Miles Davis

Trumpeter, composer

For the Record…

Selected discography

Sources

“The way you change and help music is by tryin’ to invent new ways to play, if you’re gonna ad lib and be what they call a jazz musician,” Miles Davis told down beat. Using that criterion, Davis is perhaps the consummate jazz artist of all time. During a career that began in the late forties and is still going strong, he has been the spearhead of at least five different stages in music: hard bop, cool jazz, orchestral jazz, modal improvising, and fusion.

Miles Dewey Davis III was born in Alton, Illinois, on May 25, 1926; his family moved to East St Louis a year later. Davis’s father, Miles II, was a dental surgeon who raised his family in a middle class atmosphere that stressed the importance of money. After receiving a trumpet for his thirteenth birthday, Davis began taking lessons from a local teacher named Buchanan. It was at this early stage that Davis acquired his trademark sound characterized by the lack of vibrato. In just two years he had joined the musicians union and was working in a St Louis band led by Eddie Randall called the Blue Devils.

Like his mentor at the time, Clark Terry, Davis began using a Heim mouthpiece, which produces a higher quality tone but is much more difficult to play. His sound was gaining recognition in jazz circles, and before he was out of high school Davis was earning $85.00 a week gigging with pianist ‘Duke’ St. Clare Brooks’s group. The Billy Eckstine Band, featuring Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, was in town for a two-week stint and asked Davis to sit in with them. The experience wetted his appetite for a shot at the Big Apple and the chance to play with the jazz heavy-weights.

His mother, recognizing her son’s musical talent, yet fully aware of the difficult life of a jazzman, agreed to let him go to New York, but only if he would attend the Juilliard School of Music to study the classics. Davis was already a husband and a father by now (having been married at age 17), and after graduation, he and his wife and child left for the East Coast. Davis began juggling his time between strict lessons at Juilliard and free-style jam sessions in the nightclubs of 52nd Street. At Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem he met Freddy Webster, a trumpeter who would have an enormous impact on the youngster. “I used to love what he did to a note,” Davis said in Esquire.”He didn’t play a lot of notes; he didn’t waste any. I used to try to get his sound…. Freddie was my best friend. I wanted to play like him.”

Davis felt that he already knew what was being taught at Juilliard and decided to drop out and concentrate solely on jazz. On May 4, 1945, he played on his first recording session with sax man Herbie Fields, and years later he would tell down beat that “I was too nervous to play, and I only performed in the ensembles

For the Record…

Full name, Miles Dewey Davis III; born May 25, 1926, in Alton, III. ; son of Miles Davis II (a dental surgeon); married c. 1943 (divorced); married Frances Taylor (a dancer), in the early 1960s (divorced); married c. 1967 (divorced); married Cicely Tyson (an actress), 1981; children: two sons. Education: Attended Juilliard School of Music.

Began studying trumpet at the age of thirteen, and started playing with local bands in St. Louis, Mo., at the age of fifteen; after graduating from high school, moved to New York City and played at various clubs while attending Juilliard School of Music; began recording, 1945; played with a number of well-known bandleaders in New York and California, including Billy Eckstine, Charlie Parker, and Benny Carter; bandleader, beginning 1948. Composer; has also written scores for a number of feature films.

Awards: Has won numerous awards from jazz magazine readers polls.

Addresses: Office –c/o Warner Bros. Records, 3300 Warner Blvd., Burbank, CA 91510.

—no solos.” His inexperience must not have shown through too often, because by the end of the year he had joined Charlie Parker’s group playing at the Three Deuces club. And, at the tender age of 19, Davis appeared alongside Bird, Diz, and Maz Roach on one of the first bebop recordings (November 26, 1945). Although the material was well-received by the critics, Davis’s performance did not go over as well and he was slammed by a reviewer in down beat.

New York’s jazz clubs were drying up at the time, so Parker and Gillespie headed to California to try out their new sound while Davis went back to East St. Louis. He hooked up with Benny Carter whose band was also going to the West Coast to work. Once there, Davis was asked by Parker to replace Dizzy who was fed up with the lack of response their music was getting. On March 28, 1946, the group recorded in Hollywood, and the results won Davis the down beat award for New Star on Trumpet that year. Shortly after, he began to work with Charles Mingus and then replaced Fats Navarro in Billy Eckstine’s band, working his way back east.

