Kind of Blue at 67

Why this album still hits, and why the UHQR pressing was worth the money.

Bought it at acousticsounds.com

Kind of Blue is the most famous jazz album of all time. There’s nothing I’m going to tell you about it that you don’t already know. Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb. Two sessions in March and April 1959. Five tracks. Forty-five minutes. Done.

What I actually want to talk about is that I love this album, I love this specific version of it, and that’s why I’m writing this.

A while back I bought the Analogue Productions UHQR box set. It cost more than I usually spend on a record. A lot more. I know that sounds crazy and to most people it probably is. But here’s the thing: it sounds amazing. The mastering is incredible. The pressing is heavy and quiet. You can hear things on this record I’d never noticed on Spotify or on the cheaper pressings I used to own. The bass has weight. The cymbals have air around them. Miles’s trumpet sounds like it’s in the room with me.

That’s the actual reason audiophile pressings exist. Not so collectors can show off, even though that definitely happens. They exist because if you’ve heard a record enough times, you start to want more from it, and a good pressing gives you more.

I bought the UHQR because I’d been listening to the standard pressing for years and I wanted to know what people meant when they said audiophile reissues sounded different. Every review I read said the UHQR was the best Kind of Blue ever pressed. I figured if I was going to do this once for one record, this was the one. No regrets.

The thing about Kind of Blue is that I can put it on and zone out. Most music I love demands something from me. Complicated stuff needs focus. Pretty stuff makes me want to sing along. Kind of Blue does neither. It just plays. The vibe is the whole thing. You’re either in it or you’re not, and I’m always in it.

I think that’s why this record has sold five million copies in the US alone. It doesn’t try to dazzle you. There are no flashy solos designed to make you say “wow.” Miles, Coltrane, and Cannonball are all playing way under their max ability on this album, on purpose. That’s what makes it work. They could have shredded it apart. Instead they restrained themselves and let the music breathe. Pure artistry.

People say Kind of Blue is the album that made them love jazz. I get it. It’s also the album I reach for when I’m having a bad week and don’t want to think. I put on Side A. I sit down. I don’t check my phone. Forty-five minutes later it’s done and I feel like a person again.

The UHQR makes all of that better. I’m not exaggerating. The first time I dropped the needle on this pressing I stopped it and started it over because I wasn’t sure I’d heard what I just heard. There’s a sound at the very beginning of “So What” before Paul Chambers’s bass really kicks in. It’s the room. It’s the air in that converted church studio in Manhattan in 1959. The earlier pressings I owned didn’t have that. This one does. That’s what you’re paying for.

I’m not going to do a track-by-track breakdown. Plenty of people have done that. Here’s what I’ll say.

“So What” is the obvious one for an obvious reason.

“Freddie Freeloader” gets Wynton Kelly at the piano instead of Bill Evans, which is a different feel. Kelly swings harder. The track has more of a roll to it.

“Blue in Green” is the prettiest one. Most people skip it on a casual listen, which is a mistake. Bill Evans wrote it even though Miles took credit. Listen to the way the chords float without resolving. That’s Evans’s signature, and it’s why he was a generational pianist.

“All Blues” on Side B is in 6/8 and you don’t realize it’s 6/8 until you try to count it. Just let it ride.

“Flamenco Sketches” closes the album. Each guy gets a set of five scales to walk through at his own pace. It doesn’t really end so much as it stops, which is the right call for the record this is.

If you have Kind of Blue on your phone and you’ve never heard it on a real stereo, you owe yourself the experience. If you’ve heard it on a decent stereo but never on a great pressing, the UHQR is the ticket. If the UHQR is too much money, the 180-gram standard reissues are still a real step up from streaming.

The first time I heard Kind of Blue years ago I thought it was nice but distant. Now it’s a Sunday staple, the album I put on when I want to disappear for an hour. That’s worth a lot of money. The UHQR will sit on the shelf and probably outlast me, which is a really cool thing to think about.

I’ll be listening to this album for the rest of my life.