All Blues

This article is about the Miles Davis composition. For other uses, see All Blues (disambiguation).

"All Blues"
Composition by Miles Davis
from the album Kind of Blue
Released	August 17, 1959
Recorded	April 22, 1959
Genre	Jazz
Length	11:33
Label	Columbia
Composer(s)	Miles Davis
Producer(s)	Irving Townsend
Kind of Blue track listing
"So What" "Freddie Freeloader" "Blue in Green" "All Blues" "Flamenco Sketches"

"All Blues" is a jazz composition by Miles Davis first appearing on the influential 1959 album Kind of Blue. It is a twelve-bar blues in ⁶
₈; the chord sequence is that of a basic blues and made up entirely of seventh chords, with a ♭VI in the turnaround instead of just the usual V chord. In the song's original key of G this chord is an E♭7. "All Blues" is a modal blues in G mixolydian.

A particularly distinctive feature of the piece is the bass line that repeats through the whole piece, except when a V or ♭VI chord is reached (the 9th and 10th bars of a chorus). Further, there is a harmonically similar vamp that is played by the horns (the two saxophones in the case of Kind of Blue) at the beginning and then (usually) continued by the piano under any solos that take place. Each chorus is usually separated by a four-bar vamp which acts as an introduction to the next solo/chorus.

While originally an instrumental piece and usually performed as such, lyrics were later written for it by Oscar Brown Jr.

Personnel

• Miles Davis – trumpet
• Julian "Cannonball" Adderley – alto saxophone
• John Coltrane – tenor saxophone
• Bill Evans – piano
• Paul Chambers – double bass
• Jimmy Cobb – drums

External links

• "All Blues" Analysis, Melody, Chords & Improvisation