made and released , without the deceptive haze that ubiquity lends an art-object .
My late colleague Richard D . Cook once attracted hostile correspondence for suggesting that Kind of Blue was little more than an album of sophisticated mood music . Fortunately , this statement was made before social media – on which Richard would not have thrived – allowed the obsessed and the discontented to vent their picayune objections , fixed prejudices and unswervable loyalties in semi-literate public . But , as ever , Richard was making an important point . When a record becomes as widely – one might risk saying universally – known as Kind of Blue , is it really possible to hear it clearly anymore ? Or are we simply running ahead in mind , silently anticipating the next notes in a music that has become as familiar as wallpaper ? One interesting giveaway : ask someone to hum or whistle the album ’ s tracks one by one . “ So What ” is confidently delivered , then “ Freddie Freeloader ”; a little more uncertainty on the admittedly subtle “ Blue in Green ”; turn over the mental LP and “ All Blues ” has to be thought about , easily mixed up with “ So What ” and some other Miles themes ; and then most will give up on “ Flamenco Sketches ”. Simple enough psychology . We remember musical openings with almost eidetic clarity , but the rest with declining certainty and accuracy .
Fortunately , given its sixty-plus-year story , Kind of Blue is constantly being made available to audiences who have no such predetermined expectation and are able to listen to it freshly and with open ears , which is what we all , from time to time , owe to even the most overplayed and overfamiliar texts . What , then , is this record you are holding ? Where did it come from ? What is its significance ? Why are we still discussing it some seventy five years after it first appeared ?
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