'Kind Of Blue' & 'Bitches Brew'

Listening to all this jazz, I've learned that there is no edgier genre of music in the history of mankind. No singular group of musicians lived harder and died younger.

So, every time I listen to a jazz record, I research the players and learn more and find out just what caused their end. Because they all lived hard. And they all died young.

Wynton Kelly played piano on Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. He died at age 40 of an epileptic fit.

Jimmy Cobb, Davis' drummer, is actually still alive.

Pianist Bill Evans, as noted previously on this blog, had a lifetime addiction to heroin and other assorted hard drugs. It's noted that his heroin addiction began during his time with Davis.

Paul Chambers was a heroin addict and alcoholic. He died at age 33, four years after Kind of Blue was released.

John Coltrane died at 40 due to liver cancer, although some think it was hepatitus. He was a heroin addict.

"Cannonball" Adderley died at the ripe ol' age of 75. Thanks to a good ol' fashioned stroke.

Davis himself started his heroin addicted years before recording Kind of Blue in 1959. By the time he did Bitches Brew in 1970, jazz wasn't as associated with 1950s New York City bop and beatnik scene that purported the heroin and hard drug use.

I realize all of this destruction was a result of the time and place. Had all these musicians come about in the 1970s, they might have done some cocaine or whatever. Who knows? And don't let the guys that lived long lives fool you: There were no saints. Just the lucky.

However, so many other musical genres get labeled and associated with all kinds of ancillary things like drugs or alcohol or even women. Yet, jazz just kind of gets ignored and no one really knows the seedy underbelly of its roots. It's fascinating if nothing else.