Miles Davis
Miles Davis (May 26, 1926 - September 26, 1991) was an American jazz composer, trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist and was one of the most influential, innovative and original musicians of the twentieth century.
In terms of importance to the history of jazz, his legacy is equalled only, perhaps, by Louis Armstrong, and few knowledgeable critics would balk at using the word "genius". Stylistically, his vast catalogue encompasses bop, cool jazz, modal jazz and jazz-rock fusion, and he was a pivotal figure in the evolution of the latter three. His recordings, along with the live performances of his many seminal bands, were vital in jazz's increased artistic acceptance and, as well as an innovator, he was a populariser, with a languid, melodic style that was more readily comprehensible to non-jazz fans than the hard bebop that had preceeded it.
Davis is the latest, and perhaps the last, in the line of supremely innovative and influential jazz trumpeters that starts with Buddy Bolden and runs on through Joe King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, and Dizzy Gillespie. Davis has been compared to Duke Ellington as a musical innovator. Both were skillful players on their instruments, but not virtuosos. Both expressed their musical ideas more as bandleaders, although Davis soloed much more than Ellington. Both tailored their compositions to the players in their bands.
Davis was born into a relatively wealthy black family, the son of a succesful East St. Louis dentist. His mother, a capable pianist, wanted him to learn the violin but, for his 13th birthday, his father bought him a trumpet. Davis took to it immediately, and by age 15 he was playing in public with band leader Eddie Randall and studying under local trumpeter Elwood Buchanan. Against the fashion of the time, Buchanan stressed the importance of playing without vibrato, and Davis would carry his clear signature tone throughout his career.
In 1945, after having graduated from high school and playing for a brief time with Charlie Parker in Billy Eckstein's band, he moved to New York City ostensibly to take up a scholarship at the Juillard School of Music. In reality, however, he neglected his studies and immediately set about tracking down his heroes: amongst them Parker, Thelonius Monk and Coleman Hawkins. By 1949 he had served his apprenticeship as a sideman, both on stage and record, and a recording career of his own was beginning to blossom. That year he began to work with arranger Gil Evans, with whom Davis would collaborate on many of his major works over the next twenty years. The sides they cut in the late forties would, however, see only limited release for nearly ten years.
Playing in the jazz clubs of New York, Davis was in frequent contact with users and dealer of illegal drugs and by 1950, in common with many of his contemparies, he had developed a serious heroin addiction, possibly aggravated by the lukewarm reception his first personal recordings had received. For the first part of that decade, although he gigged a great deal and played many sessions, they were mostly uninspired and it seemed that his talent was going to waste. No one was more aware of this than Davis himself, and in 1954 he returned to East St. Louis and, with the help and encouragement of his father, he kicked heroin, literally locking himself away from society until free of the drug.
He returned to New York reinvigorated, and formed the first great incarnation of the Miles Davis Quintet. This band would feature the young John Coltrane, orignally on tenor (and later soprano) saxophone and, at times, such luminaries as Sonny Rollins (tenor sax) and Charles Mingus (bass). Musically, the band picked up where Davis' late forties sessions had left off. Eschewing the rhythmic and harmonic complexity of the prevalent bebop, Davis' was allowed the space to play long, legato and essentially melodic lines, in which he would begin to explore modal music, his lifelong obsession.
These records, beginning with Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet, would, together with the 1948 "Birth Of The Cool" recordings, serve to define the sound of cool jazz, which would be one of the dominant trends in the music over the next decade and beyond. While the rest of the musical establishment were still coming to terms with Davis' innovations, he himself had moved on. Reunited with Gil Evans he recorded a series of albums of stunning variety and complexity, showing his mastery of his instrument in almost every musical context. The first, Miles Ahead (1957) showed his playing with a traditional jazz big band, with a driven horn section beautifully arranged by Evans. As well as jazz tunes (which included Dave Brubeck's "The Duke") the pair also tackled Leo Delibes' "The Maids Of Cadiz", the first time Davis had recorded a piece of European classical music.
Milestones (1958) captured the sound of his current sextet, which now comprised Davis, Coltrane, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley (alto sax), Red Garland (piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Philly Joe Jones (drums). Musically, it encompasses both the past and the future of jazz. Davis shows that he can play blues and bebop (ably assisted by 'Trane), but the centerpiece is the title track, a Davis composition centred around the Dorian and Aeolian modes and featuring the free improvisatory modal style that Davis would make his own. Later the same year Davis and Evans' free arrangement of George Gershwin's Porgy And Bess, the framework of Gershwin's tunes providing ample space for Davis to improvise, showing his mastery of variations and expansons of the original themes as well as his original melodic ideas.
