AES New York 2009
Special Event
Monday, October 12, 1:00 pm — 2:00 pmLunchtime Keynote: Ashley Kahn - Kind of Blue
Abstract:
At 50, "Kind of Blue" is many things: the best-selling classic jazz album of all time. The best-known album by today's most listened-to jazz musician Miles Davis. The one jazz album owned by a majority of non-jazz-focused music fans. The only jazz album to appear consistently at the top of greatest-album lists charted by rock, R&B, and pop music publications. Yet besides the session masters' one assembled reel, one safety with minimal studio dialogue, and a few black-and-white photos, not much survives from the two historic 1959 sessions that produced "Kind of Blue." Using PowerPoint images, audio examples of alternate takes, studio chatter, and examples of how the 3-track technology of the time, Ashley Kahn, author of the bestselling book Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece will present an informative and entertaining fly-on-the-wall perspective on the creation of Miles Davis's classic recording.
Ashley Kahn is an author, music journalist, and radio producer whose voice is often heard on National Public Radio's “Morning Edition,” and whose books include Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece; The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records; and A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album. He also teaches courses on music history at the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music at New York University. During a thirty-year career in the music business, Kahn has served as a music editor at VH1, the primary editor of Rolling Stone: The Seventies (Little, Brown), a deejay on a variety of radio stations, and – for a ten-year stint –tour manager for a multitude of music groups, including: Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Debbie Harry & the Jazz Passengers and Britney Spears. He is currently working on a 70-year history of the well-known Blue Note jazz label, titled Somethin’ Else: The Story of Blue Note Records and the Birth of Modern Jazz.
