Miles Davis — Kind of Blue | The Long Echo | Full Vinyl Session + What It Made Possible
Kind of Blue — played in full, vinyl, start to finish. Five tracks. Recorded in two sessions in 1959, on music the musicians had seen only hours before. Four of the five tracks are first takes. Miles Davis gave them space and trusted what arrived.
The session opens without words. Between each track — one carefully chosen record, showing what Kind of Blue opened, what it made possible, and where the conversation eventually led.
Total runtime approx. 2 hrs.
Thank you for Listening
Rafi Mercer - Founder of Tracks & Tales
TRACKLIST
OPENING TRACK
01 Blue Rondo à la Turk — Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out (Columbia, 1959)
Brubeck heard this rhythm from street musicians in Istanbul in 1958. One told him: "This rhythm is to us what the blues is to you."
SIDE A
KIND OF BLUE
02 So What — Miles Davis - Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959)
Davis gave the musicians sketch scores only, on the day. What you hear is mostly a first take. The most famous opening in jazz was, in the room, musicians finding their footing in real time.
03 Like Sonny — John Coltrane - Coltrane Jazz (Atlantic, 1961)
Written as a tribute to Sonny Rollins — but the melody was lifted directly from Rollins's own solo on a 1957 Kenny Dorham record. A tribute built from the man's own notes.
KIND OF BLUE
04 Freddie Freeloader — Miles Davis - Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959)
The only track without Bill Evans — Wynton Kelly plays instead. Named after a real person: a man known around the New York jazz clubs for never quite paying his tab.
05 Mercy, Mercy, Mercy — Cannonball Adderley - Mercy, Mercy, Mercy! Live at "The Club" (Capitol, 1967)
Despite the liner notes claiming it was recorded live in Chicago, it was made at Capitol Studios in Hollywood. Nobody noticed. It reached number two on the soul chart.
KIND OF BLUE
06 Blue in Green — Miles Davis - Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959)
Whether Davis or Evans wrote this has never been settled. It appears in Evans's notebooks before the session. The question remains open.
07 A Love Supreme, Part I: Acknowledgement — John Coltrane - A Love Supreme (Impulse!, 1965)
Recorded in one session, December 9, 1964. Coltrane described it as "a humble offering to God." This is where Blue in Green eventually led.
SIDE B
KIND OF BLUE
08 All Blues — Miles Davis - Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959)
In 6/8 time — a waltz feel, unusual for a blues. At eleven and a half minutes, the longest track on the album and the most forward-facing.
09 What's Going On — Marvin Gaye - What's Going On (Tamla/Motown, 1971)
Berry Gordy refused to release it. Gaye refused to record anything else until it came out. It reached number one on the R&B chart within a month. Jazz harmony entering soul music.
KIND OF BLUE
10 Flamenco Sketches — Miles Davis - Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959)
Five scales. Each soloist free to stay as long as they wanted before moving to the next. No fixed length. The track ends when the musicians decided it should.
11 Shhh / Peaceful — Miles Davis - In a Silent Way (Columbia, 1969)
Recorded in one day at the same Columbia studio as Kind of Blue. Joe Zawinul called it "just so much noodling around." Some musicians didn't recognise their own playing on the finished album.
FINAL LISTENING MOMENT
12 The Köln Concert, Part I — Keith Jarrett - The Köln Concert (ECM, 1975)
Jarrett arrived exhausted. The piano was wrong — a battered rehearsal instrument, barely usable. He played anyway. Completely improvised. The best-selling solo piano album ever made.
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All music is the property of its respective rights holders. This session is intended for educational and editorial listening purposes. No commercial use is made of any recording. If you are a rights holder and have a concern, please contact us directly before filing a claim.
Here are five FAQs built around the session — mix of curious and practical, same format as the site.
FAQs
What is Kind of Blue?
Kind of Blue is Miles Davis's 1959 album recorded at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York. It remains the best-selling jazz album of all time. Four of the five tracks are first takes, recorded by musicians who had seen the material only hours before the session began.
What does "modal jazz" mean and why does it matter?
Before Kind of Blue, jazz improvisation was built largely around chord changes — musicians navigating complex harmonic progressions at speed. Davis replaced chords with scales, giving musicians a simpler framework and more room to move inside it. The result was slower, more spacious, and more open. Almost everything that came after — from Coltrane's spiritual explorations to soul-jazz to ambient music — owes something to that shift.
Why is The Köln Concert the closing piece?
Because it is the fullest expression of everything Kind of Blue argued. One musician, a broken piano, no plan, no rehearsal, a sold-out house — and something extraordinary arrived. Keith Jarrett trusted the conditions the way Davis trusted his musicians in 1959. The method is identical. The Köln Concert is Kind of Blue's lesson, played out sixteen years later by a single pianist in Cologne.
Who was on the Kind of Blue sessions?
Miles Davis on trumpet. John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley on saxophone. Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly on piano. Paul Chambers on bass. Jimmy Cobb on drums. Six of these musicians went on to lead their own defining records. The room that day contained an extraordinary concentration of what jazz would become.
Why does this session run from 1959 to 1975?
Because that is the arc of Kind of Blue's immediate echo — from the album itself through Coltrane's spiritual jazz, Cannonball's soul-jazz crossover, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, Davis's own In a Silent Way, and finally the Köln Concert. The thread never breaks. The conversation never stops. It simply changes rooms.
