Background and composition
editThe idea of a chiptune cover of Kind of Blue came to Baio a few months after the 2009 launch of the website Kickstarter, which gives people a way to donate money to support others' creative endeavours. Baio, then the site's chief technical officer and a Miles Davis fan, wanted to create his own project to test how the site worked. Baio obtained permission to use Kind of Blue's five songs, and assigned each one to a seperate musician to make of chiptune cover of within a three-month timeframe, allowing each musician complete creative control of their work except for having to keep "Davis' original feeling and intensity". For the track "All Blues", the task fell to New York jazz pianist and musician Sam Ascher-Weiss, who programmed his melody by using a recording of himself playing the composition on the piano. Ascher-Weiss described the task as difficult, requiring "masochistic desire".[2]
The album was made avaliable to the public on August 20. According to Baio, it was recieved negatively by some participants in online jazz forums who "fe[lt] like it [was] blasphemy". Claire Suddah of Time described the album as not "sound[ing] like jazz" but not "sound[ing] completely unlike it either", saying that it was as if "Miles Davis [got] lost in Legend of Zelda".[2]
- ^ Vartanian, Hrag (June 30, 2011). "Breaking: Millionaire Extorts $$$ From Artist, Street Artists Strike Back". Hyperallergic. Retrieved June 28, 2024.
- ^ a b c Suddath, Claire (August 20, 2009). "Kind of Bloop: Miles Davis as Video-Game Music". Time. Retrieved June 28, 2024.