The Blue Moment: Miles Davis's Kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music

by RichardWilliams (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2010

  $6.62

  'It is the most singular of sounds, yet among the most ubiquitous. It is the sound of isolation that has sold itself to millions.' Miles Davis's Kind of Blue is the best selling piece of music in the history of jazz, and for many listeners among the most haunting in all of twentieth-century music. It is also, notoriously, the only jazz album many people own. Recorded in 1959 (in nine miraculous hours), there has been nothing like it since. Its atmosphere - slow, dark, meditative, luminous - became all-pervasive for a generation, and has remained the epitome of melancholy coolness ever since. Richard Williams has written a history of the album which for once does not rip it out of its wider cultural context. He evokes the essence of the music - identifying the qualities that make it so uniquely appealing - while making effortless connections to painting, literature, philosophy and poetry. This makes for an elegant, graceful and beautifully-written narrative.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2010

  $3.25

  It is the most singular of sounds, yet among the most ubiquitous. It is the sound of isolation that has sold itself to millions. Miles Davis's Kind of Blue is the best-selling piece of music in jazz history and, for many listeners, among the most haunting works of the twentieth century. It is also, notoriously, the only jazz album many people own. Recorded in 1959 (in nine miraculous hours), there has been nothing like it since. Richard Williams's richly informative (The Guardian) history considers the album within its wider cultural context, showing how the record influenced such diverse artists as Steve Reich and the Velvet Underground. In the tradition of Alex Ross and Greil Marcus, the effortlessly versatile Williams (The Times) connects these seemingly disparate phenomena with purpose, finesse and journalistic flair (Financial Times), making masterly connections to painting, literature, philosophy, and poetry while identifying the qualities that make the album so uniquely appealing and surprisingly universal.

• New

  Paperback
  2010

  $12.91

  'It is the most singular of sounds, yet among the most ubiquitous. It is the sound of isolation that has sold itself to millions.' Miles Davis's Kind of Blue is the best selling piece of music in the history of jazz, and for many listeners among the most haunting in all of twentieth-century music. It is also, notoriously, the only jazz album many people own. Recorded in 1959 (in nine miraculous hours), there has been nothing like it since. Its atmosphere - slow, dark, meditative, luminous - became all-pervasive for a generation, and has remained the epitome of melancholy coolness ever since. Richard Williams has written a history of the album which for once does not rip it out of its wider cultural context. He evokes the essence of the music - identifying the qualities that make it so uniquely appealing - while making effortless connections to painting, literature, philosophy and poetry. This makes for an elegant, graceful and beautifully-written narrative.