In Black America Podcast: Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece
Miles Davis, Kind of Blue Sessions, 1959. Don Hunstein © Sony BMG Entertainment
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On this edition of In Black America, producer/host John L. Hanson Jr speaks with Ashley Kahn an award-winning journalists, radio essayist and author of Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece. In the spring of 1959, seven musicians got together in a converted church on 30th Street in Manhattan and made jazz history. Over fifty-one years have passed since Davis assembled his famed sextet – John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb – and in only two impromptu sessions created a masterpiece. Kahn takes us into the studio and gives us the unprecedented opportunity to witness the creation of Kind of Blue, an album beloved by jazz musicians, enthusiasts, and newcomers alike.
Weaving his meticulous research into a thrilling narrative, he traces Miles’ progress from bop to modal jazz, and follows the album from its release to its transformation into a cultural touchstone. With transcriptions of the unedited session tapes, freshly discovered Columbia Records files, new in-depth interviews with musicians, producers and critics, and photographs never seen before, Kind of Blue documents an invaluable piece of musical history and heightens fans’ appreciation of the album they know and love.
Podcast: Download (26.4MB)
