I agree with those who don’t hear literal “distortion” . . . I just hear some recorded “non-musical” sounds related to the wind instruments.
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I’m playing the disk now, and Miles’s first notes in “So What” is what I was referring to. The funny thing is, the closer I got to the right speaker, the less I heard what I thought was “distortion.” It now sounds much more like the “non-musical” elements of the recording. With the volume up a bit it does sound quite different than the quiet evening of playing it the first time. This resolution thing can be a tricky one.
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Well put and in complete agreement. It is the sound of a trumpet.
…and I wince every time I listen to the track.
A, nearly, crying shame…
It’s not. The recording engineer even said so…I can’t find the reference…but he said that he didn’t notice the level going too high for the first 75 seconds or so of the track at that is why you hear the distortion.
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Correct, AFAIK.
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See paragraph 3, in particular, in this article:
FYI,
SEE
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Great article. Thanks for sharing!
You bet.
Cheers.
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Yes, thank-you for sharing. Time to revisit KOB once again. I still enjoy the music.
A direct quote from the article sums KOB nicely:
What I find truly amazing is that while these types of issues have tainted other albums in the past, they didn’t seem to have much impact at all on this particular recording. Why? Because as the title of Khan’s book states, “Kind of Blue” is no doubt a masterpiece and the positively enigmatic elements of the album far outweigh these previously stated complications.
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I enjoy my orignal vinyl copy, the same as I heard played on a TechDAS turntable through a Gryphon Pandora and Legato phono stage and little Vivid speakers. I handed him my credit card and said gimme. That album started me down a very large and slippery slope.
I have many versions if it. I prefer side two.
I don’t know what you guys are talking about it being a bad recording. Must be system dependent. Is it the single best recording of all time? Is it my favorite recording? Of course not. But it is very enjoyable to listen to when you want to unwind.
What I do not understand at all is all the adoration for Dark Side of the Moon
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My vinyl copy sounds good but I can’t bear the improper speed. I’m with you on DSOTM. I overheard the music from others by the time this music rolled around; maybe the sound is really good, can’t say, I don’t own a copy.
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You very nicely summed up Kind of Blue, in my experience as well. Are there warts, sure, are they a distraction not for me.
The DSOTM allure I get as most were exposed to it at an early stage in our audio journey in an altered state. I’ll never forget my first listen to DSOTM at a friend’s house on his father’s tube stereo, not sure what it was, McIntosh possibly. At times we return to the music of our youth for various reasons. My one guilty pleasure to this day is Supertramp’s Crime of The Century. I have a love hate relationship with it, and can no longer listen to it straight through, both sides.
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DSOTM and Crime of the Century are two stellar albums…and albums I listen far more often than “Kind of Blue”. Of course, I am a bigger fan of late 60’s and early 70’s classic and prog rock than I am of jazz…
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I’ve had a copy of MoFi’s Crime of the Century LP ever since it was issued in the '70s, and I still enjoy it for both the music and the sound (after all these years it remains one of the best-sounding non-classical recordings I have). But as much as I like it, I can’t seem to muster similar musical enthusiasm for the group’s other albums, even the ones most people talk about as being “just as good” as CotC, namely Breakfast in America and Even in the Quietest Moments.
Sometimes I think we’re inclined to be open to certain works of art because of the times and our personal circumstances, and as we move on with our lives we still cherish those works, but have no interest in other contemporary works that for whatever reason we just hadn’t explored at that time. Though I’ll add that in my own case, Breakfast suffered from vastly too much radio play for me to want to listen to it on record. Kind of like Dave Matthews. 
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I could not have said it better, yes a fine sounding LP for its day, but more than likely overplaying it when I first purchased it has warn my enthusiasm for it.
Breakfast in America is another album I love to listen to do.
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Thanks for sharing. A don’t think I’ve even seen a few of these until now.
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High Definition Tape Transfers just released this.
Unfortunately there are no details about the provenance of it.
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