Richard Littler on Mastodon:

65 years old (released on this day in 1959). One of the finest albums ever committed to recording tape. Some kind of inexplicable sorcery took place in this session, that even the players hadn't planned or expected. Lightning in a bottle, etc.

Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue has been in my musical consciousness since I was a child. I have a hazy recollection of a scratchy vinyl version of “So What” playing on my grandmother’s record player in Trinidad. It was one of the first albums I bought after getting a CD player in the early ’90s. I remember sitting in my tiny, dimly lit studio apartment in Jersey City, headphones on, transported to a ’60s jazz-and-blues club as I listened to this, Coltrane’s Village Vanguard, Monk’s Music, and other greats. Kind of Blue was instrumental to my jazz and blues literacy. It’s a quintessential album. Not jazz album. Album.

Yes, I’ve already listened to it today. You should too!

If you enjoy teasing apart music, I strongly recommend the So What episode of Kirk Hamilton’s wonderfully obsessive podcast Strong Songs:

On this episode, Kirk dives in to one of the most influential jazz recordings of all time.

As the lead track on Miles Davis's landmark album Kind of Blue, “So What” signaled a new era in jazz harmony, composition, and improvisation. This episode will get into what that actually means, how the tune works, and why the seven musicians who played on Kind of Blue were each such a crucial part of the album's magic.

Today also marks the 15th anniversary of Kind of Bloop,

a chiptune tribute to Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, a track-by-track 8-bit reinterpretation of the bestselling jazz album of all time.

Fun for fans of both the album and video game music from the mid-’80s. (Available on vinyl soon, if that’s your thing.)