In 1947, Parker and Davis formed a quintet in New York that lasted 18 months. It was a period that saw Parker playing at his best with Davis acting as musical director of the group. On May 8, Davis made his debut as a composer when the quintet recorded for the Savoy label. He was also starting to develop his own sound instead of playing the usual licks that Dizzy had made famous. In August they recorded four more tunes of which lan Carr said, “The solos too—and for the first time, Miles shares the honours on equal terms with Parker—echo the smooth fluency of the themes. Miles is poised and assured, tending to understate and imply melodic ideas.”

Also in 1947, Davis befriended Gil Evans, a composer who was 14 years his senior. Evans would look over Davis’s work and help him to write less cluttered tunes. The two formed a partnership that would last for nearly four decades. By late 1948, Davis quit Parker and started to lead his own nine-piece group at the Royal Roost club. He began trimming down his sound, making it lighter and saying more with fewer notes. Saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, who was undergoing a similar process, stated, “Miles dominated the band completely; the whole nature of the interpretation was his.” Although the group was not a big hit, they did leave behind some broadcast recordings that mark the beginnings of Miles’s ability to influence those who play with him.

He signed his first recording contract with Capitol (for twelve sides at 78 rpm; about three minutes each) and brought the band into the studio to tape. The selections were all later released in 1957 as The Birth of Cool and became the foundation for the West Coast Jazz School. Davis headed to Europe to play the Paris Jazz Festival where he was a huge success. But it was a different story back in the States; when he returned he found no jobs available. Like many musicians of the time, Davis turned to heroin and became an addict for the next four years.

He joined Eckstine’s band again, and while on tour he was arrested on suspicion of being a heroin addict. The charges were later dropped, but the bad publicity caused him to move to Chicago to do session work to pay for his habit. While other trumpet players who were indebted to Davis were gaining noteriety, he was going nowhere and decided to quit heroin cold turkey. By 1954 he was leading his own group again and recording some of the best performances in jazz history. He would also begin to use the amplified sound of the metallic harmon mute with its stem removed, which according to Ian Carr, “sounded so right and was so immediately attractive, that it spawned imitators everywhere.” The song “Oleo” is a prime example of this tone.

After trying various groups through 1955, Davis finally settled on what has come to be known as “the rhythm section”: Philly Joe Jones—drums, Paul Chambers—bass, and Red Garland—piano. The group also included John Coltrane on tenor sax. Their first album, The New Miles Davis Quintet, was just the beginning of a prolific period in which they would record enough material for over five albums in one year alone. Columbia Records offered Davis $4, 000 to join their label, but he still owed Prestige four more albums. They worked out a compromise that allowed Davis to record for both labels:(Cookin’, Relaxin’, Workin’, and Steamin’ for Prestige and Round About Midnight for Columbia were all released in 1956.)

After the recordings, Davis went to Europe to work. When he came back to New York, he and Gil Evans collaborated on the seminal LP Miles Ahead. With orchestral arrangements by Evans and Davis on flugelhorn, the album met with rave reviews by the critics. Davis and Evans joined forces again in 1958, working on their version of Gershwin’s opera, Porgy and Bess, called “a major contribution to twentieth-century music” by lan Carr. “It is outstanding in the way that a sustained dialogue is created between a great improvising soloist and a great orchestrator.” Two years later their third orchestral-jazz masterpiece, Sketches of Spain, would be released.

During this same period, Davis’s combo was recording also. For awhile Coltrane was joined on sax by Sonny Rollins. Coltrane quit soon after to kick his heroin habit, working with Thelonious Monk in the meantime, developing a style of his own with the pianist. Back working with Davis, he was able to put his new theories to use. “Miles’ music gave me plenty of freedom,” Coltrane told down beat.”It’s a beautiful approach.” The addition of Cannonball Adderely on second sax helped to create two superb albums for the sextet, Milestones and Kind of Blue.

The early sixties saw still more changes for Davis. He was remarried, this time to dancer Frances Taylor. Columbia assigned musician and producer Teo Macero to be his A&R (artist and repertoire) man, a relationship that would have some extreme highs and lows. Davis was once again in trouble with the law, this time for fighting with the police. In addition, his group was going through many personnel changes, missing gigs and having to cancel ones they couldn’t make. The 1963 lineup included Tony Williams on drums, Ron Carter on bass, Herbie Hancock on keyboards, and George Coleman on sax. They released a fine studio effort, Seven Steps to Heaven, in addition to a few live LPs. At the same time, Columbia released Quiet Nights, which consisted of previous material by Davis and Evans. Unhappy with the selections, Davis was so mad at Macero that the two did not talk for over two years.

