There’s no question it’s a great album, but it’s personally not a favorite of mine. If I had to pick one Miles album that I consider ‘one for the desert island' it would be Seven Steps to Heaven.
For me it would be
Miles Smiles, from 1966. The mid-sixties quintet in peak form, untypically up-beat, and just before the music became over-influenced by Wayne Shorter's trance-like compositions. Tony Williams' best album by far (he would have been about 20 at the time!)
Seven Steps to Heaven was a transitional album, featuring two different quintet lineups, one recording in Hollywood in April '63, the other in New York in May. The title track came from the May session and is the
earliest recording of Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams playing with Miles. Ironically Victor Feldman is credited as co-composer - he is the pianist Hancock replaced (he didn't want to leave Hollywood) and doesn't play on this track. Williams is
17 years old here, Hancock 23.

Returning to
Kind of Blue, one thing that always strikes me is the outstanding playing of Cannonball Adderley. He's someone who doesn't have much reputation left these days (maybe because he had a hit record in the '60s - was perceived as selling out) - but for me on Kind of Blue he is more than a match for John Coltrane.
