The group that made Kind of Blue had made a key adjustment in the late spring of 1958 when Bill Evans replaced Red Garland to complete a sextet comprising Miles , Cannonball Adderley on alto saxophone , John Coltrane on tenor , Paul Chambers on bass and drummer Jimmy Cobb . The group made some appearances in May at Café Bohemia , preserved on radio transcriptions , plus some studio appearances toward the end of the month which yielded little more than a few tracks destined for samplers and round-up albums like Circle in the Round . The first time the new group made a significant impact was at the Newport Jazz Festival in July , an appearance originally released on Columbia as Miles and Monk at Newport ( with a 1963 Thelonious Monk set occupying half the album ) but later as Miles Davis at Newport 1958 .
There ’ s no better way to underline the stylistic step-jump represented by Kind of Blue than to set it alongside this almost contemporary live set . The material played at Newport was typical of Miles ’ band-book of the time : the boppish “ Ah-Leu-Cha ” and “ Straight , No Chaser ”, followed by the relatively new “ Fran- Dance ” ( inspired by his wife Frances Taylor Davis , who had been the first African American to dance with the Paris Opera Ballet ), “ Two Bass Hit ” and “ Bye Bye Blackbird ”; all of them done in a familiar theme-and-solos manner with the improvisations based on the chord progressions of the tunes . The only difference between the Newport band and its predecessors lies in the sophistication and openness of Bill Evans ’ chord voicings , which were shortly to redefine trio jazz in his justly famous Village Vanguard recordings .
Two months later , the sextet was in the Edwardian Room at the Plaza Hotel in New York City , playing a broadly similar set – “ If I Were a Bell ”, “ Oleo ”, “ My Funny Valentine ” and “ Straight , No
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