Quick Facts
- NAME: Miles Davis
- BIRTH DATE: May 26, 1926
- DEATH DATE: September 28, 1991
- EDUCATION: Institute of Musical Art (now the Juilliard School)
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Alton, Illinois
- PLACE OF DEATH: Santa Monica, California
Best Known For
Bandleader and composer Miles Davis was one of the most important and influential musicians in jazz history.
Miles Davis. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 10:28, Feb 07, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/miles-davis-9267992
Miles Davis [Internet]. 2012. http://www.biography.com/people/miles-davis-9267992, February 07
" Miles Davis." 2012. Biography.com 07 Feb 2012, 10:28 http://www.biography.com/people/miles-davis-9267992
' Miles Davis', Biography.com,(2012) http://www.biography.com/people/miles-davis-9267992 [accessed Feb 07, 2012]
" Miles Davis," Biography.com, http://www.biography.com/people/miles-davis-9267992 (accessed Feb 07, 2012).
Miles Davis [Internet]. Biography.com; 2012 [cited 2012 Feb 07]. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/miles-davis-9267992.
Miles Davis, http://www.biography.com/people/miles-davis-9267992 (last visited Feb 07, 2012).
Miles Davis, http://www.biography.com/people/miles-davis-9267992 (last visited Feb 07, 2012).
Synopsis
Born May 26, 1926, in Alton, Illinois, Miles Davis began studying trumpet in his early teens. He came to New York to study at Juilliard but dropped out and began playing professionally. His innovative, experimental style set him apart, and he influenced the course of modern jazz. He later embraced styles of rock music, winning some new fans and alienating some old ones. He died at the age of 65.
Quotes
Do not fear mistakes. There are none.
(born May 26, 1926, Alton, Ill., U.S.—died Sept. 28, 1991, Santa Monica, Calif.) American jazz musician, a great trumpeter who as a bandleader and composer was one of the major influences on the art from the late 1940s.
Starting out
Davis grew up in East St. Louis, Ill., where his father was a prosperous dental surgeon. (In later years he often spoke of his comfortable upbringing, sometimes to rebuke critics who assumed that a background of poverty and suffering was common to all great jazz artists.) He began studying trumpet in his early teens; fortuitously, in light of his later stylistic development, his first teacher advised him to play without vibrato. Davis played with jazz bands in the St. Louis area before moving to New York City in 1944 to study at the Institute of Musical Art (now the Juilliard School)—although he skipped many classes and instead was schooled through jam sessions with masters such as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Davis and Parker recorded together often during the years 1945–48.
Davis's early playing was sometimes tentative and not always fully in tune, but his unique, intimate tone and his fertile musical imagination outweighed his technical shortcomings. By the early 1950s Davis had turned his limitations into considerable assets. Rather than emulate the busy, wailing style of such bebop pioneers as Gillespie, Davis explored the trumpet's middle register, experimenting with harmonies and rhythms and varying the phrasing of his improvisations. With the occasional exception of multinote flurries, his melodic style was direct and unornamented, based on quarter notes and rich with inflections. The deliberation, pacing, and lyricism in his improvisations are striking.
Cool jazz and modal jazz
In the summer of 1948, Davis formed a nonet that included the renowned jazz artists Gerry Mulligan, J.J. Johnson, Kenny Clarke, and Lee Konitz, as well as players on French horn and tuba, instruments rarely heard in a jazz context. Mulligan, Gil Evans, and pianist John Lewis did most of the band's arrangements, which juxtaposed the flexible, improvisatory nature of bebop with a thickly textured orchestral sound. The group was short-lived but during its brief history recorded a dozen tracks that were originally released as singles (1949–50). These recordings changed the course of modern jazz and paved the way for the West Coast styles of the 1950s. The tracks were later collected in the album Birth of the Cool (1957).
During the early 1950s Davis struggled with a drug addiction that affected his playing, yet he still managed to record albums that rank among his best, including several with such jazz notables as Sonny Rollins, Milt Jackson, and Thelonious Monk. In 1954, having overcome the addiction, Davis embarked on a two-decade period during which he was considered the most innovative musician in jazz. He formed classic small groups in the 1950s that featured saxophone legends John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley, pianists Red Garland and Bill Evans, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummers “Philly” Joe Jones and Jimmy Cobb. Davis's albums recorded during this era, including 'Round About
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