Miles Davis Kind of Blue - Original Down Beat Review

Miles Davis' Kind of Blue was released on this day back in 1959. Here's the five-star review that appeared Down Beat (Oct 1 1959). Seems like it hit the ground running, I wouldn't mind checking out a few other reviews to see what the consensus was at the time of the albums release. Earlier this year Jazz Wax wrote about Bill Evans' liner notes for Kind Of Blue and included the drafts written in Evans' hand. 
More vintage magazine articles can be found here.

Impact Records: Miles Davis "Kind of Blue"

Part Two of the ongoing series of records that made an impact on me as a young musician. Read Part One Here.

Recommended by my first saxophone teacher, "Kind of Blue" was the first jazz album I purchased (as seems to be the case with many budding jazz musicians).  I liked the saxophones but they were too darn fast for me! Miles' playing stood out and eventually I started playing along with bits and pieces of his solos - his solo on "So What" must rank high on the list of 'most transcribed solos'... though I didn't write out the solos I tried learning from records. Along the way I tried picking up bits & pieces from Coltrane and Adderley too.
The couple of listenings I have given it this week have been the first for a while. In fact, I don't remember listening through the entire album in a sitting since the initial listening after replacing the original cassette (!) with CD some years ago. This week my ears have been drawn to the rhythm section - Cobb's ride cymbal, the chordal work and comping of Evans, and the simplicity and clarity of Chambers. There's something about the running time of LPs that I enjoy - not too long, not too short. It seems many people feel the need to fill the 80 minutes of a cd when often it's not necessary. Perhaps with vinyls revival and digital domination this will change.