In 1965 Davis recorded ESP, an abstract jazz album where the solos have no set chorus length. This same format was also used on three other albums:Miles Smiles, The Sorcerer, and Nefertiti. Davis wrote none of the tunes for the last two, utilizing instead concepts developed by his sidemen. He began leaving the tape machines rolling whenever they were in the studio, later splicing ideas together to form the songs. Davis would later tell down beat, “Listening to what they do and feeding it back to them is how any good bandleader should lead his musicians.”

By late 1968 Davis had a new wife and more musicians to work with. Dave Holland was brought in on bass, and Chick Corea was added on keyboards. Davis is credited with writing all the tunes, but Filles de Kilimanjaro has the stamp of Gil Evans on it. It would be the last album the two would work on together. It would also mark the period known as jazz-rock. “Yes, Miles is the daddy of the whole thing,” Chick Corea told Rolling Stone.”He structured the music mostly by predicting the way interrelationships between musicians develop. He would write out little or nothing, but he would put the musicians together and nudge them with comments in such a way that he would in effect be structuring the music. Whatever the individuals came up with from his directions was OK.”

Musicians like John McLaughlin, Joe Zawinul, and Jack DeJohnette were brought in to fuel the fire on these landmark LPs:In A Silent Way, “which left the listener feeling suspended in space,” wrote Mikal Gilmore;Jack Johnson, “mood music for a vacation on the moon,” according to Robert Christgau; and Bitches Brew, the one that made rock and rollers take a listen to jazz. The impact of electronics and musicians who were mastering them (like Jimi Hendrix) forced Davis to reevaluate his music and to come up with something fresh and exciting, thus fusion.

The early 1970s started off badly for Davis. He was in trouble with the law again, both his sons were hooked on dope, he broke both his legs in a car accident, and he fought against a number of health problems (pneumonia, arthritis, bad hip joint, leg infection, and bursitis). He has since remarried, this time to actress Cicely Tyson. More importantly, he continues to tour and record (with occasional pauses for health reasons) with over 40 albums to his credit. While his latest records may not offer anything as dramatically different as the jazz world has come to expect from him, as recently as 1985-86 he has won the down beat readers’ and critics’ polls for best electric jazz group. “Miles is a leader in jazz because he has definite confidence in what he likes and he is not afraid of what he likes,” said Gil Evans. “He goes his own way.”

Selected discography

The Complete Birth of the Cool, Capitol, 1957.

Workin, Steamin’, Relaxin’, and Cookin’, Prestige, 1956.

Round About Midnight, Columbia, 1956.

Miles Ahead, Columbia, 1957.

Milestones, Columbia, 1958.

Someday My Prince Will Come, Columbia, 1961.

In Person at The Blackhawk, Columbia.

Kind Of Blue, Columbia, 1959.

Seven Steps to Heaven, Columbia, 1963.

My Funny Valentine, Columbia.

“Four” And More, Columbia.

Porgy and Bess, Columbia, 1958.

Quiet Nights, Columbia.

Sketches of Spain, Columbia, 1960.

Miles Smiles, Columbia, 1966.

E.S.P., Columbia, 1967.

Sorcerer, Columbia, 1967.

Nefertiti, Columbia, 1967.

Miles in the Sky, Columbia.

Filles de Kilimanjaro, Columbia, 1968.

In a Silent Way, Columbia, 1969.

Water Babies, Columbia, 1978.

Bitches Brew, Columbia, 1970.

At Fillmore, Columbia, 1970.

Black Beauty, CBS.

Jack Johnson, Columbia, 1970.

Live-Evil, Columbia, 1971.

On the Corner, Columbia, 1972.

Big Fun, Columbia, 1974.

Get Up With It, Columbia, 1974.

Agharta, Columbia, 1976.

The Man With the Horn, Columbia, 1981.

We Want Miles, Columbia, 1982.

Star People, Columbia, 1983.

Decoy, Columbia, 1983.

You’re Under Arrest, Columbia.

Tutu, Warner Bros.

Siesta, Warner Bros.

The Columbia Years, 1955-1985, Columbia, 1988.

Sources

Books

Carr, Ian, Miles Davis, Quill, 1984.

Christgau, Robert, Christgau’s Record Guide, Ticknor & Fields, 1981.

Fong-Torres, Ben, editor, What’s That Sound?, Anchor Books, 1976.

Hentoff, Nat, The Jazz Life, Panther Books, 1964.

Marsh, David, editor, The Rolling Stone Record Guide, Random House, 1979.

