Ashley Kahn, KIND OF BLUE: THE MAKING OF THE MILES DAVIS MASTERPIECE biographer: Mr. Media Interview

Nearly fifty years after its release, Kind of Blue remains the most popular jazz album of all time. In 2009, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of this album, Don Cheadle will take on the legend of Miles Davis in a biopic that follows in the wake of popular films like Ray and Walk the Line. Such movies attest to a continued interest in music icons, who also inspire music books that tell the stories behind their legendary songs and albums. First among this genre of album biographies was Ashley Kahn’s chronicle of the album that Davis’s drummer Jimmy Cobb claims “must have been made in heaven”: Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece.

Peppered with black and white photographs that depict the energy of the 1950s jazz era and evoke the elusive chemistry between Davis and his band, this book contains a foreword by Cobb that underscores the unique nature of the album and its conception. Kahn uses in-depth interviews and historical research to go the behind-the-scenes, looking outward from the record’s release to follow its influence on jazz music to the present. Kahn’s afterword—new to this edition—reflects on the response that Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece has generated since its first publication in 2000, and how the legacy of Miles Davis has continued to evolve.

Ashley Kahn is an award-winning music journalist and radio producer often heard on National Public Radio's “Morning Edition.” He is also the author of The House That ’Trane Built.