"Blue in Green" is the third track on Miles Davis

Miles Davis

Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

' 1959 album, Kind of Blue

Kind of Blue

Kind of Blue is a studio album by American jazz musician Miles Davis, released August 17, 1959, on Columbia Records in the United States. Recording sessions for the album took place at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City on March 2 and April 22, 1959...

. One of two ballad

Ballad

A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...

s on the LP (the other being "Flamenco Sketches

Flamenco Sketches

"Flamenco Sketches" is a jazz composition written by American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Bill Evans. It is the fifth track on Davis' 1959 album Kind of Blue, the best-selling jazz record of all time, and an innovative experiment in modal jazz...

"), "Blue in Green"'s melody is very modal

Modal jazz

Modal jazz is jazz that uses musical modes rather than chord progressions as a harmonic framework. Originating in the late 1950s and 1960s, modal jazz is characterized by Miles Davis's "Milestones" Kind of Blue and John Coltrane's classic quartet from 1960–64. Other important performers include...

, incorporating the presence of the dorian

Dorian mode

Due to historical confusion, Dorian mode or Doric mode can refer to three very different musical modes or diatonic scales, the Greek, the medieval, and the modern.- Greek Dorian mode :...

, mixolydian, and lydian

Lydian mode

The Lydian musical scale is a rising pattern of pitches comprising three whole tones, a semitone, two more whole tones, and a final semitone. This sequence of pitches roughly describes the fifth of the eight Gregorian modes, known as Mode V or the authentic mode on F, theoretically using B but in...

 modes. The first measure is a G minor chord with an added natural 13 (Gm13), which contains an F natural but the modal tonality of the piece is already evident as the opening note of the melody is an E natural, which is the leading tone of the F major scale

Major scale

In music theory, the major scale or Ionian scale is one of the diatonic scales. It is made up of seven distinct notes, plus an eighth which duplicates the first an octave higher. In solfege these notes correspond to the syllables "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti/Si, ", the "Do" in the parenthesis at...

. The natural 13 of the chord is E natural.

It has long been speculated that pianist Bill Evans

Bill Evans

William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...

 wrote "Blue in Green", even though the LP and most jazz fakebook

Fake book

A fake book is a collection of musical lead sheets intended to help a performer quickly learn new songs. Each song in a fake book contains the melody line, basic chords, and lyrics - the minimal information needed by a musician to make an impromptu arrangement of a song, or "fake it."The fake book...

s credit only Davis with its composition. In his autobiography, Davis maintains that he alone composed the songs on Kind of Blue. The version on Evans' trio album Portrait in Jazz

Portrait in Jazz

Portrait in Jazz is an album by American jazz pianist Bill Evans, released in 1960.-History:Eight months after his successful collaboration with Miles Davis on the album Kind of Blue, Evans recorded Portrait in Jazz with a new group that helped change the direction of modern jazz.Most noticeably,...

, recorded in 1959, credits the tune to 'Davis-Evans'. Earl Zindars

Earl Zindars

Earl Zindars was an American composer of jazz and classical music.-Biography:Chicago-born Earl Zindars graduated from DePaul University and went on to earn a Masters Degree in Music Composition from Northwestern University. He studied with Dr...

, in an interview conducted by Win Hinkle, said that "Blue in Green" was 100-percent written by Bill Evans. In a 1978 radio interview, Evans said that he himself had written the song.

In a recording made in December 1958 or January 1959 for Chet Baker

Chet Baker

Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...

's album Chet (prior to the Kind of Blue sessions), Evans' introduction on the jazz standard "Alone Together

Alone Together (song)

"Alone Together" is a song composed by Arthur Schwartz with lyrics by Howard Dietz. It was introduced in the Broadway musical Flying Colors in 1932 by Jean Sargent....

" has been directly compared to his playing on "Blue in Green".

Jazz fusion

Jazz fusion

Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...

 guitarist Lee Ritenour

Lee Ritenour

Lee Mack Ritenour is an American jazz guitarist who has recorded over 42 albums, appeared on over 3000 sessions, and has charted over 30 instrumental and vocal contemporary jazz hits since 1976. One of his most popular songs was the smash hit, “Is It You” in 1981. Ritenour is considered to be a...

covered the song from his 2005 album "Overtime."