Periodicals

down beat, September 29, 1960; April 6, 1967; August, 1987;October, 1988; November, 1988; December, 1988.

Esquire, March, 1959.

Guitar Player, November, 1982; September, 1984.

Guitar World, September, 1983.

Rolling Stone, March 11, 1976.

—Calen D. Stone

MILES DAVIS

Born: Miles Dewey Davis III; Alton, Illinois, 26 May 1926; died 28 September 1991, Santa Monica, California

Genre: Jazz

Best-selling album since 1990: Kind of Blue (1997 re-issue)

Hit songs since 1990: "Time after Time"

Miles Davis has been the missing giant of American popular music since his death in September 1991, little more than two months after his final performances and a session on his posthumously released, Grammy-winning hip-hop effort, Doo-Bop (1992). His distinctively spare, introspective, vibratoless style was a marvel of taste and power. An indefatigable innovator, Davis was characterized by Duke Ellington as the jazz Picasso.

Davis's death was rumored to have been related to AIDS. Certainly his constitution was affected by hard living, organic disease, diverse accidents, and self-inflicted knocks. In the year prior to his death, he toured stadiums and festivals with a young electric jazz band featuring the saxophonist Kenny Garrett. He made two major appearances before his death. The first was a one-time-only review at the Montreux Jazz Festival on July 8, 1991, when he played big-band charts written by his late friend Gil Evans and conducted by Quincy Jones. Two days later in Paris, he appeared at a concert along with his longtime associates: saxophonists Jackie McLean and Wayne Shorter; pianists Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Joe Zawinul; guitarists John McLaughlin and John Scofield; bassist Dave Holland; and drummer Jack DeJohnette.

Davis was the son of a prosperous Midwestern oral surgeon and his wife, descendants of accomplished African-Americans and bearers of high cultural standards. They afforded their three children enriching opportunities. Miles started his trumpet studies in sixth grade and took private lessons with a trumpeter from the St. Louis symphony from the age of thirteen, when his father bought him a horn for his birthday. His mother never approved of his musical career.

As a young teen playing local clubs, Davis was encouraged by the trumpeter Clark Terry. Hired as a last-minute substitute on one occasion by balladeer and bandleader Billy Eckstine, Davis met trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, the chief proponents of bebop, the virtuosic, small-group jazz movement that flourished after World War II. In 1945 Davis moved to New York City to attend the Juilliard School's Institute of Musical Art, and immediately sought out Parker and Gillespie in the jazz clubs of Fifty-second Street.

Davis was quickly accepted by the boppers, becoming a mainstay of Parker's group in 1947. He also participated in informal jam sessions hosted by Gil Evans, a collaboration that resulted in the short-lived nonet that recorded the groundbreaking album Birth of the Cool (1950). The bebop milieu was pervaded by heroin addiction, and Davis fell prey to the drug in 1949, after which his career wobbled as he freelanced erratically with musicians including Eckstine, Stan Getz, and Billie Holiday. After kicking his drug habit by returning to his parents' home and going cold turkey, Davis surged to the fore of the jazz scene, working with J. J. Johnson, Horace Silver, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, Milt Jackson, and others. After an acclaimed performance at the 1955 Newport Jazz Festival, he never looked back.

The upward trajectory of Davis's career brought him into the leadership of his first quintet, with John Coltrane; a long association with Columbia Records (abandoned in 1985 for Warner Bros.); and the landmark albums Porgy and Bess (1959) and Sketches of Spain (1960), which drew on the work of the contemporary Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo. His band that featured Coltrane, alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, and pianist Bill Evans produced the landmark modal take on the blues, Kind of Blue (1959), considered by some critics the greatest album in the history of jazz; it remains the best-selling album in the history of the genre.

Nevertheless, reams of criticism has piled up about the music of Kind of Blue ; among its chief attractions is the mood it sets, and maintains, of relaxed yet alert, soothing but never soporific sweet sadness. The themes are simple (though deceptively so) and repetitious, yet not cloying. The rhythms are mostly soft and mid-tempo, nonetheless propulsive. Davis's improvisations seem casual yet are perfectly phrased; his ideas are never forced, but by turns bold and vulnerable. Each major soloist matches this standard: Adderley, Coltrane, and Evans give performances of their lives, the saxophonists flowing and lucid, the pianist spreading a color spectrum of harmonies. Kind of Blue redeems a promise of jazz: to bestow a dollop of grace on those who hear it.

