Photo, courtesy of lastmodified on Flickr.
Bill Evans writes in his liner notes that “Blue in Green” is “circular” because it is based on a ten-measure repeating harmonic pattern. (This pattern starts off with the two chords that Davis had given Bill Evans to work on: G minor and A augmented.) But the entire form of the piece is also a circle, or more accurately, a palindrome. To put it succinctly, the order of events is piano solo, trumpet solo, piano solo, tenor sax solo, piano solo, trumpet solo, piano solo. Again, in shorthand: Piano-Trumpet-Piano-Sax-Piano-Trumpet-Piano. In this case the gem in the center is Coltrane, and a gem of a solo it is! It is marked by extraordinarily beautiful playing, as are the solos by Davis and Evans. But, as in all great art, complete symmetry is dull, and the palindrome is deliberately complicated by the following: the opening solo is not a complete chorus or even a five-measure half-chorus but a four-measure introduction; both trumpet solos last for two choruses; Evans plays double time on his second to last solo and stretches out the tempo on his last; and the piece ends with an additional two-measure tag. However, the sense of an arch form is strong, especially on a piece that takes its place at the top of the greater arch that is the album as a whole.
— Jeremy Yudkin. Miles Davis, Miles Smiles, and the Invention of Post Bop. 2008.
Song, “Blue in Green” by Miles Davis and Bill Evans, from Davis’ record Kind of Blue. 1959.
Bill Evans, piano | Miles Davis, trumpet | John Coltrane, saxophone | Paul Chambers, bass | Jimmy Cobb, drums
