Miles Davis was one of the major musical forces during the second half of the 20th century. The great trumpet, flugelhorn, and keyboard player had a great artistic gift for painting and creating music. He is one of the very few jazz musicians of our time who had the ability to improvise and swing and a constant tempo. When Miles played a tune, it became part of his soul and never lost character. Miles Dewey Davis III was born on May 5, 1926 in Alton, Illinois. He came from a wealthy middle-class family--his grandfather was a landownner in Arkansas and his father was a successful dentist who also owned a ranch. Music was an important part of the Davis family's life: Miles' mother played violin and his sister played piano. Miles followed in their footsteps and began playing trumpet at the age of nine. He had private lessons from a man name Elwood Buchanan and played in his high-school band. In addition, Miles played with a rhythm and blues band from St. Louis whie he was still in school. Miles chose to go to the famous Juilliard Institute in New York for college, but he soon left there in order to play in the small clubs on 52nd Street with Coleman Hawkins and others, but mainly with Charlie Parker. In November 1945, when Miles was only nineteen years old, he jooined the Parker Quintet (which recorded the first true bebop tracks, including the classic blues performance "Now's the Time" which established Davis immediately as a master of understatement and an alternative trumpet stylist to Gillespie). From 1946 to 1948, he worked mostly with Parker, playing on all of the saxophonist's finest sextet and quintet recordings. He left Parker's group in late 1948 and began leading his own groups in New York, including a nine-piece band which created a revolutionary new sound. Miles had been talking with some other upcoming musicians (Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan, and Lee Konitz) who played in the Claude Thornhill Band. This band used the French horn and tuba, and the aim was to achieve a full orchestral palette from a minimum number of instruments. As a result, Miles and his friends used a combination of instruments that were quite new to jazz. The group's urban sound, the subtle, innovatory scoring and the calm, unhurried, solos seemed to be a reaction against the frenetic excesses of bebop and ushered in what came to be called the "cool school" of jazz. This band failed as a working unit; their only public appearance was a two-week engagement at the Royal Roost in September 1948, and one week a year later at the Clique Club. 
But the group recorded many tracks for Capitol Records. When these numbers were released, they spawned a host of imitators and admirers. More importantly, though, the success of this album established Davis as a leader and talent quite different from Charlie Parker. The first great Miles Davis Quintet (1955-6) with John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, was a group so innovative that they recorded six influential albums in only one year. In 1957, Davis played and recorded the soundtrack for Louis Malle's film Lift to the Scaffold and in collaboration with old friend Gil Evans recorded their first orchestral masterpiece, cleverly titled Miles Ahead , which was followed by two others Sketches of Pain and Porgy and Bess (which happens to be one of my personal favorite musicals of all time). From 1958-60, the Miles Davis Sextet (with Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley), recorded Milestones and Kind of Blue , both seminal, but the latter probably the most influential LP in jazz history. During the latter half of the 1950's Davis became the world's most famous jazz musician: his rhythm-sections were regarded as the key units of the time, and his quintet and sextet were generally recognized as the leading groups of the period. Miles Davis' recordings with Gil Evans were not only innovative - creating new sounds, textures, and techniques - but they also brought the integration of soloist and ensemble to a new and sustained peak. With Kind of Blue , Davis had experimented with modal improvisation, which later on became part of the current jazz language. For the first time in 1954, Miles had introduced a very new sound - the trumpet without its stem being played close to the microphone, and had also established the flugelhorn, which he played on Miles Ahead , as an important expressive instrument. These sounds were incorporated into the Jazz field, and by the 1960's had become popular. Miles Davis formed a new quintet in 1964. In it were Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass), Tony Williams (drums) and Wayne Shorter (saxes). The rhythm-section in this band is still considered by many to have been the greatest time-playing unit in jazz. One of their recordings, and also one of the finest jazz recordings in history, is on the The Complete Concert . From 1965, this group began perfecting a form of abstraction in that the improvisation occurred in regular time, but without prearranged harmonies; in other words, there were composed themes, the group played 4/4 or 3/4 at various tempos, but after the theme statement, the soloist, pianist and bassist were free to choose what notes or chords they wanted. This approach, called "time-no changes," became very popular, as many people started using it. 
In 1968, Miles began to think more in terms of longer pieces, without written themes. And naturally, with newer times came "newer" instruments--he began to use electric keyboards, electric guitars, multiple percussion and sometimes, even Indian instruments like the sitar and tabla. Some more people that joined his band were John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, Billy Cobham, Dave Liebman, Joe Zawinul, and others. Miles Davis recorded more than twenty albums during the next two years. From 1975-1980, Miles became ill (as a result of physical and creative exhaustion). He was inactive until 1980, when he began to perform again. 1980 was a comeback year, and he started a new phase of his life that was like a summary of his whole career. He was playing his trumpet better than ever--using the entire range from the lowest notes to the extreme upper register. The jazz artists who joined him in 1980 were Bill Evans and Bob Berg (saxes), Mike Stern and John Scofield (guitars), Marcus Miller and Daryl "The Munch" Jones (bass guitar). Miles' songs started sounding very similar to popular songs, and he became thoroughly involved in the recording process; more than ever before, he was *THE* producer-composer-arranger. Davis toured once or twice in the USA, Europe and Japan, playing to enthusiastic crowds everywhere he went. Some of his most beautiful and emotive playing was done during these tours. In 1984, he received the Sonning Award, presented for a lifetime achievement in music. He was the first non-classical musician to recieve it. Once in 1985, he performed for over five hours on stage in London. Soon after, he began to lose the vivacity that he had always had. This decline continued all the way to his death. 
In the final years of his life, Miles Davis changed his record company. He was upset at Columbia's refusal to release Aura and signed with Warner Bros. He recorded two magnificent albums for them: Tutu in 1986 and Amandla in 1989. On July 10, 1991 (just two months before his death) he shocked audience members at the Montreux festival by performing again some of his great orchestral music from the 50's, even though he was clearly weak. He played at the Royal Festival Hall, London on July 19 and the Hollywood Bowl five weeks later. About a month later, he caught pneumonia and was hospitalized. He soon died of respiratory failure and a stroke. Click here to listen to Sivad, which was recorded in the 1970's with artists like Keith Jarrett, Airto Moriera, Michael Henderson, Gary Bartz and the incredible Jack DeJohnette. Go to this website if you want to check out real audio of an entire concert Miles' Band played in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1973. Please click here if you want to see a Miles Davis discography that I did. This page was last modified 4/22/00. Please e-mail me if you have any questions or comments. |
