Blue in Green

"Blue in Green" first appeared on Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959), recorded on March 2, 1959 at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York with producer Irving Townsend: Miles Davis on trumpet, John Coltrane on tenor, Bill Evans on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums. Take 5 was the only complete one, after four breakdowns. Evans described its form in the liner notes as a 10-measure circular form following a 4-measure introduction. The Kind of Blue LP credited only Davis; Portrait in Jazz credited Davis and Evans.

Authorship is disputed. According to Wikipedia, Davis gave Evans two chords and asked what he would do with them, and Evans wrote the tune overnight; when he asked for royalties Davis offered $25. In a 1979 radio interview Evans said the truth is I did write the music, and that Miles is getting the royalties. Jimmy Cobb said much of the album was composed in conjunction with Bill Evans, Earl Zindars called it 100-percent Bill's, and Davis allegedly told Quincy Troupe in 1986 that they wrote it together.

Our recording is the Evans Trio's, from Portrait in Jazz, recorded on December 28, 1959 with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian, 5:25 on the album. The upload is an official audio visualizer posted on May 10, 2021 by the Bill Evans channel, with a duration of 5:24; we matched it to the album take by length and description, and the page does not state a take number. The 2008 CD adds Take 1 (4:39) and Take 2 (4:26). A live trio version exists from a 1960 Birdland run.

Covers include Franco Ambrosetti (1965), John McLaughlin (1970), Art Farmer (1983), Cassandra Wilson (1986, with her own lyrics), Fred Hersch (1986), Kenny Burrell (2003), Eliane Elias (2008), Jacky Terrasson (2015) and Jack DeJohnette with Ravi Coltrane (2016). SecondHandSongs and WhoSampled refused the request, so cover and sample counts are not known, and we found no chart history.