“Blue in Green” by Miles Davis

"Blue in Green" sits third on Kind of Blue, the album Miles Davis put out in August 1959, and it's one of the record's two ballads, the other being "Flamenco Sketches". It's also the one track that leaves Cannonball Adderley and his alto out, which trims the band to Davis on muted trumpet, John Coltrane on tenor, Bill Evans on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums. Davis and Evans share the composer credit, and in the liner notes Evans laid out its shape: a 10-bar loop that circles back on itself after a 4-bar introduction.

It took five tries. Four takes fell apart, mostly on Chambers' account, and take 5 is the only complete version they came away with. Ashley Kahn hears the solos as a palindrome, Davis to Evans to Coltrane, back to Evans and home to Davis, with Davis hanging on long, languid notes.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.