Like many jazz albums of its era, this one uses a pretty typical standard jazz sort of formula, to wit, roughly[0] - The whole ensemble plays an arrangement of

Like many jazz albums of its era, this one uses a pretty typical standard jazz sort of formula, to wit, roughly[0] - The whole ensemble plays an arrangement of the melody of the tune - After playing the melody through, the group jumps into a series of alternating solos, in which each band member improvises new melodic ideas on top of the chord progression of the original melody - After the solos are done, the original melody is returned to, either in full or an part, to recapitulate the initial theme and bring the performance to a conclusion Do this (more or less) for each track on the album. It's really not necessarily obvious at first. It can help to follow along with sheet music. But what is the genius? Or, how is this particular jazz album more genius than another? Say, how is it more genius than "Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet" which was recorded earlier (and also very good)? I think a lot of it is the particular ensemble on this record. Miles brought together a lot of truly exceptional musicians, and they all brought their own bit of genius to their own performance. If you have a jazz performance with a great trumpeter, paired with an okay pianist, an okay drummer, and an okay bassist, then the whole performance likely won't be genius. But if you pair a genius trumpeter with a genius pianist, a genius drummer, etc., then you'll likely get better results. Especially if they are all kind of genius in the same direction. On top of that, this particular album was exploring a new compositional style that emphasized modal composition rather than the more typical dominaint-tonic-oriented composition. There was a freshness to it, both for listeners at the time, and for the players themselves. They were exploring this sort of sound for the first time, and were enjoying it, bringing that mentality to how they performed. [0] Roughly indeed! I don't remember offhand if every track on Kind of Blue follows this exactly.