In the early 1960s Davis hired his second great quintet, composed of pianist Hancock, saxophonist Shorter, bassist Ron Carter, and seventeen-year-old drummer Tony Williams, all of whom ably enacted Davis's visionary experiments with elliptical forms, newly available electric instruments, and rhythmic variation. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the creatively restless Davis was enthralled with the budding progressive rock scene; he gathered guitarist John McLaughlin; bassist Dave Holland; electric keyboardists Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett; electric bassists; sitar players; and drummers Don Alias, Jack DeJohnette, and Lenny White for the suitelike jazz-rock fusion recording (produced by Teo Macero) titled Bitches Brew (1970).

That two-LP set announced a revolution in American contemporary instrumental music, fusing grandiose themes and dense orchestrations at high volumes with ferocious improvisation and roiling polyrhythmics. Davis followed with a dozen albums in the same vein—many of them live-in-concert before integrated young audiences—and an international tour of venues that could accommodate his requirements of sound.

Many key members of that ensemble and of other heavily amplified and processed bands Davis maintained until the late 1970s have remained in the forefront of jazz: among them are saxophonists Gary Bartz, Sonny Fortune, Steve Grossman, and David Liebman; tablaist Badal Roy; percussionist Airto Moirea; Brazilian composer Hermeto Pascoal; and guitarist Pete Cosey. After a period of inactivity, Davis rebounded with the album Man with a Horn (1981), which features an even younger ensemble in stripped-down productions that did not tax his lapsed trumpet technique.

In the 1980s Davis regained his trumpet technique while continuing to talent-scout and develop material for electronically enhanced, improvising ensembles. He employed guitarists Scofield and Mike Stern; saxophonists Bob Berg, Bill Evans, and Branford Marsalis; bassists Marcus Miller, Darryl Jones, and Foley McCreary; percussionists Alias, Mino Cinelu, and Marilyn Mazur; drummer Al Foster; and a succession of electric keyboardists (including George Duke and Joey DeFrancesco) and synthesizer programmers.

As Davis renewed his career, he extended himself, commercially, artistically, and politically. He was among the first jazz musicians to adapt pop hits of the eighties for his own use, claiming both Cindy Lauper's "Time after Time" and Michael Jackson's "Human Nature" with unique interpretations. He recorded soundtracks—Siesta (1987), The Hot Spot (1990), and Djingo (1990)—for films in which he also acted. He appeared as an icon of cool in advertising campaigns, and began to exhibit his paintings in art galleries. Davis gave pointed titles to his albums: Tutu (1986), named for the black archbishop and antiapartheid leader of South Africa, and Amandla (1989), meaning "freedom" in Swahili. He also contributed a cameo to the album released by Artists United Against Apartheid, Sun City (1985). His personal life, however, remained tempestuous; his fourth marriage, to actress Cicely Tyson, was marked by bursts of violence and ended in divorce.

Davis's gaunt scowl, dramatic clothing, and hoarse voice became legendary, even among those who did not know his music. But they are part of the sensibility that underlay his unforgettable trumpet sound, a gripping evocation of the loneliness, strangeness, exhilaration, and pathos of life in postwar America that rivals the achievement of any artist in any medium of the past fifty years.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Decoy (Columbia, 1984); Tutu (Warner Bros., 1986); Original Motion Picture Soundtrack: The Hot Spot (Antilles, 1990); Doo-Bop (1992); Live Around the World (Warner Bros. 1996); The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings of Miles Davis and Gil Evans (Columbia Legacy, 1996); Dark Magus (Columbia reissue, 1997); Live-Evil (Columbia reissue, 1997); Black Beauty (Columbia reissue, 1997); Live at the Philharmonic (Columbia reissue, 1997); Live at the Fillmore East Columbia reissue, 1997); Kind of Blue (Columbia reissue, 1997); The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions Columbia Legacy, 1998); Birth of the Cool (Capitol EMI reissue, 2001); The Complete Miles Davis at Montreux 1973–1991 (Warner Music, 2002).

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

J. Szwed, So What, the Life of Miles Davis (New York, 2002); B. Kirchner (ed.), A Miles Davis Reader (Washington, DC, 1997); P. Tingen, Miles Beyond: The Electronic Explorations of Miles Davis, 1967–1991 (New York, 2001); M. Davis, Miles, the Autobiography (New York, 1989).

