BLUE CHRISTMAS

Miles Davis' Kind of Blue is a perfect recording, the sort of incandescent work that even non-jazz fans tend to have in their collections and/or playlists. Now, the vinyl-pressing heroes at Analogue Productions are rolling out Birth of the Blue, a new set (which, like Kind of Blue, bears the classic Columbia label) documenting the 1958 sessions that prefigured Davis' epochal LP.

The trumpet-wielding visionary's famed sextet (featuring sax giants John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley, pianist Bill Evans, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb) here displays the dazzling chemistry familiar to Kind of Blue fans, though the players had first assembled just two weeks earlier. The four tracks on Birth—a beguiling "On Green Dolphin Street," an intimate, soulful "Fran-Dance," a swoony, sashaying "Stella by Starlight" and a fleet "Love for Sale"—were captured at Columbia's 30th Street Studio and have been painstakingly remastered for this exquisite release.

The vinyl edition (graced by a gorgeous gatefold, we might add) features new liner notes by jazz historian Ashley Kahn (author of Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece). If there's a jazz lover in your life, you couldn't really find a better stocking stuffer. For a deeper dive, check out the video below.