I'm happy to see the much-lauded Kind of Blue continue to get the notice it has always gotten, but this article reads like gobbledy-gook to a musician. And the writer, clearly not a serious player himself, could have written a fine article by staying away from the technical stuff. But by including it, he has exposed himself as a phony and confused his readers.

Just a few of the many incorrect items: there is only one scale consisting of 12 notes, the chromatic scale. The most common western scales -- including the modes rampantly featured on Kind of Blue, such as Dorian and Mixolydian -- consist of seven notes. Chords can be implied with two notes, but are defined by anything over three notes, not the three or four notes Kaplan cites. Jazz chords quite often consist of more than four notes.

Parker ran out of steam because of drugs and alcohol, not because the music was fully explored. Like most musicians he found his particular voice, developed the innovations to accommodate it (revolutionizing jazz in the process), then stuck with it. Few musicians, if any, have continued to truly innovate throughout their careers. Other jazz musicians continued to find innovative ways to color blues and standard song forms long after Parker was dead. Ways that Parker never dreamed of.

Unlike the article implies, non-chord tones in improvised solos were rampant in bebop and even the swing music that preceded it. Chromatic tones are part of the signature bebop language. And the chords in bebop were often extended to use the full of the scale, i.e. the 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13. All of those tones were in common usage by bebop soloists.

With the exception of Flemenco Sketches, every tune on Kind of Blue follows a very strict conventional song form, either blues or 32 bar, albeit with fewer chords than jazz musicians were used to playing at the time. So it's not Evans’ signaling that tells Miles to change modes, it's the fact that the mode changes in the same place every time through the form. It's the "B" section of an A-B-A-A form, just like a conventional standard.

And the harmony IS changing on All Blues. Listen to the guide tones. That B in the G dominant changes to a Bb in the G minor in the fourth bar, implying a standard blues harmonic convention. The first eight bars can be thought of as two different modes, if you so choose, or as chord changes. That kind of stuff is for scholars to argue over -- players know what to do there. But to call the V7, bVI7, V7 in the 9th and 10th bars anything other than chord changes is absurd.

I could go on, but none of this matters to a non-musician readership. Which begs the question, why write this kind of an article in the first place? Why not instead talk about how the music makes you feel, the history of the music and players -- anything but the technical stuff. The writing as such just confuses non-musicians and pisses players off.

Readers take note, I'm sure countless fine articles about this album been written. But why bother? Go buy Kind of Blue and listen!

So to answer the question in the title: Why is Kind of Blue so great? Because the music is beautiful, compelling and transcendent. It just feels damn good. And that's all you need to know. :)

Typo in my second paragraph... Chords can be implied with two notes, but are defined by anything over two notes.

Yeah I noticed that, also "a Bb in the G minor in the fourth bar". Huh?

Also you used "begs the question" incorrectly ;)

http://begthequestion.info/

Everyone makes mistakes. I sort of agree with you that the writer should just stayed away from the music theory lesson as I commented below also, but it was a pretty good article I thought in other ways.

There are a lot of sort of half truths, e.g. on the one song yes, the changes were according to no strictly set pattern, while the author here implies that the whole record went that way. Also there is something in All Blues in which the little figure that the horns play is ALMOST the same through most of it, especially the first part on the I and V chords, but it's not true to say that "the harmony is the same all through the tune" or whatever it was. It's clear that some musician explained all this, or maybe several, but things got lost in the translation.

Here's my pet peeve: There's a beautiful note in the melody, a Bb over the Eb7 chord in the seventh bar. Everyone it seems ever since the original record plays it by dropping down to an A again, to sort of logically follow the D7 chord, instead of staying on the Bb which creates a +5 to the D7. It just kills me, every time I hear it, because that note just makes the song.

It's the little things....

I meant tenth bar. Not seventh.

See?

@timezoned:

I assume you hear the Bb's in the melody, so I'm guessing you're taking issue with me calling the chord a G minor instead of C7. The bass stays on G. At those same hacky jam sessions where you're hearing the horns resolve that Bb to an A on the D7 chord, you'll hear the bass player move the bass figure up a fourth because he read in some fake book to play a C7 chord there. Sure, you could call it C7/G if you wanted, but with the bass playing an F on a strong beat in the second half of the figure, I think Gmin is more appropriate. Rumor has it that Miles conceived it as G Mixolydian going to G Dorian, which strengthens my argument. But, whatever -- as long as you know what it should sound like.

Re: "everyone makes mistakes". True, but yours and mine were found in quickly composed responses to an article by readers who aren't writers (at least I'm not), not in an editor-approved article on a highly-respected web site by a man promoting a book which apparently includes the said topic.

I could do some research on building jet engines and write an article about it and possibly no one except jet engine mechanics would know I was full of sh**. But no matter how much I thought I knew from my research, I would have no business writing that article from a technical perspective.

This is exactly what Kaplan has done here. He probably plays a little guitar or some other instrument, has read about jazz theory somewhere and thinks he gets it. Jazz theory can't be learned from a book and people who only know it that way quickly expose themselves. Undoubtedly, he has fooled the editors, but he comes off as a Cliff Clavin blowhard to anyone who knows jazz. Virtually every theoretical statement in the article falls within the range of "dude's not getting it" to "huh?".

I like reading articles about music written by non-musicians. I sometimes wish I could hear music the way I heard it before I understood what was happening. What I don't like is bullsh**ers. People who pretend to be something they aren't.

Re: "begs the question" whatever, dude. Where's that rolling eyes smiley when you need it? ;)

@timezone, okay I just got why you questioned the Bb on the Gmin: I said fourth bar and meant fifth. (You knew that's what I meant, right?)

bingo, you nailed it perfectly. It makes me wonder about the other articles I read in Slate about, say genomics or economics, neither of which I have training in. Are biologists and economists reading those articles and saying: This clown has no idea what he is talking about?"

E

Good point. I think I'll be hitting the comments section more often on this site.

Slate is sort of US Weekly, Political Edition. I mean, who else would publish Mickey Kaus? For that matter, google "monkeyfishing" sometime. So this doesn't surprise me.

Anyway, these comments are good stuff.

Next, I'd suggest you tackle the turnaround on Footprints.

In a world in which everyone is entitled--maybe we need to really reflect on that term, huh?--to their own opinion, it's only a matter of time until they're also entitled to their own facts, and their own reality.

MWM

I believe there was value to the non jazz musician in bringing up modal changes verses standard changes (II\V\I) changes. So that part of the article was meaningful in my view.

I feel this is useful since so many non jazz musicians find 'playing over changes' to be too complex. Even non musicians can find listening to instrumental music with 'changes' is just too difficult (even standards they know). The notes just appear to be all over the place. Typically one really needs to know the changes to really 'dig' what someone is doing over a standard. i.e. what is often hip in the playing is how someone bridges a change in harmony or connects them.

Modal jazz is thus an easy way to get these non jazz people into jazz. Unlike jazz blues it sounds like 'real' jazz but since the harmony is static it is easy for people to hear (follow) where the solo is going and the notes 'fit' into a context they can 'get'.

As my rock musician friends get older but still what to play intrumental music other than blues in E, I have shown them modal jazz and since most have very good ears they can pick it up quick.

When I try to play a song with standard changes they just give up!