WEBSITES:

www.milesdavis.com/home.html; www.wam.umd.edu/~losinp/music/miles_ahead.html; servercc.oakton.edu/~larry/miles/mile-stones.html.

howard mandel

Miles Davis

A jazz trumpeter, composer, and small-band leader, Miles Davis (1926-1991) was in the jazz vanguard for more than two decades. His legend continued to grow even after poor health and diminished creativity removed him from jazz prominence.

Miles Dewey Davis 3rd was born into a well-to-do Alton, Illinois, family on May 25, 1926. His father was a dentist, his mother a woman of leisure: there were two other children, an older sister and a younger brother. In 1928 the family moved to East St. Louis. At the age of 10 Miles began playing trumpet; while still in high school he met and was coached by his earliest idol, the great St. Louis trumpeter Clark Terry.

After fathering two children by a woman friend, Miles in 1944 moved to New York City. He worked for just two weeks in the talent-packed Billy Eckstine Band, then enrolled in the Juilliard School of Music, by day studying classical music and by night interning in jazz's newest idiom, bebop, with the leaders of the movement, notably Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, and Max Roach.

Miles' 1947-1948 stint in a quintet led by bebop genius Charlie Parker gained him a modicum of early fame; a fine trumpeter in the bebop idiom, he nevertheless began to move conceptually away from its orthodoxy. He felt a need to divest his music of bebop's excesses and eccentricities and to restore jazz's more melodic and orchestrated elements. The result was the seminal LP recording Birth of the Cool (1949), played by a medium-sized group, a nonet, featuring, in addition to Miles, baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, and pianist Al Haig. A highly celebrated record date, it gave "birth" to the so-called "cool," or West Coast, jazz school, which was more cerebral, more heavily orchestrated, and generally more disciplined (especially in its shorter solos) than traditional bebop, and it gave Miles a musical identity distinct from Parker and the other beboppers.

In the early 1950s Miles became a heroin addict, and his career came to a near halt for three years, but his ultimately successful fight against the drug habit in 1954 led to his greatest period, the mid-to-late 1950s. During that six-year span he made a series of small group recordings regarded as jazz classics. In 1954, with tenor saxophone titan Sonny Rollins, he made memorable recordings of three Rollins originals—"Airegin," "Doxy," and "Oleo"—as well as two brilliant versions of the Tin Pan Alley standard "But Not for Me." Additionally, in the 1954-1955 period Miles recorded with a number of other jazz giants—tenorist Lucky Thompson, vibist Milt Jackson, and pianist Thelonious Monk.

In 1955 Miles formed his most celebrated group, a remarkably talented quintet (later, a sextet, with the addition of alto saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley) that featured tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones. Until Coltrane's defection in the 1960s, Miles' band was the single most visible and dominant group in all of jazz. The early 1960s saw a succession of personnel shifts until the band stabilized in 1964 around an excellent new rhythm section of pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Tony Williams, as well as a new tenor saxophonist, Wayne Shorter. Miles continued to be the greatest attraction (and biggest moneymaker) in all of jazz, but his new band couldn't match the impossibly high standards of its predecessor. Late in the decade his music took a radically new direction. In two 1968 albums, Miles in the Sky and Filles de Kilimanjaro, Miles experimented with rock rhythms and non-traditional instrumentation. For the last two decades of Miles' career his music was increasingly rhythm-and-drone and Miles himself became more of a jazz curiosity than a musician to be taken seriously.

A good part of Davis' fame owed less to his considerable musicianship than to his strange persona. He was notorious in performance for turning his back on audiences, for addressing them inaudibly or not at all, for expressing racial hostility toward whites, for dressing nattily early in his career and outlandishly later, and for projecting (especially in a series of motorcycle ads on television) a voice hoarse to a point of strangulation—all of which contributed to his charismatic mystique. Davis also had many health problems and more than his share of brushes with officialdom (widespread racism and his own racial militancy made the latter inevitable).

Miles was, in reality, a paradox. Himself the victim of a policeman's clubbing (reportedly, racially-inspired), he had the fairness and courage in the late 1950s to defy Black jazzmen's expectations by filling a piano vacancy with a white player, Bill Evans, but then, by all accounts, often racially taunted him. A physical fitness enthusiast (with his own private gym), he nevertheless ingested vast quantities of drugs (sometimes, but not always, for arthritic pain). Forbiddingly gruff and solitary, he was also capable of acts of generosity toward down-at-heels musicians, both African American and white.

Davis was married three times—to dancer Frances Taylor, singer Betty Mabry, and actress Cicely Tyson; all ended in divorce. He had, in all, three sons, a daughter, and seven grandchildren. He died on September 28, 1991, of pneumonia, respiratory failure, and a stroke.

