Search - Miles Davis :: Kind Of Blue

Elizabeth K. from GRAND RAPIDS, MI
Reviewed on 2/11/2007...

Considered a MUST-HAVE for a jazz collection. I have two copies.

So what more can anyone want from an album?

J. Lund | SoCal, USA | 02/13/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"KIND OF BLUE has been reissued so frequently that I fear something is amiss if a year goes by without a new and improved version popping up somewhere in the world. This 2005 edition provides an audiophile surround-sound option that is compatible with regular DVD players (unlike the SACD version which requires special hardware). On both 5.1 versions the sound is subtly widened while keeping the integrity of the original mix. As a bonus option there is a 25 minute video documentary about the album, featuring interviews with prominent musical artists from different generations and genres. All but the most knowledgeable Miles fans should find it to be an informative overview of arguably jazz's greatest album of all-time.



In the documentary drummer Jimmy Cobb -- the only surviving participant -- stated that he didn't understand why KIND OF BLUE stands out above any of Miles' many other outstanding albums. Perhaps it is because the user-friendly music satisfies the listener at whatever level they prefer. If you want to get emotively involved with the music, it leads you there. If you're a musician looking to pick apart the music, you'll discover a level of sophistication attained by very few. If you want to relax, the music is soothing on its surface. If you want to hear memorable improvisations, Miles and his sidemen lead the way by avoiding the use of cliched phrases. If you want to hear teamwork, the musicians know how to create together (when to play and when NOT to play). If you want something timeless, the music's freshness has no expiration date. Yet if you have a nostalgic twinge for the cool, acoustic jazz of the 1950s, this album will take you back in time."

Cover Hype Backlash

Michael R. Marano | 03/08/2005

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Only after plunking down $15, I discovered this package contains disappointingly duplicitous supplemental material.



I bought this issue for two reasons: photos and outtakes. The disc's tray and promo sticker copy clearly state the DVD side contains a "photo gallery" and a selection of "audio outtakes from the master sessions." Is that so? The DVD menu's single video link points only to a brief documentary tellingly titled, "Made In Heaven." The DVD audio selections point only to the music tracks. A quick examination of the disc in Windows Explorer yielded no folders containing any stills or audio files. Okay. So where are the promised audio outtakes and the photographs? Perhaps Columbia's idea of a "photo gallery" and a selection of "interviews" are those rare session snapshots and a few seconds culled from a 1979 Bill Evans radio interview which sparsely pepper the 25-minute "documentary." The film registers as a sadly over-produced pastiche of gassy, embarrassingly gushy interviews with famous talking heads who add little to what an attentive listener can gather from simply listening to the music. Each personality is on screen for only a few moments delivering some clever phrase one sound-bite at a time (Rapper Q-Tip: "They're the Justice League of jazz.") Columbia further aggravates this annoyingly post-MTV quick-cut pace by intercutting straight head shots with archly trick camera angles, I presume to keep the viewer's attention from drifting off or perhaps to distract the viewer from the sheer lack of valuable content. I don't care if Bill Cosby listened to "So What" every morning while he was in college. I don't' care that Shirley Horn has three copies of the album. I don't care to watch Herbie Hancock mug for the camera while sloppily fingering a passage from "All Blues." I don't care if Ed Bradley never scored to "Flamenco Sketches." What on earth does any of this pap have to do with the making of the record? Thinly interwoven throughout this wad of garbage are the "photo gallery" and the "audio outtakes": a few seconds of Miles mumbling in the studio under such heavy hiss you can't make out what he says, a snatch of Bill Evans saying he just "made up" the double trill on "All Blues," and Jimmy Cobb offering the only honest take on the whole package when he says he can't understand why the record gathered so much attention, and when he demonstrates the "floating" brush effect he developed on the spot. Add to this the handful of animated (yes, animated) session stills, and you have little more than a half-hour infomercial bent on selling you the disc. Please. I already paid for the programming. And like most of the Western world I was sold on this music long ago. This embarrassingly bad reissue only detracts from the recording's value and Columbia's credibility. Deliver what you promise or don't promise it. And don't package some of the greatest music ever improvised on record with one of the worst short films ever pressed into plastic.



Oh, by the way, a small text box containing very tiny print proclaims "The audio side of this disc does not conform to CD specifications and therefore not all DVD and CD players will play the audio side of the disc." Enjoy.

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