Kind Of Blue | Granta

  • Published: 04/10/2018
  • ISBN: 9781783784745
  • Granta Books
  • 368 pages

Kind Of Blue

Ashley Kahn

In the early spring of 1959, six musicians went into the 30th Street Studio in New York. Nine hours later, they had recorded one of the finest albums of the twentieth century.

Kind of Blue traces Miles Davis’s development into an artist capable of making such a masterpiece, and explores the careers and struggles of the musicians who shaped him and played alongside him. Using interviews and pictures, studio dialogue and outtakes, the great jazz historian Ashley Kahn follows Miles and his group into the studio, to show precisely how the greatest jazz record of all time was made, how it was introduced to the world, and how it changed music forever.

The Author

Ashley Khan is a music historian, journalist and producer, and a frequent talking head on all matters jazz. He is currently a visiting professor at NYU, in the Department of Recorded Music. As well as writing for various magazines, Khan is the author of various liner notes, for which he has been nominated for 3 Grammys. In 2015, he won for his notes to Coltrane’s Offering: Live at Temple University, As a road manager, he has worked with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel. His journalism has appeared in NYT, Rolling Stone, Mojo and New Statesman. In 2014, he co-authored Santana’s autobiography, The Universal Tone.

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From the Same Author

A Love Supreme

Ashley Kahn

A deeply researched and beautifully illustrated study of saxophone legend John Coltrane’s signature album. Among the images published here for the first time are Coltrane’s hand-written poem ‘A Love Supreme’ that was printed in the original album and in-studio photographs of Coltrane and his sidemen recording A Love Supreme in 1964. Written with the full co-operation of the Coltrane family and featuring the voices of musicians, producers and writers of the 1960s, Kahn has also unearthed rare, unpublished interviews with Coltrane and bassist Jimmy Garrison. The book also features commentary from contemporary music stars including Carlos Santana, Bono, Phil Lesh, Patti Smith, Ravi Shankar and Steve Reich.

Ashley Kahn on Granta.com

Essays & Memoir | The Online Edition

On Alice Coltrane

Ashley Kahn

‘I habitually compartmentalize, until an artist so singular and unrooted reminds me to reboot my thinking.’