Customer Reviews

Kind Of Blue

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

KIND OF BLUE has been reissued so frequently that I fear something is amiss if a year goes by without a new and improved version popping up somewhere in the world. This 2005 edition provides an audiophile surround-sound option that is compatible with regular DVD players (unlike the SACD version which requires special hardware). On both 5.1 versions the sound is subtly widened while keeping the integrity of the original mix. As a bonus option there is a 25 minute video documentary about the album, featuring interviews with prominent musical artists from different generations and genres. All but the most knowledgeable Miles fans should find it to be an informative overview of arguably jazz's greatest album of all-time.

In the documentary drummer Jimmy Cobb -- the only surviving participant -- stated that he didn't understand why KIND OF BLUE stands out above any of Miles' many other outstanding albums. Perhaps it is because the user-friendly music satisfies the listener at whatever level they prefer. If you want to get emotively involved with the music, it leads you there. If you're a musician looking to pick apart the music, you'll discover a level of sophistication attained by very few. If you want to relax, the music is soothing on its surface. If you want to hear memorable improvisations, Miles and his sidemen lead the way by avoiding the use of cliched phrases. If you want to hear teamwork, the musicians know how to create together (when to play and when NOT to play). If you want something timeless, the music's freshness has no expiration date. Yet if you have a nostalgic twinge for the cool, acoustic jazz of the 1950s, this album will take you back in time.

Only after plunking down $15, I discovered this package contains disappointingly duplicitous supplemental material.

I bought this issue for two reasons: photos and outtakes. The disc's tray and promo sticker copy clearly state the DVD side contains a "photo gallery" and a selection of "audio outtakes from the master sessions." Is that so? The DVD menu's single video link points only to a brief documentary tellingly titled, "Made In Heaven." The DVD audio selections point only to the music tracks. A quick examination of the disc in Windows Explorer yielded no folders containing any stills or audio files. Okay. So where are the promised audio outtakes and the photographs? Perhaps Columbia's idea of a "photo gallery" and a selection of "interviews" are those rare session snapshots and a few seconds culled from a 1979 Bill Evans radio interview which sparsely pepper the 25-minute "documentary." The film registers as a sadly over-produced pastiche of gassy, embarrassingly gushy interviews with famous talking heads who add little to what an attentive listener can gather from simply listening to the music. Each personality is on screen for only a few moments delivering some clever phrase one sound-bite at a time (Rapper Q-Tip: "They're the Justice League of jazz.") Columbia further aggravates this annoyingly post-MTV quick-cut pace by intercutting straight head shots with archly trick camera angles, I presume to keep the viewer's attention from drifting off or perhaps to distract the viewer from the sheer lack of valuable content. I don't care if Bill Cosby listened to "So What" every morning while he was in college. I don't' care that Shirley Horn has three copies of the album. I don't care to watch Herbie Hancock mug for the camera while sloppily fingering a passage from "All Blues." I don't care if Ed Bradley never scored to "Flamenco Sketches." What on earth does any of this pap have to do with the making of the record? Thinly interwoven throughout this wad of garbage are the "photo gallery" and the "audio outtakes": a few seconds of Miles mumbling in the studio under such heavy hiss you can't make out what he says, a snatch of Bill Evans saying he just "made up" the double trill on "All Blues," and Jimmy Cobb offering the only honest take on the whole package when he says he can't understand why the record gathered so much attention, and when he demonstrates the "floating" brush effect he developed on the spot. Add to this the handful of animated (yes, animated) session stills, and you have little more than a half-hour infomercial bent on selling you the disc. Please. I already paid for the programming. And like most of the Western world I was sold on this music long ago. This embarrassingly bad reissue only detracts from the recording's value and Columbia's credibility. Deliver what you promise or don't promise it. And don't package some of the greatest music ever improvised on record with one of the worst short films ever pressed into plastic.

Oh, by the way, a small text box containing very tiny print proclaims "The audio side of this disc does not conform to CD specifications and therefore not all DVD and CD players will play the audio side of the disc." Enjoy.

There is a reason this recording is the best selling jazz album of all time. The music is magical - I loved it when I was a teenager in the early 70's (despite being a "rock" fan), and it's still special 35 years later. I highly recommend getting the pure CD format.

This disc is not a pure CD - it is a special new format called DualDisc, with "CD Audio"* on one side, and DVD video content and 5.1 audio on the other side. Seems like a great idea, a great way to get people to buy CD's instead of downloading them. NOT! Notice that asterisk next to "CD Audio"? There is a warning on the outside of the disk that it does not comply with the strict CD-Audio format, and it may not play on some CD or DVD players. If that was the only problem with this disc I say fine - the risk is worth the possible reward.

