"1959 The Year that Changed Jazz": Monday YouTube Fix

The third documentary for Documentary Month here at the Monday YouTube Fix is titled "1959 The Year that Changed Jazz".  It is a fascinating look at that seismic year in jazz history that featured the release of four legendary recordings:

Miles Davis "Kind of Blue"
Dave Brubeck "Time Out"
Charles Mingus "Ah Um"
Ornette Coleman "The Shape of Jazz to Come"

This film is filled with nuggets like the fact that Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" was recorded in just 7 hours and that all but one of the tracks was the very first take! This is a fantastic documentary on some of the most important music ever recorded.

Enjoy!

1959 was the seismic year jazz broke away from complex bebop music to new forms, allowing soloists unprecedented freedom to explore and express. It was also a pivotal year for America: the nation was finding its groove, enjoying undreamt-of freedom and wealth social, racial and upheavals were just around the corner and jazz was ahead of the curve.

Mingus on Creativity

"Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity."

-Charles Mingus

Great words to live by for any artist.