You want to know jazz? Perhaps you don't know where to start. If you want to know jazz, there's one album you need to know, and it's the perfect starting place to get into the genre. You need look no further than Miles Davis and a little album titled Kind of Blue. A Columbia Records release from 1959, it features Davis on trumpet, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley on alto saxophone, John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Bill Evans on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Jimmy Cobb on the drums. If you don't already have it, go to your local record store, find the jazz section, and there's likely going to be a CD of it there somewhere. Buy it, bring it home, and listen to it. Don't do anything else - just listen. Close your eyes if you have to, but surely listen... all together, it's soothing, exciting and thought-provoking. How does it make you feel? That's jazz.

Music -- any music -- is built upon 3 basic principles, to put it in very simple terms. They are melody, harmony, and rhythm. Jazz is no different. Melody is the tune. Harmony, the chord structure or the scale. Rhythm is the backbone that holds everything together. In a jazz ensemble, the "rhythm section" consists of the drums, bass, and piano. In larger ensembles, sometimes a guitar is thrown in there, too, as are other percussion instruments. The rhythm section provides the foundation that the other instruments can build upon.

But what makes something jazz and not just some music you make up as you go along? It's a feel and a sound. Jazz uses certain chord structures or scales for sound, and it relies on playing style to get that "jazzy" feel. It's laid back, but not lazy. A jazz tune is different every time you play it, but it has enough sameness built into the structure that the tune is recognizable every time. People who know how to play jazz have command over the music - they know it inside and out, and use that to their advantage. On Kind of Blue, it's a team effort, everything coming together so beautifully. The way Miles Davis gracefully flows from note to note in the tune "Flamenco Sketches" sounds effortless, like it's easy. He knows it so well that he doesn't have to think about it anymore. Of course, some would argue that the concept of shifting from following chord progressions to using modal scales makes jazz itself easier, but that's a lesson for another time.

The fourth tune on Kind of Blue is "All Blues," a Miles Davis composition. The melody is simple -- there's barely one there. And yet, the tune as a whole is genius. Davis takes the simple melody and the basic chord progression and runs with it, turning it into a classic. The improvised solos climb in intensity and relax, giving the tune the feel of a plot, like the music means something. It's so much more than a simple melody. Each player takes turns on the solos, each telling their version of the story. Coltrane is a rich storyteller, with a thick, full sound. Bill Evans goes for the laid-back feel, but not in such a way that makes it seem like he doesn't care -- he's laid-back with passion. Eventually they all come back for the head -- playing the melody again from the top. The solos are over, but the laid-back feel of Evans' solo remains as Davis plays the melody, and Coltrane and Adderley back him up with the harmony. The tune fades out, with Davis just doodling around on a few of the last chords, his saxophone backup still chugging away. The story comes to a close.

To the untrained ear, jazz doesn't always make sense. Kind of Blue is a good place to start sorting it out in your mind. It's a very accessible album, very easy to listen to. The people you hear are all-stars. It's a good introductory album, but also a staple of any aficionado's record collection. Good jazz will stay with you forever. There's enough variety built into every track to keep you coming back for more, to hear what you missed the last time, to learn every chord and every minuscule dissonance. Kind of Blue will never get old.

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