Classic Album Sundays Edinburgh – Miles Davis “Kind of Blue”, Sunday 3rd March

Classic Album Sundays with Loud & Clear Hi-Fi Present

Miles Davis “Kind of Blue”

Loud & Clear @ The Mill, 72 Newhaven Road Edinburgh EH6 5QG
Sunday 3rd March 2013
£6 on the door or online: Spaces limited
https://loudclearedin.eventbrite.com
12 Noon – 4.00pm (album plays at 4.00pm)
0131 555 3963

“One of the world’s great albums, played on one of the world’s finest hi-fi systems in conjunction with one of the world’s best hi-fi stores.”

Classic Album Sundays: A Communal and Audiophile Listening Experience is joining forces with Loud & Clear Hi-Fi again for this now semi-regular event in Glasgow.

Listed as one of the Top 20 Trends of 2012 by London’s ES Magazine, Classic Album Sundays has become a media sensation in a little over a year. With features on BBC Breakfast, BBC 6 Music, NME, Elle, The Word, The Independent, The Evening Standard and more. Why all the fuss?

The concept is to enable people to experience music as close as possible to the way the artist intended, to treat music as a precious commodity and a classic album as a work of art which should be appreciated in its entirety. Classic Album Sundays’ use audiophile hi-fi equipment to ensure an awe inspiring listening experience. Visitors are invited to switch off their phones and refrain from unnecessary conversation: just sit back, listen and immerse themselves in the experience.

Music fans have enthusiastically responded en masse as Classic Album Sundays’ monthly listening sessions in London and New York have been selling out, with festival sessions featuring at The Vintage Festival at the Royal Festival Hall in London (for which Loud & Clear put together a £130,000 hi-fi system), plus Camp Bestival and Bestival amongst others.

Here is what some visitors had to say:

Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” was our first visit, and it was excellent. Sounded as if Joni was playing live, and heard in reverential silence by a deeply appreciative audience.” – David Lye, CAS attendee

“Hearing that fabulous cello line in ‘Eleanor Rigby’ – I could’ve wept with the sheer beauty of it.” – Annette Corbette, CAS attendee

The event format:

Join us from 12noon to get in the mood by listening to some of the music that inspired Miles Davis, along with tracks from his musical contemporaries and collaborators around the release of the album in 1959. We will be serving refreshments and nibbles in the usual style.

At 2.30pm the lights go down, the volume goes up and we play the album from beginning to end on a reference MOON Hi-Fi System, with a VPI Classic 3 turntable and the amazing KEF Blade loudspeakers

Miles Davis “Kind of Blue”

“Miles often surprised everybody. He craved change, and never thought twice about how it would affect anything or anybody, but the music…I think he enjoyed hearing the consequences.” – Drummer Jimmy Cobb in the liner notes for the album “Miles Davis and John Coltrane: The Complete Columbia Recordings 1955-1961”

Going Modal

Ever the musical chameleon who continuously challenged himself with new musical forms, Miles wanted to move away from the hard bop sound he had been championing in his live performances and on albums like 1954’s “Walkin’”. Inspired by French composers Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy, performances by Les Ballets Africains de la Republique de Guinea and George Russell’s 1953 book “The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization”, Miles wanted to abandon traditional harmonies and experiment with modes. Instead of harmonizing over quick chord changes in the style of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, Davis wanted to pursue a music where the musicians improvised over a series of “church modes”, eight modes (or scales) that were used in ancient Gregorian chants. Traditional harmonies were abandoned and the players were set free.

Legendary Sextet

From 1955-1958, Miles had the “first great quintet” with a line-up that included John Coltrane on tenor saxophone and Paul Chambers on bass. Cannonball Adderley joined on alto sax in ’58 and Bill Evans replaced Red Garland on piano. Plagued by a nasty drug habit, drummer Philly Joe Jones was fired numerous times and eventually left, replaced by Jimmy Cobb. Master blues accompanist Wyton Kelly (Evans replacement when he left to pursue his own solo career) was brought in to play on one song, “Freddie Freeloader” as Evans felt he had nothing to contribute.

Simplicity and Spontaneity

Miles wanted to record quickly and with very little rehearsal as he wanted to capture the spontaneity. Very little was written out and instead Miles would “speak” the charts, giving sketches of the scales over which the players would solo and sometimes telling the musicians which note to play and how to play it. They aimed to capture the songs in first takes and aside from false starts, they managed a final take relatively quickly. “Flamenco Sketches” was recorded in one take. Modal jazz is organised in a scalar (horizontal) way whereas bebop is organised a chordal (vertical) way and Miles wanted the space and simplicity that was in stark contrast to the density and fast forward motion of bebop.

The Most Successful Jazz Album Ever Made

Despite the quick and improvisational manner in which it was composed and recorded, “Kind of Blue” has become one of the blueprints for jazz. It is often cited as a great introduction to jazz as it is extremely beautiful and listenable while embracing the tenets of experimental free jazz. It is has been named as the best-selling jazz album of all time and has influenced a host of musicians from many different disciplines. Pink Floyd keyboardist Rick Wright said the album influenced his chords on “Breathe”, soul musician/producer Quincy Jones said he played “Kind of Blue” everyday and it was his “orange juice”, and experimental pioneer Terry Riley reworked and manipulated “So What” (albeit Chet Baker’s version) for one of his first compositions. “Kind of Blue” is often named as one of the most influential albums of all time.

Listening to “Kind of Blue” on a fabulous hi-fi system will let you here it as never before; taking you closer to the live performance.
More info:
https://classicalbumsundays.com/
https://www.loud-clear.co.uk