…not to be a bummer, but I do not automatically associate smoking with jazz…probably because for at least half of the time I've been checking out jazz in clubs, many have been smoke-free. It's funny…back when Kind Of Blue was recorded, jazz was generally associated with heroin use (and as we all know, Miles, Coltrane and Bill Evans were pretty celebrated junkies, though Cannonball was clean as a whistle). I once heard Quincy Jones attribute the overall feel of that album to "the junkie tempo".
I guess what I'm getting at is how perceptions linger and change. Since I've never really smoked, I think my enjoyment of Kind Of Blue (and by extension, most jazz) has always been more about aesthetic stuff, like how its molecular structure or something can seem so simple and right…it's still a mystery how six human beings can make something so flawless, that speaks to soooo many people. I know that album like the back of my hand, but I can still marvel at it…