Kind of Blue
In March 1959 Davis re-entered the studio with a new quintet, comprising Coltrane, Adderley and Chambers with Jimmy Cobb (drums) and Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly alternating on piano, to record what is widely held as his masterpiece. Recorded in just two sessions, and improvised by the band about skeletal harmonic frameworks sketched by Davis and Kelly, Kind Of Blue would revolutionise jazz. Stripped of the rhythmic strictures that had driven his previous work and masterfully supported by the band, Davis' had sufficient space to expand his new harmonic and melodic ideas, and the sidemen proved themselves more than equal to the task. Amongst the best selling jazz albums of all time, and still widely hailed as the greatest, it seemed that Kind Of Blue had a lasting influence on every musician, jazz or otherwise who heard it, and it still stands as an equal to any of the world's pivotal musical works.
The same year, whilst taken a break outside the famous "Birdland" club in New York City, Davis was beaten by the New York police, and subsequently arrested. Believing the assault to have been racially motivated he attempted to pursue the case in the courts, before eventually dropping the proceedings. Such treatment was markedly at odds from his treatment outside the US, and especially on his regular European tours, where he was fêted by society.
After an extensive tour behind Kind Of Blue, Davis seems took a break from his quintet. Characteristically looking for something different, he turned to arranger Gil Evans for help with his next work. Returning to their mutual interest in classical music which had first born fruit on Miles Ahead, Evans arranged a version of Joaquin Rodrigo's "Concerto de Aranjuez" for Davis. Married to four other pieces, Rodrigo's work provided the centrepiece of Sketches Of Spain(1960).
Throughout the early 1960s Davis continued his prodigious output, undaunted by the loss of Coltrane to a solo career. His last contributions appeared on 1961's Someday My Prince Will Come, a collection often overlooked due to its legendary predecessors. Further fine studio recordings, such as Sorceror (1962), Seven Steps To Heaven (1963) and My Funny Valentine (1964), were interspersed with further with live recordings (In Person (1961), At The Carnegie Hall (1962) and In Europe (1964)) featuring his evolving touring band. By the time of ESP (1965) the lineup, Davis' second great quintet and the last of his acoustic bands, consisted of Wayne Shorter (saxophone), Herbie Hancock (piano), Tony Williams (drums), Ron Carter (bass), and Miles himself. As the late 60s progressed, Miles found himself increasingly influenced by the the sound and attitude of rock music, not to mention the financial rewards rock stars were obtaining, again in marked contrast to Davis' own experience. Davis and his band began increasingly to use electric instruments and electronic effects on their recordings, culminating with 1968's Filles De Kilimanjaro. By the time In A Silent Way was recorded in February 1969, Davis had replaced his acoustic quintet with an all-electric band, featuring such talents as Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett and the young John McLaughlin. That record, and its successor, Bitches Brew, saw the first truly succesful amalgamations of jazz with rock music, laying the ground work for the genre that would become known simply as fusion. These records, while groundbreaking, were not as great a commercial success. His new sound drove away many of his former fans, but the music, perhaps due to its great complexity, did not find a great following among the fans of progressive rock whom Davis had hoped to attract.
1970 saw Davis contribute extensively to the soundtrack of a documentary about the great black boxer, Jack Johnson. A devotee of boxing, Davis drew parallels between Johnson, whose career had been defined by the fruitless search for a Great White Hope to dethrone him, and Davis' own career, in which he felt the establishment had prevented him from receiving the acclaim and rewards that were due him. Regardless, Davis refused to be confined by the expectation of his audience and continued to explore the possibilities of his new band. On The Corner (1972) showed a seemingly effortless grasp of funk without sacrificing the rhythmic, melodic and harmonic nuance that had been present throughout his entire career.
By now, his previous rate of production was falling. Get Up With It (1975) was a collection of outtakes and studio recording from the previous five years which, in "He Loved Him Madly" included a fine tribute to Duke Ellington but, critics concurred, rather too many underdeveloped ideas. Excluding an assortment of live recordings, its release saw Davis enter retirement. Troubled by chronic pain from years of physical abuse, a serious kidney complaint and a renewed dependendence on heroin and again at odds with the law Davis withdrew almost completely from the public eye.
Recommended Reading
Miles Davis - Ian Carr. The definitive, exhaustively researched biography (ISBN:0006530265)