Miles Davis – Kind of Blue
Album
Put this record on for someone who thinks jazz is frantic mathematical showing off, and watch their posture change within thirty seconds. Recorded in two spring sessions in 1959, it strips away dense chord changes in favour of modal scales, leaving Bill Evans's gentle water-drop piano chords and Miles Davis's muted trumpet hovering in vast, cool space. John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley supply contrasting fire on tenor and alto sax, yet everything breathes together with an effortless nocturnal clarity that never dates.