But no. Despite the added content of the DualDisc format with various extras, the DualDisc format is treacherous, very treacherous. If you want to play this "CD" (DualDisc - CD side) on a computer, on a Windows machine it installs a small hidden piece of software on your machine altering the driver for your CD or DVD drive reducing the CD/DVD's functionality. I have not yet been able to reverse the damage this disc has done to my machine's software despite reading many posts about methods to do this. I never agreed to any software installation (I never would have), and yet my CD/DVD drives have lost the ability to do DMA. And to add insult to injury, the DualDisc - CD side will not play on my computer - I cannot even listen to it where I spend many hours a day. Outrageous. I've wasted so much time on this DualDisc that I haven't had the time to watch the DVD side content. Unbelievable that I paid for this abuse - this is the way the publisher Sony/BMG - Columbia treats a legitimate customer? I don't have enough words to describe my loathing for the purveyors of this current DualDisc product. This DualDisc seems to violate the first rule of customer relations - "treat your customers with respect."

This album will always be a classic and is worth owning. You will feel cheated if you buy the dualdisc believing it is the highest resolution possible.

The CD layer is probably the same master from the 1997 columbia/Legacy release. Yes? The 5.1 and stereo mixes on the dvd side are only dolby digital pcm. With all the money that the studios (Sony/Columbia) have put into marketing the new dualdisc format you would think they could include a MLP 24 bit/96 kHZ or even 24 bit/192 kHz master of such a great work.

Why not? Is it because Sony is trying to push the SACD format, and SACD is competing against advanced resolution DVD-A? I would not buy this for the acoustic quality of the mix. Get the SACD instead.

I traded my old AAD copy of Kind of Blue to get this. I don't know what all the complaints are about. It plays just fine on my MAC and in my DVD player. No complaints with it in any CD player I've popped it into. I don't know about the software download alledged by one reviewer. I've heard of this sort of thing, I don't think I've played this on my Windows machine other than the one at work and again, no problems. If it had tried to install a program, my machine at work would have caught that due to strict admin controls (I'm a software developer by trade). I was able to rip the disc and play it all the time when I'm at work, so the complaint below that you can't rip this edition is simply not true.

I found the extras on the DVD side enjoyable, especially seeing Jimmy Cobb, the sole surviving member of the ensemble that created this music. It was also fun hearing Miles giving direction on the session tapes and the interviews with Bill Evans (radio) were great.

I really think that those who are rating this less than 5 stars must be audiophiles of the highest order. I love the Dual Disc format. As far as not being SACD as one reviewer claimed, I turned the packaging over inside and out and could find no claim as to this being SACD. If you want SACD quality, you have to buy it. As far as Sony pulling the plug on SACD, I hardly think a review of Kind of Blue is the place to air such complaints and then misinform those reading the review that this release is something that was falsely advertised.

If you want to see the interviews, buy the dual disc. If you don't care about the interviews, by the 24 bit remaster. it's that simple people.

I am very dissapointed with this DualDisc, because there is no comment (worning) about DVD region protection. What can I do with this disc - region 1, in Europe (region 2)? My message for Sony Corporation is: "This format will not exist for long with DVD region protection! Sorry.".
My first, and last DualDisc. Back to the SACD!

On what is likely the disc that Wynton Marsalis will have to realize he will never be up to, the 5.1 channel sound has accomplished the impossible of making a perfect recording sound ever more perfect, more intimate, more of the moment. This is the jazz CD you are not allowed to die before listening to. So much has been written that it's positively stupid for me to extol its virtues any further. Instead, let me just encourage you to pick up this edition, set it into your very best 5.1 sound system, close your eyes. This music is right there all around you and for a disc that always sounded so incredibly essential, that has just taken on an entirely new meaning. I like this far more than the SACD version, and I hope Columbia and the Davis estate will consider giving this treatment to his entire ouevre. That should finally send Wynton and his Coca-cola glissandos off the Chrysler building for ever. This is the disc that all of us point to when Troupe, Wynnie and the entire retro-jazz clique say they don't get it: well, it was never about the notes, lads, it was about the silence between them. You'll hear that as never before on this version.

Extras on here are nice, but not nice enough to buy again if you already own a copy. If you don't already own this and were planning to buy it anyway, then it may be worth $1 or $2 extra, but it's not worth an extra $15 if you already own an earlier CD version. Yet another example of clueless music companies thinking they can still get away with jacking up the prices forever just because they decided to start throwing a few extras on.

As a long time Miles fan, truthfully I thought this was another ploy by the record companies to make money. Since I already own "Kind Of Blue" on album and cd, I wasn't in a rush to purchase this new disc. I was in my local cd store and noticed that they had it on sale so I purchased it. When I went home and played the dvd audio on my dvd system I was really surprised by the separation of instruments and the clarity of the sound. I recommend this cd to all Miles fans and hope that Columbia will release more of Miles' catalog in this dualdisc format.

I like this album very much.In '97 I purchased the 'speed corrected' version. However I'm a bit disappointed - the miltichannel version only reads 5.0 not 5.1 and the rear channels (ambient - mostly) are not that different from the stereo version, which plays surround because of othe difereence signal.if they wanted an 'accurate' multichannel version they should have stuck with a 3 channel one ,as it was recorded. The docmentary was interesting but because of the sound (5.0) it only rates 4 stars.
Edd. iegolden@shaw.ca