Kind of Blue (Legacy Edition)

As the bestselling jazz album ever, Kind of Blue has been a juggernaut since its 1959 release. It has everything going for it—the quintessentially cool Davis on trumpet, the fiery John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, the cerebral Bill Evans at the piano, and very solid support from bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Jimmy Cobb, and Cannonball Adderley (the talented but often overshadowed other saxophonist here). From the opening bass vamp of “So What” to the muted trumpet lines on “Blue in Green” to the slow groove of “All Blues” to the sentimental “Flamenco Sketches,” each tune here is now seemingly written into the DNA of jazz fans everywhere. (Happily, those who can’t get enough of this music also get outtakes and live material with this Legacy Edition.) There's an elegant simplicity to the proceedings here, realized through the much-discussed modal approach that eschews chord progressions in favor of a skeletal scale or series of scales. It seems as if there's no filter, just pure emotion articulated with a whisper and a knowing look.