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LIKE SO MANY occasions that turn out to be momentous in hindsight, the recording of Miles Davis’ landmark “Kind of Blue” album carried no special aura, no hint of the iconic future in store. “I just figured it was another good Miles Davis record,” shrugged drummer Jimmy Cobb.

“Just one that I happened to be on.”

It hardly needs to be said that Cobb’s impression is a vast understatement. In the 50 years since its release, “Kind of Blue” has come to be regarded as a landmark, the pinnacle not only of Davis’ output but perhaps of jazz itself. It’s almost certainly the best-selling jazz album of all time, and it has a place in the record collection of many a listener who would otherwise profess to a dislike of jazz.
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Chatting With Jimmy Cobb, Kind of Blue's Last Surviving Player: Remembering the greatest jazz album of all time, 50 years on

Date: 10.08.2008
Publication: Village Voice
Author: Rob Trucks

Jimmy Cobb is early. The sole surviving performer on Miles Davis’s 1959 album Kind of Blue is waiting in a sixth-floor conference room just blocks from Columbia’s old 30th Street Studios, the converted (Greek, Russian, or Armenian, depending on whom you ask) Orthodox church where the best-selling, most widely praised jazz album in history was recorded. The drummer and Harlem resident passes the time with his new iPhone—right now, unfortunately, it appears that if Cobb so much as stares at the gadget, it automatically calls his daughter. Thus far, hers is the only number programmed.
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