The Making of Kind of Blue: Miles Davis and His Masterpiece

A masterpiece in its own right, this work comprehensively covers Miles Davis's 1959 landmark album, Kind of Blue. Nisenson (Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest, etc.) leaves no note unexamined and no background detail undiscussed in his tribute to the bestselling jazz album of all time. His strength lies in his dedication to set the recording in its social, cultural and historical context. Davis was nearing the end of his bop period when he began the Kind of Blue project, and the work was eventually hailed as a turning point in jazz history, signaling the rise of space-giving modal jazz and a new approach to the genre. The bulk of Nisenson's text discusses Blue's musicians, and his minibiographies of each may be regarded as necessary or unfocused, depending on one's degree of interest. He deconstructs the legend of pianist Bill Evans and delves into his controversial playing style, spends an entire chapter on the often-overlooked alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderly and provides great detail on musical theorist George Russell's contribution to the album's Lydian focus. Only in the book's final third does Nisenson finally review the Blue recording sessions, and his coverage of them is somewhat minimal compared with all that precedes it. Nonetheless, his analysis of the music and its importance is valuable and discerning. This book has a different take than Kahn's Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece (Forecasts, Aug. 21) in that it does not spend nearly as much time on the album itself, focusing instead on everything that led up to it and its tremendous repercussions. (Nov.)