Miles Davis: Kind of Blue (stereo, clear vinyl) [COLUMBIA/LEGACY]

Why you'll love it

This pressing is the stereo mix on clear vinyl. Kind of Blue is the best-selling jazz album of all time, certified five times platinum in the US, with John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley and Bill Evans on board.

This edition

• Clear vinyl
• Stereo mix
• Single LP, 5 tracks

About the album

One could fill a book (and many books have, in fact, been filled) discussing the myriad twists and turns of Miles Davis's endlessly questing career.

If you've gotta start somewhere, however, 1959's Kind of Blue is a pretty good entry point into a catalogue that comprises more than 60 of his own studio albums alone. The irascible trumpeter is moving away from his more traditional beginnings and "hard bop" here and moving into "modal" jazz with a gifted ensemble of improvisers that includes John Coltrane on tenor sax, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley on alto sax and Bill Evans on piano. In layman's terms, then: Miles is starting to get freaky, but not as freaky as he would get on wilder and wilder later albums. Kind of Blue is a toweringly influential record, in any case, and one that casts a loooooong shadow well beyond merely the world of jazz. It's also Davis's best-selling album, so it's definitely not impenetrable. Dip a toe in here and you might just find you like it.

Also at Kops: more Miles Davis on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Columbia/Legacy, a clear vinyl reissue of the 1959 album.