Jimmy Cobb

Jimmy Cobb
a.k.a. Jimmy Cobb Quartet

KIND OF BLUE: 40 AND FABULOUS
The Sole Surviving Band Member of Mile Davis's Legendary Sextet Reflects on the Making of the World's Most Enduring Jazz Album
Over the course of two days in 1959, Miles Davis led an astounding group of musicians -- pianists Bill Evans and (on one track) Wynton Kelly, saxophonists John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb -- into a New York recording studio and came out with an above-ground classic that changed jazz forever. Kind of Blue solidified a new way of playing -- bye-bye chord changes, hello modes (or scales) -- and set the standard for a long-playing jazz album. All the players are gone now, except Cobb, who recently reminisced with bn.com's Lee Jeske about the making of a masterpiece.

barnesandnoble.com: Did the Kind of Blue sessions feel special at the time?

Jimmy Cobb: Actually it was just another ordinary Miles Davis session. Usually Miles Davis recordings are pretty good, so we just figured we had another good recording.

bn.com: At what point did you start to realize how important this record was?

JC: After about five years, 10 years, when it's still popular, you start to think there's something special there. And they keep saying that it keeps outselling all other jazz records, so you start thinking that you've got something special. But I was participating in something special every time I played with them guys.

bn.com: Was what you did on the record different from what was being performed at the gigs?

JC: Most of that music was a changeover from some of the things that Miles had been playing. It was like he was going into a new kind of thing, because the band had changed from [pianist] Red Garland and [drummer] Philly Joe Jones and Coltrane, to Cannonball and Bill Evans, that band. So that was a change right there -- just the personnel change was a change. And then they started to change the way they were playing the music -- they were going the kind of way Bill Evans played. I think the music was influenced by that. Him and Miles came up with that kind of thing, where they stopped really playing lots of changes and stuff and went to a modal thing, just scales and a few chords here and there. That really changed the music.

bn.com: Did Miles give you drum parts?

JC: If he came up with something new, he would just say what time signature it was in. Most of the time, he would count on what you could add to the selection. Very seldom would he actually tell me what to play, unless it was in certain places he wanted the stick on the snare drum on four or something.

bn.com: Everybody says that those pieces were just written for those sessions, maybe even that morning. Could that be true?

JC: I don't know if it was that morning or not. They might have been thinking about it for a long time and just wrote them down that morning, because they were going to have a session and the horns needed some kind of guide sheet. But I don't remember having any music for that.

bn.com: You don't remember any music at the sessions.

JC: No.

bn.com: Every year that goes by, Kind of Blue becomes even more famous, some people even say it's the greatest jazz album ever made. When you listen to it, do you hear the greatness in it?

JC: Yeah, I hear that it's relaxed and the music is nice -- It's easy to listen to, and by the time it gets through you want to hear some more of it.

bn.com: What about this pitch correction that was done a couple of years ago?

JC: When they made the records they had two machines going, and one of them was running slow. And that's the one that they put the first album out on, the one that was running slow. They didn't realize it until musicians started finding that they couldn't tune up to it, because it was maybe a 16th of a tone or something off pitch. Years later they found the real one in the right revolutions, so they put that one out in a special kind of edition. That's the real one.

bn.com: Did you all know when the record came out that it was at a slightly different pitch?

JC: I didn't have any idea until years later that it was like that. You know, I can hear pretty good, but I couldn't hear that. Unless I was trying to tune up to something, I wouldn't have heard that.

bn.com: One of the other things that's remarkable is that most of those songs were done in just one take, right? The only extra track they've found is an extra take of "Flamenco Sketches." Is that the way Miles normally worked?

JC: A lot of times he didn't really want to play things over and over, he never liked to do that. So he tried to always make it one take, yeah. But if it took more than that to get what he wanted, then he would do more than that. Actually, everybody prefers only one take, because that's usually your best stuff.

bn.com: How does it feel to be the last guy remaining from this amazing album?

JC: Well, I kind of feel pretty good about it. Hahaha. I don't know why I'm the only one here -- maybe they did a lot of things I didn't do, who knows?

bn.com: Do you get royalties from all these millions of records sold?

JC: No, I don't. At those times when you were making records you got paid for the session. Unless you made some kind of arrangement with Miles--because if you were working for Miles there was nothing you could do with the record company. They would always have you sign a paper before you got the check that said that you don't get no money later. Usually the guys didn't ever hardly read that, all they wanted was the check out of it. Lately, I've been calling people to tell them, "Well, you know, I'm the only guy living, and you guys are selling a lot of records, maybe you should write me a check or something, just for the hell of it."

bn.com: What do they say?

JC: They keep hemming and hawing, beating around the bush, and so far there's no check forthcoming.

bn.com: When you did those 40th-anniversary concerts over the summer -- re-creating Kind of Blue with Wallace Roney and Geri Allen and others -- did it feel at all like the old days?

JC: No, it just felt like something we were doing just to remember that it had been done, let's say. The guys were thinking about having a tour, but when I thought about it, it was like, "Well, wait a minute. Why would anyone want to make Kind of Blue over?" Because you can't make it no better than it was.