebop, where players raced through a new chord every beat or two. Miles had tried it on Milestones in 1958. So What is where it clicked.
Paul Chambers states the melody on bass, and the horns and piano answer with a two-chord figure that seems to say the title. Then listen to how differently the three horn players handle the same open space. Miles is spare and lyrical, leaving room between phrases. John Coltrane fills that room with long, tumbling runs. Cannonball Adderley brings the blues and a bright, bouncing swing.
Who's on it
Keep listening
Once So What clicks, try the rest of Kind of Blue in order. All Blues and Blue in Green use the same open approach in very different moods.
As an Amazon Associate, Liner Note earns from qualifying purchases.