Davis, in addition to the classic small group recordings of the 1954-1960 period, recorded memorable orchestral works with arranger and long-time friend Gil Evans, most notably Miles Ahead (1957), Porgy and Bess (1958), and Sketches of Spain (1960). Davis' extended works include scores for Louis Malle's film Elevator to the Gallows (1957) and for the full-length documentary Jack Johnson (1970). Among Davis' best-known shorter compositions are the early "Tune Up," "Milestones," "Miles Ahead," "Blue Haze," and "Four"; from 1958 on his best tunes, such as "So What" and "All Blues," are based on modal scales rather than chords. Early and late, both the compositions and the trumpet playing are trademarked by Davis' hauntingly "blue" sound.

Further Reading

Miles: An Autobiography (1989), written with Quincy Troupe, is inadvertently self-revealing—opinionated, irreverent, egotistical, obscene, abusive, and wrong-headed (e.g., he is almost totally dismissive of his finest work and aggressively defensive of his worst). More balanced is Ian Carr's Miles Davis (1982). The two most rewarding articles are both negative assessments—Whitney Balliett's "Miles" in the New Yorker (December 4, 1989) and Stanley Crouch's "Play the Right Thing" in The New Republic (February 12, 1990), which labels Miles as "the most brilliant sellout in the history of jazz" (for having abandoned his early artistry in favor of jazz-rock fusion). A 1993 biography, Miles Davis: The Man in the Green Shirt, by Richard Williams is little more than a coffeetable book. □

Miles Davis

Born: May 25, 1926
Alton, Illinois
Died: September 28, 1991
Santa Monica, California
African American musician, composer, and trumpeter

A jazz trumpeter, composer, and small-band leader, Miles Davis was the leading jazz musician for more than two decades. His legend continued to grow even after poor health and diminished creativity removed him from jazz royalty.

Early life

Miles Dewey Davis III was born to Miles Davis Jr. and Cleota Henry in Alton, Illinois, on May 25, 1926. There were also two other children, an older sister and a younger brother. In 1928 the family moved to East St. Louis, Illinois, where Davis's father became a successful oral surgeon. Davis enjoyed a comfortable childhood and the family lived in a white neighborhood. At the age of thirteen his father gave him a trumpet and soon Davis joined his high school band. While still in high school he met and was coached by his earliest idol, the great St. Louis trumpeter Clark Terry (1920–).

After fathering two children by a woman friend, Davis moved to New York City in 1944. He worked for just two weeks in the talent-packed Billy Eckstine Band, then enrolled in the Juilliard School of Music. By day he studied classical music, and by night he gained experience in jazz's newest movement, bebop, with the leaders of the movement, notably Charlie Parker (1920–1955), Dizzy Gillespie (1917–1993), Fats Navarro, and Max Roach (1924–).

"Cool" jazz

Davis's stint from 1947 to 1948 in a quintet (group of five musicians) led by bebop genius Charlie Parker brought him early fame. A fine bebop trumpeter, Davis soon felt a need to rid his music of bebop's style and to restore jazz's more melodic elements. The result was the influential recording Birth of the Cool (1949), which gave "birth" to the so-called "cool," or West Coast, jazz school. This recording established Davis' musical identity, separate from Parker and the other beboppers.

In the early 1950s Davis became a heroin (dangerous drug made from morphine) addict. His career came to a near halt for three years, but his ultimately successful fight against the drug habit in 1954 led to his greatest period: the mid-to-late 1950s. During that six-year span he made a series of small group recordings regarded as jazz classics. In 1954, with tenor saxophone titan Sonny Rollins (1930–), he made memorable recordings of three Rollins originals—"Airegin," "Doxy," and "Oleo"—as well as two brilliant versions of the Tin Pan Alley (a respected group of musicians and songwriters) standard "But Not for Me."

In 1955 Davis formed his most celebrated group, a remarkably talented quintet that featured tenor saxophonist John Coltrane (1926–1967), pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones. Until Coltrane left in the 1960s, Davis's band was the single most visible and dominant group in all of jazz. In 1964 he put together a new band, and Davis continued to be the greatest attraction (and biggest money-maker) in all of jazz. His new band, however, could not match the impossibly high standards of the original band.

Davis, the person

For the last two decades of Davis's career he became more of a jazz curiosity than a musician to be taken seriously. A good part of his fame owed less to his considerable musicianship than to his strange personality. Davis gained a poor reputation in performance for turning his back on audiences, for expressing racial hostility toward whites, for dressing poorly early in his career and wildly later—all of which contributed to his mysterious image.

