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"Blue in Green"
"Blue in Green"
Composition by Bill Evans and Miles Davis
from the album Kind of Blue
Released	August 17, 1959
Recorded	March 2, 1959
Genre	Modal jazz
Length	5:37
Label	Columbia
Composer(s)	William Evans, Miles Davis
Producer(s)	Teo Macero

"Blue in Green" is the third piece on Miles Davis' 1959 album Kind of Blue. One of two ballads on the recording (the other being "Flamenco Sketches"), it is the only piece on the album which does not feature alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley.

Background

It has long been speculated that pianist Bill Evans wrote "Blue in Green,"^[1] even though the LP and most jazz fakebooks credit only Davis with its composition. In his autobiography, Davis maintains that he alone composed the pieces on Kind of Blue. The version on Evans's trio album Portrait in Jazz, recorded in late 1959, credits the tune to "Davis-Evans." Earl Zindars, in an interview conducted by Win Hinkle, stated that "Blue in Green" was indeed "100-percent Bill's."^[2] In a radio interview broadcast on May 27, 1979, Evans himself said that he had written the piece. On being asked about the issue by interviewer Marian McPartland, he said: "The truth is I did [write the music]... I don't want to make a federal case out of it, the music exists, and Miles is getting the royalties."^[3] Evans alleged that when he suggested that he was entitled to a share of the royalties, Davis wrote him a check for $25.^[4]

In a recording made in December 1958 or January 1959 for Chet Baker's album Chet (prior to the Kind of Blue sessions), Evans's introduction on the jazz standard "Alone Together" has been directly compared to his playing on "Blue in Green".^[5]

Personnel

Legacy

The piece has subsequently become a jazz standard and has been recorded by many artists, including Franco Ambrosetti (1965), John McLaughlin (1970), Kevin Eubanks (1982), Art Farmer (1983), Ralph Towner with Gary Burton (1985), Cassandra Wilson (1986, with her own lyrics), Fred Hersch (1986), Gonzalo Rubalcaba (1991), Tierney Sutton (2001, with lyrics by Meredith d'Ambrosio), Kenny Burrell (2003), Eliane Elias (2008), Marian McPartland (2008), Jacky Terrasson (2015), Jack DeJohnette with Ravi Coltrane (2016), and many others.

The jazz critic Ted Gioia notes:^[6]

I greatly admire this piece, but don't really consider it a song. It's more of a meditation .... The composition is ten bars long, which is quite unusual for jazz, an idiom that tends to thrive in 8-, 12-, or 16-bar increments. As a result, the ear is deceived when it reaches the end of the form of "Blue in Green." It is expecting another two or four bars, but instead the composition slides back to the start. ... Despite its popularity, musicians need to be brave to call [it] at a gig. "Blue in Green" has no catchy hooks or flamboyant interludes, and unless you have earned a chamber music reverence from the audience, you run the risk of losing their attention. ... [I]n the right setting with listeners who are willing to participate in a collective meditation, this work can be a springboard for an experience that almost transcends jazz.

References

^ The notes accompanying «Bill Evans - The Complete Riverside Recordings», published in 1984, give credit to both Evans and Davis: (Davis-Evans) Jazz Horn Music/Warner-Tamerlane Publ. — BMI)
^ See page 20 of the Fall 1993 issue of Letter from Evans Archived 2011-07-17 at the Wayback Machine, where Zindars states that the composition was entirely Evans' handiwork: "I know that [one] is because he wrote it over at my pad where I was staying in East Harlem, 5th floor walkup, and he stayed until 3 o'clock in the morning playing these six bars over and over."
^ "Bill Evans On Piano Jazz" (NPR) at 35m30s. Recorded November 6, 1978; originally broadcast May 27, 1979.
^ Peter Pettinger, How My Heart Sings, Yale University Press (1983), pp. 82–82.
^ "Chet (20 Bit Mastering)" at Amazon.
^ Ted Gioia, The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire, Oxford University Press (2012), pp. 37-38.