Kind Of Blue

Miles Davis's most famous recording remains his most influential. It is not just that this album helped popularize modal jazz (improvising based on modes or scales rather than running chord changes) or that it introduced two future standards ("So What" and "All Blues") and three other gems ("Freddie Freeloader," "Blue in Green" and "Flamenco Sketches"). Most impressive is how the solos of Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley (what a lineup), despite their differing styles, fit the songs perfectly.

— Scott Yanow

More than any other, this album is listed as a desert island choice by musicians, historians and critics alike. Six of the best jazz musicians in history are all playing at an outstanding level: Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb. It is one of the few albums in which every improvisation is perfect. It also sports the most mellow of all Coltrane ballad solos, and the best-constructed Adderley improvisations on record.

The album is historically pivotal for providing the model that Bill Evans helped Davis refine for using modes instead of chords as the basis of improvisation. The Evans and Davis tunes and improvisational methods on it became stock repertory for jazz musicians of the next 30 years.

— Mark C. Gridley