Kind of Blue at 50

It is finally here: the fiftieth anniversary of one of the greatest albums of all time, Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, released August 17, 1959. As I write this I'm listening to Cannonball Adderley's solo on "So What?" that I tried in vain to transcribe in college on my own alto saxophone. While that was a miserable failure, it proved to me again (as though I needed it) just how incredible the album and the musicians on it are. 

There's a mammoth new special edition out there, but I think everyone--kids included--should just listen to a track or two, regardless of your previous jazz experience. It's simply great music, and that brings me to how this applies to children's media: good music makes for good, smart kids. I'm no proponent of the Mozart effect, or Bach effect, or whatever it's called, but by that I understand the belief that listening to classical or complex music can actually physically fire more synapses and increase brain capacity. That's essentially a myth, but we must be careful to not toss out the baby with the bathwater--there's still a place for great music in a child's life, be it jazz, classical, or something else.

My wife Carol runs on Saturday mornings (even seven months pregnant), so for Loretta and I that's become Jazz Saturday Mornings, wherein we fire up iTunes and make either pancakes or French toast, with the occasional foray into waffles. We've been doing that most weeks for well over a year, and I've been able to expose her to quite a variety of styles, from early New Orleans King Oliver type stuff to Herbie Hancock, maybe a dash of Ornette Coleman, etc. She's liked some of it--she loved making a video to Dixieland (Louis Armstrong and the Hot Fives) for Mardi Gras--but it hasn't sunk into her like, say, The Little Mermaid music. So, speaking of Disney, that's why I was so pleased several months ago when we watched The Aristocats. The "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat" number gave us a hook with which to really draw her into jazz. It is a classic of children's cinema:

There's also an earlier scene in which two of the kittens, Marie and Berlioz, practice the piano while singing another great number. (See it here; the songs are by the ubiquitous Sherman brothers, whom I've written about before.) So long story short we combined the two scenes and started playing "Aristocats practice jazz" in our Jazz Saturday Mornings by playing Diana Krall, especially her work with her original drumless trio in the Nat Cole mode (All For You, etc.). So now Loretta pretends to be Marie singing and playing the piano, I fill in on everything else, and several weeks later I now have a five-year-old who knows most of the words to "Hit that Jive, Jack." Diana Krall and The Aristocats have serendipitously combined to help my daughter love music. (Coincidence that Carol's and my third or fourth date was a Diana Krall concert? Hm...)

This is verbose and autobiographical, but what's the point? That there's room for good adult music in children's lives. Today on its anniversary we should remember that Kind of Blue is one of those albums, accessible to everyone of every age. If kids listen to music like this, they won't necessarily enlarge their brains or gain the power to explain polyphonic improvisation or even how modal jazz works, but they will learn to appreciate great art. And when the time comes for them to start learning their scales and their arpeggios, it certainly won't have hurt.