On August 17, 1959, Kind of Blue, arguably the greatest jazz album of all time, was released. The sessions featured a Miles Davis sextet that consisted of pianists Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly, drummer Jimmy Cobb, bassist Paul Chambers, and saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley.
The album was based on George Russell's modal approach to jazz, which used scales instead of chords as the basis for improvisations. The album was also recorded without rehearsal, and the musicians had little preparation. When they arrived for taping, Davis gave the band members only brief instructions and sketches of the scales and melody lines on which they were to improvise.
The results were nothing short of amazing. As Davis noted in an interview, "No chords ... gives you a lot more freedom and space to hear things. When you go this way, you can go on forever. You don't have to worry about changes and you can do more with the [melody] line. It becomes a challenge to see how melodically innovative you can be."
Here is the opening cut from the album, "So What."
(Purchase the CD, Kind of Blue, at Barnes & Noble.)
