Preview: Tom Mooney
Some years ago the world celebrated the 50th anniversary of the release of Kind of Blue, the best selling jazz record of all time, without which the sound we have come to expect from Brandford Marsalis and Christian Scott might not have flourished.
But then, who knows? Nothing is as ever as it seems with jazz. Kind of Blue is a by-word for Miles Davis, the subject of a tribute by the excellent Kevin Lawlor in Wexford Arts Centre this Saturday, which could be one of the local concerts of the year. E35 for a bottle of wine and two tickets to see Lawlor and UK trumpeter Tomos Williams among a quartet of top and tight musicians, or just E15 without the vino.
It is arguable that Kind of Blue also owes its magic and seminal legacy to the walk on roles performed by John Coltrane and Paul Chambers among others. There is of course Davis’ recording partner from Sketches of Spain, Bill Evans. But it was Davis’ gig, and the title of the final track, on an album which required just two recording sessions, when today it requires several continents and years, Flamenco Sketches, hints at the provenance of the songs: sketches of music written by Davis. And after Kind of Blue, they go their separate ways.
Davis never stopped experimenting, never stopped being contemporary, never stopped assimilating what other musicians were doing: it didn’t matter who: Bach, Hendrix, Prince or Michael Jackson.
His legacy is phenomenal: In A Silent Way, Sketches of Spain, Bitches Brew, Porgy and Bess and, though not to everybody’s liking, the craziness of Live at the Fillmore East.
When Sony released a remastered Kind of Blue, with an alternate take of Flamenco Sketches, they accompanied it with the promo: ‘Don’t we all enjoy a taste of heaven now and then?”
.