Davis was a complex man with strengths and weaknesses that would ultimately destroy him. Himself the victim of a policeman's clubbing (reportedly, racially inspired), he had the fairness and courage in the late 1950s to challenge black jazzmen's expectations by filling a piano vacancy with a white player, Bill Evans (1929–1980); but then, by all accounts, Davis often racially taunted him. A physical fitness enthusiast (with his own private gym), he nevertheless took vast amounts of drugs (sometimes, but not always, for pain). Oftentimes unfriendly, he was also capable of acts of generosity toward struggling musicians, both black and white.

Davis was married three times—to dancer Frances Taylor, singer Betty Mabry, and actress Cicely Tyson. All three marriages ended in divorce. He had, in all, three sons, a daughter, and seven grandchildren. He died on September 28, 1991, in Santa Monica, California, of pneumonia, respiratory failure, and a stroke.

Davis remains one of the most influential musicians in the history of jazz. His music lives on in recordings like Miles Ahead (1957), Porgy and Bess (1958), and Sketches of Spain (1960), and the hauntingly "blue" sound of his trumpet.

For More Information

Carr, Ian. Miles Davis: The Definitive Biography. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1998.

Crouch, Stanley. "Play the Right Thing." New Republic (February 12, 1990).

Davis, Miles. Miles: The Autobiography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989.

Williams, Richard. Miles Davis: The Man in the Green Shirt. New York: H. Holt, 1993.

Davis, Miles (1926–1991), musician.Born in Alton, Illinois, a dentist's son, Miles Davis began playing the trumpet professionally in his teens. In 1944 he enrolled in a New York conservatory but gravitated to Harlem's jazz nightclubs. He soon was recording with Charlie Parker and working with big bands. Davis began leading groups, and in 1949 his nonet recorded the Birth of the Cool arrangements, helping to introduce the impressionistic “cool” jazz style. Slowed by heroin addiction, Davis resurfaced in 1955 with an acclaimed quintet (including John Coltrane). It recorded Milestones, Kind of Blue, and other albums, roaming from a classic bebop style to modal explorations. Davis also created Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain (1958–1960) with arranger Gil Evans. These albums were among the most influential in jazz history. Into the 1960s, Davis made numerous appearances and created albums and film scores. In 1968 he controversially incorporated electronic instruments and soul motifs in In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew. His jazz‐rock “fusion” experiments continued until 1975, when illnesses forced a retirement. In the 1980s Davis returned, blending contemporary pop trends into his performances.

Davis's tight, dynamic range; hard‐edged lyricism; and astringent trumpet timbre created one of jazz's most distinctive voices. His uncompromising “cool” persona, fired by racial pride and mistrust of the music business and the mass audience, made him a rebellious role model for African American men for four decades. Above all, Davis was the most restless and influential stylistic innovator in jazz's first century.

Bibliography

Jack Chambers , Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis, 2 vols., 1983, 1985.
Miles Davis and and Quincy Troupe , Miles: The Autobiography, 1989.

Burton W. Peretti

Miles Davis 1926–91, American jazz musician, b. Alton, Ill. Rising to prominence with the birth of modern jazz in the mid-1940s, when he was a sideman in Charlie Parker 's bop quintet, Davis became a dominant force in jazz trumpet. He was influential in the development of "cool" jazz in 1949–50, led numerous outstanding small groups through the 1950s and 60s, and produced a successful blend of jazz and rock music in the 1970s and 80s. Davis's trumpet and flügelhorn styles were warmly lyrical and were marked by a brilliant use of mutes. He made many recordings, which reflect his stylistic changes; Kind of Blue (1959), a landmark of modal jazz, has been a best-seller since it was issued.

Bibliography: See Miles: The Autobiography (1989, with Q. Troupe); biographies by I. Carr (1982), J. Chambers (2 vol., 1983–85), B. McRae (1988), and J. Szwed (2002); Q. Troupe, Miles and Me (2000).

Davis, Miles (Dewey) (b Alton, 111., 1926; d Santa Monica, Calif., 1991). Amer. jazz trumpeter and flügel horn player. Began playing at 13. Went to NY, playing with Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, and Billy Eckstine. After success at Newport Jazz Fest. 1955 formed own quintet which lasted until 1957. In 1960s and 1970s led series of small groups. Noted for restraint and lyricism of his playing and for his consistently progressive approach, leading him to electronics and hard rock.