The Blue Moment

'It is the most singular of sounds, yet among the most ubiquitous. It is the sound of isolation that has sold itself to millions.' Miles Davis's Kind of Blue is the best selling piece of music in the history of jazz, and for many listeners among the most haunting in all of twentieth-century music. It is also, notoriously, the only jazz album many people own. Recorded in 1959 (in nine miraculous hours), there has been nothing like it since. Its atmosphere - slow, dark, meditative, luminous - became all-pervasive for a generation, and has remained the epitome of melancholy coolness ever since. Richard Williams has written a history of the album which for once does not rip it out of its wider cultural context. He evokes the essence of the music - identifying the qualities that make it so uniquely appealing - while making effortless connections to painting, literature, philosophy and poetry. This makes for an elegant, graceful and beautifully-written narrative.

Richard Williams writes about sport and music for the Guardian. He is the author of The Last Road Race, Long Distance Call: Writings on Music, The Death of Ayrton Senna and Enzo Ferrari: A Life. His previous jobs include chief sports writer for the Independent, editor of the Independent on Sunday's Review, editor of Time Out and the Melody Maker and head of A&R at Island Records. He has written for Granta, the TLS, Mojo, The Word and many other publications.