INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - MILES DAVIS, KIND OF BLUE

It was the summer of 1992 when my partner and I began cohabiting in my modest one bedroom West End apartment in Vancouver. When he moved in, one of his main contributions to our home was his expansive CD collection, accumulated by virtue of working for a major music retailer. This also facilitated numerous CD gifts thanks to his staff discounts. One of my favorites being the landmark 1959 Miles Davis album, Kind of Blue.

My partner's musical tastes are quite significantly different from mine, but I always appreciated that divergence as it allowed me to discover some music that I'd never have ventured into on my own. The world of jazz is someplace I'd been hesitant to explore, mostly because my conception of it was primarily based on the kinds of flashy, technique driven big band stuff that was often featured on programs like The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. That sort of thing simply never appealed to me as it only felt like it was about cramming as many notes into a performance as possible.

I'd seen Miles perform on TV several years earlier when he appeared on an episode of Saturday Night Live. It was a rather baffling performance as he spent most of the time shuffling around the stage like Tim Conway's old man, not playing anything. Occasionally he'd blap out a few notes and then back to the shuffling. I didn't really get it. Listening to Kind of Blue was an eye opener, however, as it clued me into the aesthetic of proper "cool jazz". This was something I could dig because it didn't try to beat me over the head with virtuoso musicianship. It was more focused on creating mood and ambiance. It was an album I could put on and chill with and let it sink in around me. It was elegant and lingered like cigarette smoke in a Film Noir.

It was examples like this that opened my mind up to the reality that jazz was a much larger arena than I had considered and that there were examples within it which jived with my own musical sensibilities, and that they had a lot in common with the improvisational techniques of experimental performers like Throbbing Gristle. When TG used the term "jazz" in their album title, yes, part of it was ironic and tongue-in-cheek, but it was also a very serious statement at the same time that there was common ground here, but in a different form.

This was not the only revelation I'd find in my partner's music collection. There were many other artists I learned to appreciate who I'd never have bothered with if I hadn't had access to this "alternate universe" music collection. Miles Davis was the one that had the most impact in the end. He put in place a principal which guided my musical journeys going forward, that being that musical styles are irrelevant to enjoyment and that any style can hold artists of depth and imagination, regardless of how many other practitioners may seem only superficial and unoriginal.