Music Monday: Kind of Blue

Last Week (8/17/2009) marked the 50th year anniversary of the release of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. This album also features (among others) Cannonball Adderley on alto sax, John Coltrane on tenor and Bill Evans on piano. This album is a landmark as it was the first major post bebop jazz album. Davis had begun to feel limited by bebop, which is based on complex chord changes, and set off on a new path of modal (scale based) jazz.
The album was recorded in two sessions, Davis simply handed out notes before each song showing the scales and melody lines to be improvised off of – gave brief instructions, then started taping. Because of the supreme talent of the players involved it made for an amazing album. Improvisation works incredibly well when all of the improvisers have something to say.
Unfortunately for jazz this record could be seen as the beginning of the end, or at least a significant decline. The record spawned a lot of lesser copies. Many musicians began to simply play whatever came to their minds instead of playing with a sense of purpose. A lack of cohesion in addition to a lack of inspiration led to noodling instead of brilliance and rock and roll came in with simple chord arrangements and bright melodies to fill the void left in the wake of Charlie Parker’s bebop.
This record (and many others such as my personal favorite, Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme”) avoid those pitfalls because the musicians clearly have something to say, their melodies are lyrical, the changes in scales happen for a reason, the emotion is evident. It might be loose – but it is inspired.
So this is all fine and good, but this is a church’s blog, why am I writing this? We who are Christians have attained great freedom through Christ. We are no longer bound by sin, we are freed through Him. When we take that freedom, are inspired by our God, and seek to apply that in beautiful and purposeful ways: amazing things happen. When we lose focus on our God who gives us freedom we begin to focus on our freedom. At that point we are noodling. What comes out then is us, not God. And we make much lesser music.
I encourage you all to play Kind of Blue today – it has to be one of the most versatile records ever. I enjoy it as background music, and when I am able to focus on it.

-Jason Wilson