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Comment by LargeWu | Hacker News Reader

The book "Kind of Blue: The Making of a Miles Davis Masterpiece" by Ashley Cole is great if you're into this album.

One of the most notable things about this album is that, while there were a few false starts, they used the first complete take for each track, which is astounding. I personally think it's the greatest achievement in the history of music.

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The autobiography is also a phenomenal book while we're on that topic.

It would have been quite expensive to try for a second or third take. You're paying for the room, for the tape, and for at least one engineer and probably another guy, and except for the tape, it's all per hour.

They had likely played together enough that they planned to just do one take unless there was a hiccup.

Mr. Tambourine Man took 3 takes, and that used studio musicians.

The thing about this album though was that it used a groundbreaking style of playing in a single mode, no chord changes. This was completely counter to anything ever heard in the jazz world before. Nor had they practiced these songs before. For them to sit down and record what they did, the first time, is pretty unbelievable.

Normally, I roll my eyes at claims of something being "the greatest ever." However, I think this one is a defensible claim.

I like Miles' quote about it: "If I'd known it was going to be such a hit, I'd have asked for more money."

I always wonder what they thought at the time. "Well, I guess that was pretty good." maybe?

* Ashley Kahn

D'oh! Too late to edit now, but thank you.

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