Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2446-3494
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Spring 2016
DOI
10.1111/jaac.12272
Abstract
In late 2014, the jazz combo Mostly Other People Do the Killing released "Blue", an album which is a note-for-note remake of Miles Davis' 1959 landmark album "Kind of Blue". MOPDtK (to abbreviate the band's cumbersome name) transcribed all of the solos and performed them with meticulous care so as to produce a recorded album that replicates, as much as they could, the sound of the original. This is a thought experiment made actual, the kind of doppelgänger which philosophers routinely just imagine. I explore some of the ontological and aesthetic puzzles which the album poses. I argue that what makes it rewarding, beyond the mere thought of it, is the respects in which it is not a perfect replica.
Recommended Citation
Magnus, P.D., "Kind of Borrowed, Kind of Blue" (2016). Philosophy Faculty Scholarship. 53.
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/cas_philosophy_scholar/53
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