Miles Davis Kind of Blue, the Final Upgrade: the Six Eye

 

 

Track selection: All Blues, or maybe Flamenco Sketches, it’s the long first track on Side 2. I read somewhere the order is different from what the cover says.

Artists:

Miles Davis (tp) Cannonball Adderley (as) John Coltrane (ts) Wynton Kelly or Bill Evans (p) Paul Chambers (b) Jimmy Cobb (d) Columbia 30th Street Studios, NYC, March 2 and April 6, 1959

Music/ Vinyl

Yes I know I have posted this one before but this is the Six-Eye. I am not worthy. Well I am, but not to boast…it has been a long wait and I can now move on. The Six Eye has landed

Kind of Blue Citations

On October 7, 2008, Kind of Blue was certified quadruple platinum – four million in sales over fifty-odd years. So not rare then, though how many of these were the original Six Eye remains unknown. Compared with genre-defining Britney Spear’s single Baby One More Time, ten  million in sales, four million is remarkable for a jazz album. What happened, America? A sudden outbreak of good taste?

Kind of Blue is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, described by reviewer Seth Jacobson as “a genre-defining moment in twentieth-century music, period.”.

It is ranked number 11 in the Rolling Stone List of the 500 best albums of all time.

On December 16, 2009, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution honoring the fiftieth anniversary of Kind of Blue and “reaffirming jazz as a national treasure”. So they can get some things right after all.

(updated 27/2/13) Any one clued up on the Columbia matrix code numbering system can tell you the above copies derive from the 1st tape or mix of Kind of Blue, the 19th lacquer cut for side 1, and 26th lacquer cut for side 2. The master tape generated a large number of lacquers, one assumes of “identical” quality being from the same tape and cutting lathe. Each lacquer in turn generated perhaps 10 mothers, and each mother perhaps 10 stampers – the numbers vary in differing accounts of the process. The mother or stamper number is sometimes seen faintly in the runout.  Each stamper was good for pressing perhaps 2,000 or more discs, and this was the main point at which the quality of the pressing is determined – each repetition of the press applied 100 tons of pressure from the stamper to the hot vinyl biscuit, progressively deforming the grooves of the stamper. First off the stamper = nirvana, last off…worse. No way of knowing except listening.

Collector’s Corner, at the Kind of Blue Cafe

And how would sir like his Kind of Blue: – Rare?

Rare? I like mine medium rare, thanks, no, make that just medium, is there less than medium, not at all rare, just as it comes…ordinary, any which way … Does it come with fries?

The other week I walked into a record store in West London which I rarely visit nowadays, after a copy of Blakey’s Roots and Herbs on Blue-black Liberty/UA they had listed online. Nice pressings, sought after by jazz-loving cheapskates.

After a long chat and catching up, bragging about the success of the blog, swapping URLs,  and settling the tab for the Blakey, I was half out the door when Laurence, the owner, called me back. Might I have an interest in a copy of Kind of Blue that had just come in?
I laughed.

Kind of Blue? Thanks but I’ve already got the original UK Fontana and the CBS , I said.

Well, this is the  American original six eye, just come in,  he said, disappearing into the stock room and fishing it out of a shipping box. Jeez you could have knocked me over with… anything that came to hand. A truck? THE Six Eye! Stereo!!
Fairly nice condition, a few superficial scuffs, definitely VG plus, maybe plus plus. Nice cover too.

Hmm, I could be interested, I said, faking cool. The outside says maybe, the inside says (jumps over the counter, hands clutched around throat, eyes bulging, Give it to me! Its mine!  I deserve it, I want it , I want it NOW!)

Depends. How much were you thinking of? He disappeared into the backroom to check Popsike.

I hate this moment.  After what seemed an age he returned. And threw a figure into the air, a fishing trip, to see if I blinked. Instead, I swallowed…

That seems a.. a.. a  fair price, yes, umm.. I can live with that. We agreed a very fair price and I took it home, more excited than in a long time.

After dinner I retired to the listening room, with a bottle of Cote du Rhone and the Six Eye. Powering up the Avid, I mounted the Six Eye on the turntable (eat your hearts out playlist peckers), lowered the arm, and sank back into the sofa as the needle bit the vinyl. Moment of truth.

A few clicks you often find where the needle drops, and then…

Wow.  It is sublime. It lives.  It breathes. I have never heard Kind of Blue sound like this, a whole different record. Amazing. It was not like listening to a record, it was like being present during the performance in the presence of greatness. Bill Evans, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis, all playing in my humble living room. This is what it is all about. Brings tears to your eyes.

Every word they say about it is true about the original, to my ears any way. The vinyl is not perfect,a few clicks,  but who can pay the price of perfect?

Waiter, is service included? This bill looks rather too small.