Taking Sides: Kind of Blue vs. A Love Supreme

Coltrane's Live at Birdland was important for me. Something opened up with the crashing drums and piano on "Afro Blue".

can't really understand any jazz fan not liking this album tbh

it is a fine entry point to jazz, there are a million others that are good too but nothing wrong w/ this one

i might listen to ascenseur pour l'echafaud more but really nothing about kob has diminished for me in the hundreds of times ive played it

i listened to it this morning and thought "yeah jeez this is the best thing in the world"

I don't listen to KoB a ton but whenever I do I'm never surprised at the reasons why people love it, it's a great record, it's a great example of that style at done at the highest level.

Love Supreme is great but (as I believe Meltzer once opined) if it were called "Coltrane Plays Some Shit" or wasn't arranged as a suite it would be just another well regarded mid-60s quartet record.

And agreed that Live at Birdland esp that vers of Afro Blue was a huge moment for me as a 16 yo, like that was when I "got it"

I came to jazz through KoB, the first one, in my teens, that I felt I "got." You have these two titans of the form in distilled contrast — Miles Davis sounding minty (cool, a little sweet), Coltrane like sour milk — and Cannonball Adderley, whose solos bring to mind a loping gentleman in top hat and tails. The record is full of catchy bits, and I could clearly follow what the soloists were building on. Being easy to get hasn't made it less enjoyable for me.

I don't think I've ever listened to Live at Birdland...? I know "Alabama" but my main memory of that is from some tv performance that made a big impression on me. Rectifying now...

live at birdland is the fucking best

And agreed that Live at Birdland esp that vers of Afro Blue was a huge moment for me as a 16 yo, like that was when I "got it"

Same.

I also agree that KoB is similar to pre-bop stuff in that there's a focus on melody in the solos, but in a new context (minimal chord changes + reacting to everything that came before it).

Live at Birdland was the first Coltrane record I bought (although I'd taped "Live" At The Village Vanguard from the college library a couple months earlier, and it never failed to blow my mind). I didn't know anything about his history or discography; all I knew was, if Elvin Jones is on it, it'll be good. I was hooked from the first seconds of "Afro Blue."

Snrub are you seriously negging Kind of Blue because it's a beginner's record, or "no better than your basic 40s/50s jazz"? (You mean it's no better than a lot of really great records? Alrighty then!)

The latter.

I guess I agree that it's not the ONLY entry point and there should be more n00b entry points, okay.

Because there really are a tremendous number of extremely good jazz records, any one of which could be a good way for a n00b to get hep to what kind of magic those jive-ass cats were blowing, back in the day. Kind of Blue is, in my view, ONE of those records.

HOWEVER, there's a wide gulf between that statement and "Why the fuck do people love Kind of Blue so much?" which is what you said.

I would say Mingus Ah Um is another entrance.

yeah it was Mingus Ah Um and Black Saint & Sinner Lady that made all this music click, after which I was able to get into Miles.

my entry point was time out which is extremely accessible but prob not the best introduction to jazz as a whole

Daughter of jazz drummer Jimmy Cobb—last surviving member of the historic ‘Kind of Blue’ band—has launched a crowdfunding project to cover her father’s medical and living expenses. https://t.co/G4fqK0p5ZV

— Ted Gioia (@tedgioia) February 3, 2020

Frankly dystopian, as ever with these kinds of fundraisers.

:(

so many of these old jazz ledges seem to be dying skint. I remember reading Sunny Murray spent his later years scraping by on benefits and occasionally making pennies by bootlegging his own work.

it was Kenny Burrell doing the same last year.