Jazz before and after Kind of Blue
A playlist that sets the stage for Kind of Blue and explores its lasting influence.
A curated jazz playlist that builds toward Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, placing it at the centerpiece, and follows with artists and styles deeply influenced by it. The flow is designed to highlight the evolution of jazz toward modal improvisation, and then how that modal minimalism inspired later musicians.
Pre-Kind of Blue: Setting the Stage
These tracks represent the bebop and hard bop tradition that Kind of Blue was both reacting to and evolving from.
- Charlie Parker – “Now’s the Time” Bebop roots; Parker’s innovations shaped Davis’s early style.
- Thelonious Monk– “’Round Midnight” A standard Miles famously interpreted; Monk’s moody harmonies foreshadow modal moods.
- Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – “Moanin’” Hard bop energy that was dominant in the late ’50s.
- Miles Davis – “Walkin’” Marks Davis’s break from bebop toward a more spacious style.
- John Coltrane – “Moment’s Notice” Pre-Kind of Blue Coltrane, still in a fast harmonic framework.
Centerpiece: Kind of Blue (1959)
Play the entire album uninterrupted, in order:
- Miles Davis – Kind of Blue (Full Album)
- “So What”
- “Freddie Freeloader”
- “Blue in Green”
- “All Blues”
- “Flamenco Sketches”
This album is best experienced as a single cohesive work. One of the most famous jazz albums, with one of my favourite base lines in “So what”.
Post-Kind of Blue: Its Influence
These selections show how Kind of Blue influenced jazz in modal, ambient, spiritual, and fusion directions.
- Bill Evans – “Peace Piece” A direct precursor to “Flamenco Sketches”; Evans co-created Kind of Blue.
- John Coltrane – “Naima” From Giant Steps; shows Coltrane transitioning to a more lyrical mode.
- Herbie Hancock – “Maiden Voyage” Modal, exploratory—very much Kind of Blue’s spiritual successor.
- Wayne Shorter – “Footprints” Post-bop with modal leanings; Shorter was deeply shaped by Miles.
- Miles Davis – “In a Silent Way” A decade later, Davis evolves Kind of Blue’s spaciousness into ambient fusion.
- Esperanza Spalding – “I Know You Know” Modern jazz with roots in melodic minimalism.
- Brad Mehldau – “Unrequited” Contemporary pianist influenced by Evans and Davis’s modal phrasing.