If there is one jazz recording a person owns, it's Miles Davis’s masterwork Kind of Blue (not surprisingly, as it's the best-selling jazz album of all time). Now, we at Watch500 try to avoid superlatives like “the greatest”, but in this case, we’ll come close to making an exception. Kind of Blue is not just one of the greatest jazz albums of all time, it’s one of the greatest recordings of anything. It’s the final boss of jazz records. And that band: John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Paul Chambers, Wynton Kelly, Jimmy Cobb and our personal favourite, Bill Evans.

So to celebrate this anniversary, we present five watches that you can confidently wear at your local jazz club, inspired by the album and the man himself.

Question. Can you wear a diver to a nightclub? Answer - James Bond does. And anyway, this watch makes the list because it hails from NY (where Davis recorded Kind of Blue) and it's "Aqua Green", or another way of saying Blue in Green, the name of perhaps the most beautiful track on Kind of Blue.

With a 40mm case (not surprisingly), and powered by an NH35 movement, the Diver 40 is one of our personal favourite watches. It dresses up well, so it won’t be out of place during your next evening out at Birdland. And again, that colour.

BTW, if you insisted on actually diving while wearing the Diver 40, you could; it's water-resistant to 200 meters.

Still, dressier watches are in order here, and one that caught our eye is this one, from Canadian microbrand Solios. Solar powered, but have no fear - two hours of sunshine gives the watch enough power for you to spend six months in the darkness of your favourite jazz lounge. You can feel good wearing this watch as well: Solios is an eco-friendly company that donates 1% of its profits to rainforest preservation.

And, it's Canadian, our nod to Gil Evans, Davis' long-time Canadian-born collaborator and arranger and a giant in the history of jazz. Evans introduced Davis to the modal style that defines Kind of Blue, and is widely regarded as having written the iconic opening to "So What," the first track on the album.

We're channelling later Davis here - fusion Davis of the 1970s, and another set of great musicians: Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter, among others. The Brew Super Metric completely rocks the 70s vibe. 36mm, 41 mm lug to lug, runs on a VK mecha-quartz movement, which is cool in itself. Brew has moved from strength to strength of late, having been named 2023 Watch Brand of the Year.

The brand is perfect for this list, as Brew is confidently named after Davis's fusion masterpiece, Bitches Brew. (That is not even remotely true; the Brew here is coffee; the company's chronographs are calibrated to time espresso-making. Which is still pretty cool.)

Davis's watch, as best we can tell, was the Breitling Navitimer 806. Or we should say, it's a watch he's been pictured wearing. A cool watch, we say, but it's about $3,500 out of our price bracket. But you can snag one here if you’ve got four large burning a hole in your pocket.

Alternatively, you can channel all that watch-computing power with this Casio. Like the Breitling, the Edifice features a slide rule bezel, which allows pilots with substantially greater technical skills than we to make all sorts of essential calculations: direction, current speed, all the stuff that keeps a plane in the air, we reckon.

45mm case, 51 lug to lug, it’s big too, which helps see the subdials, bezels, chapter rings and tick marks, of which there are many. It’s complicated, like Davis himself.

What does the Lamborghini Miura, the Ferrari 275 and the Ferrari Testarossa have in common? Beyond our editor cutting out photos of these from Road and Track and posting them in his high school locker?

Of course. Miles owned them all. He was a car nut, particularly Ferraris (apparently he owned a GT 250 as well.) So though a driver might not be the watch you reach for as you get ready for a night out at the Chicago Jazz Showcase or Ronnie Scotts, this one might be. Sheffield is a terrific micro, dedicated to reviving the old Sheffield brand of the 60s, and their iconic GT watches.

The original Sheffield was based in New York, so we are happy to add it here. 40mm case, 48 lug-to-lug and a Miyota solar movement for those who like the deets. Born cool, for those who like the vibe.

Ouh la la.

Davis travelled to Paris in 1949 as a jazz musician coming into his own; the Parisians loved him and treated Miles with the kind of respect he did not receive in segregated America.

He strolled the streets of Paris with French actress and singer Juliette Greco, with whom he had an affair. He'd return to Paris in 1957 to record the soundtrack to Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Elevator to the Gallows) starring Jeanne Moreau. Paris had a profound impact on Davis, so we thought, why not a Parisian watch. This piece, by Beaubleu-Paris, c'est parfait.

Avant-garde, with a 39mm case, Miyota automatic movement, and a blue dial that we find inspiring. The name moved us as well: Ecce Smalt translates roughly to “Behold, the Blue!”

Behold the Blue indeed.

The Guardian has a beat on Davis’ time in Paris: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/dec/10/miles-davis-paris-us-segregation

For a profile of the album, we recommend this from Stephen Thomas Erlewine at AllMusic: https://www.allmusic.com/album/kind-of-blue-mw0000191710

Jazzwise tell the story of how the album was made: https://www.jazzwise.com/features/article/kind-of-blue-how-miles-davis-made-the-greatest-jazz-album-in-history

You too can have pics of Ferraris in your locker. Road and Track on Miles Davis the car enthusiast: https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a42745697/miles-davis-was-a-secret-car-enthusiast-superhero/

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