I don't understand Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue"

I'm not a music expert, so I can only give you my subjective answer: The build-up of the rhythms and the timing really caught my imagination -- I would characterize it as an inspired and creative musical construction (as opposed to analytical). Maybe you just need to be in the right mood to let the music carry you from beginning to end. Maybe it's just not your cup of tea. I wouldn't sweat it. Over time, you might like to revisit it and see if it moves you then. The good news is that there are enough musical styles for everyone!

I'm sorry if my I didn't really answer your question about "what is great about it?", but I don't believe I should or could. In my mind, music should either catch you or not. If it doesn't now, it might later. If it never does, so be it. But music is a thing of the heart and soul, not the mind. When my wife and I first heard it, we stopped dead in our tracks and fell in love with it because it moved us. By the way, as much as I love the CD, I don't play it for visitors because I really do think you need to focus on the listening and the journey with this one. Only after many sessions is it a background piece (IMO). Sorry for a bit of rambling there ... happy listening!

The reason this CD is a "mile"stone is that virtually all music after 1955 was influenced by this album. The "background" music, as you call it, is accompaniment for the soloist, and yes, it is repetitious because jazz, by nature, cycles through a set pattern of chord changes during soloing.

The "random" saxophone lines from Cannonball Adderly and Coltrane are all impromtu, and their style is the reason this album is so groundbreaking. They use scales never before experimented with in jazz, called modes (if you are familiar with music, you'll know what these are). Imagine improvising music for nearly an hour, using a musical foundation that had never been heard before! It would be like you driving your car backwards one day, but doing it so perfectly and charismatically that everyone else decided "Wow, that looks amazing and works fantastically. We should all do that." That's how innovative this stuff is. Modal jazz, created by "Kind of Blue," serves as the foundation for virtually every genre of music since then. Modes had been used before: a variant of the dorian mode is the basis for the blues. Davis took this a step further. Even Korn and Limp Bizkit wouldn't have the harmoniously dissonant sounds they create without modal scales.

To appreciate this album, try to slip in their shoes. Listen to the track "Blue in Green," close your eyes, and imagine these guys, 20 years ahead of their time, playing in a smokey club, trying to convey their emotions through a language that nobody has yet heard. There is some of the most poignant musical inflections in these improvisations.
The audience couldn't understand what they were saying, but they could FEEL what Davis was expressing. Pretty powerful stuff. Hope this helps in your journey through jazz. Cheers!

Brian

Well J I think you raise a rather interesting question in general.
That is does a deeper understanding of anything make you like it better,it can but I do wonder,depends also if you like to challenge yourself,explore new things but surely at the end of the day you got to like something for what it is and enjoy it.
I remember on another mailing list I got involved in a big debate about later Stanley Kubrik movies-someone there went on to explain in great length about his genius,it was all worthy stuff and I could see his analysis had great depth but from point of view despite trying again to watch some of his later movies-I really don't like anything he did that much after Spartacus.
At the end of the day we like movies for different reasons and although I understand Kubrik's genius better it's not for me.
To get back to KOB,well as a mainly rock/popular music fan who has got into jazz a bit in the last say 5 years.
I think my namesake Sd will be much more worthy to comment on KOB but I will add some of my own.
I would suggest you listen to it a lot more before deciding.
You have to put it in context what went before and realise that Miles Davis created something new and unique with developing his modal style he'd been working on previously.
It was (I think) a very original record at the time and it's impact is such that over 40 years later people are still falling in love with it.
Of course there are many listeners who have "never got it" over the years.
The success and charm of this music to me is in it's simplicity,it is hypnotic,relaxing and at the same time strangely dynamic but that's just me,the record was some 37 years old before I heard it.
I would consider it mood maybe even ambient music in the wider sense.
Jazz can be a very difficult genre to get into,the smoother stuff can seem lightweight and the far out stuff as weird as music can get but KOB is really at the centre of the sophisticated,thoughtful side of things and maybe it's not for you.