For most contemporary music consumers, listening to jazz is a historical exercise. Miles Davis'
Kind Of Blue is, at the time of writing, still No. 3 on Billboard's Jazz Albums chart 61 years after it was released, much to the chagrin of the artists making music in the same tradition today.
Ted Gioia, whose third edition of
The History of Jazz was released in March, won't tell you to avoid
Kind Of Blue. The esteemed music writer and historian has as much reverence for the classics as anyone, as is evidenced by the effusive, electric way he writes about them: "Is it going too far to see this Davis unit as the most impressive working combo in the history of modern jazz?" Gioia writes of