“A masterpiece in its own right, this work comprehensively covers Miles Davis’s 1959 landmark album, Kind of Blue. . . . valuable and discerning.” —Publishers Weekly
From the moment it was recorded more than forty years ago, Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue was hailed as a jazz classic. To this day it remains the bestselling jazz album of all time, embraced by fans of all musical genres. The album represented a true watershed moment in jazz history, and helped to usher in the first great jazz revolution since bebop.
The Making of Kind of Blue is an exhaustively researched examination of how this masterpiece was born. Recorded with pianist Bill Evans, tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, composer/theorist George Russell and Miles himself, the album represented a fortuitous conflation of some of the real giants of the jazz world, at a time when they were at the top of their musical game. The end result was a recording that would forever change the face of American music.
Through extensive interviews and access to rare recordings Nisenson pieced together the whole story of this miraculous session, laying bare the genius of Miles Davis, other musicians, and the heart of jazz itself.
“Astute and entertaining” —Booklist
“Worth reading just for the stories of how one of the greatest albums of all time came into being, but it offers so much more—a low-key but superb education in the way jazz is made and how it comes to mean the things it does.” —Dave Marsh, Playboy pop critic and editor of Rock and Rap Confidential
