Kind of Blue
Birth of the Cool

No other album encapsulates ‘cool’ better than the phenomenally successful Kind of Blue, an LP treasured by countless record buyers with only minimal interest in jazz. It has influenced funk artists Pee Wee Ellis and James Brown, David Bowie, the ambient musician Brian Eno and minimalists John Adams, Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Listening to it one can picture black and white film footage of 1950s New York or Paris. Juliette Gréco said ‘You didn’t have to be a scholar or a specialist in jazz to be struck by him. There was such an unusual harmony between the man, the instrument and the sound’. Herbie Hancock said ‘When you’re touched by Miles Davis you’re changed for ever. But what you change to is more of who you really are’. (James Murray)