All Blues

The story behind

All Blues is not just another track from Kind of Blue, that album everyone mentions but few know why it sounds different. Here, Miles Davis' trumpet doesn't go where one expects: the opening solo doesn't burst out with fury, but instead gets tangled in slow phrasing, almost dragged along, as if each note had to earn its place. What surprises most is how the piece holds itself without haste for eleven and a half minutes, without the listener feeling it drags on. There are no frenetic chord changes or solos competing for the spotlight; instead, everything revolves around an E chord that repeats over and over, yet never the same way twice. Paul Chambers' bass sets the rhythm with a walking bass that seems to circle around itself, while Jimmy Cobb's drums strike with a deceptive gentleness: it's not lounge jazz, but neither is it aggressive. The magic lies in how each musician — from John Coltrane on saxophone to Bill Evans on piano — plays with the same material without stepping on each other, as if they all knew the piece needed nothing more to work.