Miles Davis biography

Synopsis

Early Life

The son of a prosperous dental surgeon and a music teacher, Miles Davis was born on May 26, 1926 in Alton, Illinois. Miles grew up in a supportive middle-class household where he was introduced by his father to the trumpet at age 13. He quickly developed a talent for playing the trumpet under the private tutelage of Elwood Buchanan, a friend of his father who directed a music school. Buchanan emphasized playing the trumpet without vibrato, which was contrary to the common style used by trumpeters such as Louis Armstrong, and which would come to influence and help develop the Miles Davis style.

Miles played professionally while in high school. At the age of 17, the famed Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker invited him to join them onstage when they found they were in need of a trumpet player to replace a sick bandmate. Soon after, in 1944, Miles left Illinois for New York, where he attended the Juilliard School of Music (known at that time as the Institute of Musical Art). While attending school, Miles sought out Charlie Parker, and once he joined up with him, began to play at Harlem nightclubs. During the gigs, he met several musicians whom he would eventually play with and form the basis for bebop, a fast, improvisational style of jazz instrumental that defined the modern jazz era.

Career

In 1945, Miles elected, with his father’s permission, to drop out of Juilliard and become a full-time jazz musician. He was a member of the Charlie Parker Quintet and made his first recording as a bandleader in 1946 with the Miles Davis Sextet. Between 1945 and 1948, Davis and Parker recorded continuously. It was during this period that Davis worked on developing the improvisational style that defined his trumpet playing. In 1949, Davis formed a nine-piece band with uncommon additions, such as the French horn, trombone and tuba. He released a series of singles that would later be considered a significant contribution to modern jazz. They were later released in an album entitled The Birth of Cool. In the early 1950s Davis became addicted to heroin, and while he was still able to record, it was a difficult period and his performances were haphazard. He overcame his addiction in 1954, at which time his performance of “’Round Midnight” at the Newport Jazz Festival earned him a recording contract with Columbia Records. There he also created a permanent band, comprised of John Coltrane, Paul Chambers and Red Garland. Miles recorded several albums with his sextet during the 1950s, including “Porgy and Bess” and culminating in 1959 with the album Kind of Blue. Now considered one of the best jazz albums ever recorded, Kind of Blue has sold over 2 million copies, becoming the largest-selling jazz album of all time. Miles continued to be be successful into the 1960s. His band transformed over time, due to new band members and changes