“Kind of Blue”, like many different music and art forms, was strongly influenced by events and thought changes that preceded the conception of this album.

What is Modal Jazz? How did it influence “Kind of Blue”?

By the late 1940’s to 1950’s, the Jazz genre of bebop became a phenomenon. Notably, bebop had an intricate harmony where chordal changes occur quickly and consequently, a fast and complex (often fragmented) melody. As time went past, the complexity of bebop increased, which spurred on a new group of musician who had thoughts that Bebop became extremely confined, limiting melodic creativity. Miles Davis was one of these musicians, who previously worked with Charlie Parker in Bebop Jazz, decided to move forward and turn jazz “cooler” (slowing Jazz down and giving it a cooler sound). George Russell, (who became a dominant influence on the pianist Bill Evans) pioneered modal jazz with his book “Lydian chromatic concept of Tonal Organization” – a book which explores the possibility of modal scales for improvisation, which then became a source of inspiration for Davis in his search for simplifying Jazz.

Davis, along with his sextet, created one of the first modal jazz albums “Milestones”, where he began to explore melodic ideas in terms of modal scales (derived from Medieval Church music, where each mode starts on a specific degree of a Major scale) rather than harmony. This is the core background of modal jazz, where instead of complex harmonies, musicians were allowed to focus on melodic aspect by improvising freely to set modes (scales). The shifting modes creates an atmosphere of ambiguity, combining with the slower tempo, helps create a meditative feel to Modal Jazz, which became the dominant mood in several of Davis’ albums. Modal Jazz marks as the return to melody, rather than harmony. Usually, a single chord is held for many bars, until a shift in mode prompts a shift in chord. Within these chords however, musicians are able to freely improvise rhythm while the soloist improvised. It is this freedom of expression that Davis (and his band members) strove for, forming the fundamental basis for the album “Kind of Blue”.

Overview on Modes (Ecclesiastical Modes)

The "F Lydian Mode" starts on the 4th degree of the C Major scale.

Each degree of the scale is noted in Roman Numerals. Pictured opposite is an example of the "Lydian Mode" An "Ionian Mode" goes from I - I A "Dorian Mode" goes from II - II A "Phrygian Mode" goes from III - III A "Lydian Mode" goes from IV - IV A "Mixolydian Mode" goes from V - V An "Aeolian Mode" goes from VI - VI A "Locrian Mode" goes from VII - VII (rarely used however) The "Ionian Mode" is the standard Major scale.

Davis fused influences from many of his band members together to form “Kind of Blues”. This is especially the case with the entrance of Bill Evans (pianist), where his knowledge of Classical music helped Davis to draw inspiration for many of the music in the album. In “Blue in Green” (associated with Bill Evans), Evans uses impressionistic harmonies below a modally improvised melody, showing aspects of Debussy and Ravel throughout. The impressionistic influences of modern classical music is also prominently seen in the slow introduction to “So What?”. Here, shifting tonal centers creates a mood of mystery, which is strengthened by the use of chromatic chords – a key feature in impressionist music. Davis also drew upon other band member’s experiences and their music for ideas and inspiration. Coltrane’s spiritual epiphany (See John Coltrane) allowed Davis to focus on the meditative sound characteristic of modal Jazz. This unique style is heard throughout the ballads (“Flamenco Sketches” and “Blue and Green”) in the album. However, underlying the entire album is the “bluesy” mood that is heard throughout the pieces. Casting “Freddie Freeloader” (Which is a 12 bar blues in Bb) and “All Blues” (12 bar blues) aside, we can hear strong blues influences throughout solos made by musicians due to the incorporation of “Blue Notes” – Notes that are flattened from the diatonic scale, usually to the third, the fifth or the seventh. Here in “So What?” we see this occurring:

Note Here: The sounding scale is the D Dorian scale at this moment in time. The Cb (coloured opposite) is the flattened 7th note of the scale - A blue note. At this point, Chambers is playing a walking bass line - a key musical idiom seen in many blues pieces. The D Dorian scale has the following notes: [D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D]

The blues notes create a chromatic and a flowing effect, which even in the more modal pieces of the album (Blue in Green and Flamenco Sketches), this subtle blues-like effect is created by simply changing the modes. The shifting of modes (A key element in Modal Jazz) avoids a key tonal center in the piece, creating sounds that are chromatic, mysterious yet free flowing, which can be loosely associated with Blues music. It is partly due to the subtle blues like tone that this album is called “Kind of Blue”.

Album Conception

The success of his previous album “Milestones” made Davis more confident about Modal Jazz, and consequently decided to do a complete album on this genre.  Miles Davis and Bill Evans collaborated in the composition of the pieces, with Evans being the main composer of “Blue in Green”. For most of the songs, Davis only wrote basic chords and scales for musicians to improvise from, and it wasn’t until the day of the recording (March 22 and April 22) that Davis handed the score to the performers. What Davis intended to achieve was a completely spontaneous sound from the band, utilizing their spontaneous approach to improvisation as a basis for the album. This effect was achieved successfully, with many of the songs recorded in less than 2 takes. From there on, Davis would listen to each take and decided to reject or keep it.

The concept of modes still remains the primary reason of the conception of this album. Davis liked to experiment with sounds that were exotic and/or unheard of, and Modal Jazz offered him the perfect opportunity to showcase his talents. Throughout the pieces, the departure away from the standard Major/minor tonality was observed, and Davis utilized many exotic scales such as the Spanish Phrygian scale (to mimic the sounds heard in a flamenco) and the quaint, folksong sounding Dorian scale. The freedom of expression with scales is endless, and this was exactly what was needed for the sextet of musicians playing – in this method, many musicians’ true talents are brought out into the spotlight. But what was truly amazing was the fact that Davis could integrate all these seemingly discrete scales into one coherent and free flowing piece, giving most of the pieces (and ultimately the album itself) a through-composed style, yet by using simple motifs (For example, the easily recognized “So What?” motif) and chordal ostinatos (repetition of chords – 12 Bar Blues ostinato in “All Blues”), managed to integrate all the musicians into one coherent whole, creating one of the most critically acclaimed albums of all time – “Kind of Blue”.