Kind of Blue

Product Information

In its three-decade-plus history, Mobile Fidelity has never been prouder to have the honor of handling efforts as important as Davis' key recordings.

What Davis did in 1959 (and what Coltrane did subsequently, by introducing non-Western scales) helped set the stage for minimalist composers like Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Co-produced by Zev Feldman and David Weiss, the audio was newly transferred from the original 1/4″ tape reels. It is regarded by many critics as the greatest jazz record, Davis's masterpiece, and considered to be one of the best albums of all time. As Francis Davis points out, and jazz scholars have long noted, at least two numbers (in whole or in part) on Kind of Blue are directly attributable to Evans: his “somber” piano intro to “Flamenco Sketches” (“identical to [Evans’] own ‘Peace Piece,’ which he’d recorded the previous December, together with Leonard Bernstein’s ‘Some Other Time,’ the show tune on whose intervals it was based”); and “Blue in Green” (“which sprang verbatim from his introduction to ‘Alone Together’ on an earlier recording of that standard by Chet Baker”). Davis played trumpet sublime with his ensemble sextet featuring pianist Bill Evans, drummer Jimmy Cobb, bassist Paul Chambers, and saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley with Wyton Kelly playing piano on Freddy the Freeloader.Like just about every other historic album, there are many different CD releases on the market of the same thing, well not quite. This is a follow-up to a post I made all the way back in July about the best available HiFi copy of Bill Evans's Portrait in Jazz. Although this session is not as structured as the three-horn efforts of the Jazztet, there is a balance between blowing and Golson's writing that makes for a felicitous blend, whether on Golson's own "My Blues House," Gene Krupa's old burner, "Drum/Boogie," or Jerome Kern's "Yesterdays. Its influence went way beyond the world of jazz with many rock and hip-hop musicians inspired by its modal compositions and deep textures.

I’d say the UHQR sounds better than both other options but this and the mono version are totally acceptable.The pinnacle of high-quality vinyl — the Ultra High Quality Record (UHQR®) from Analogue Productions! AAA 100% Analogue This LP was Remastered using Pure Analogue Components Only, from the Master Tapes through to the Cutting Head.