Kind of Blue

Kind of Blue is a studio album by the American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, released by Columbia Records on August 17, 1959. The sextet Davis assembled for the sessions included saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, pianist Bill Evans, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb. On the track "Freddie Freeloader," pianist Wynton Kelly—who had recently replaced Evans in Davis's working band—took over the keyboard duties. The album was cut at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City across two dates: March 2 and April 22, 1959.

Composition

Davis had been moving away from his earlier hard bop style, partly under the influence of Evans, who had played in the group in 1958 and was brought back for this project. The shift toward modal experimentation had already appeared on the title track of Davis's 1958 album Milestones. For Kind of Blue, Davis built the entire record on modality, handing each musician a set of scales that defined the boundaries for their improvisation and melody-making, which in turn gave them more creative freedom.

Reception and legacy

Coltrane would later develop this modal approach further in his own solo work. Critics widely consider Kind of Blue Davis's masterwork, the finest jazz album ever made, and one of the greatest albums in any genre. Its impact on jazz, rock, and classical music has led writers to call it one of the most influential recordings ever.

In 2002, it was among the first fifty recordings chosen by the Library of Congress for the National Recording Registry, cited as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Rolling Stone ranked it number 12 on its 2003 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time," then repositioned it at number 31 in the 2020 update. The Recording Industry Association of America certified the album quintuple platinum in 2019, representing five million album-equivalent units in the United States. It held the title of the highest-certified jazz album until August 2026, when Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas reached 6x platinum, making Kind of Blue the second-best-selling jazz album in the U.S. by RIAA certification. By late 1958, Miles Davis was leading one of the most acclaimed and commercially successful hard bop bands in jazz.