Jazz Musician Miles Davis: His Life and Music Essay (Biography)

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Introduction

Miles Davis was one of the towering figures in Jazz history whose impact on Jazz is invincible and no other jazz musician in the world was able to make such an impact in the world of jazz for long. “Miles Davis was the most widely recognized jazz musician of his era, an outspoken social critic and an arbiter of style – in attitude and fashion – as well as music.” (Miles Davis. 2007) In his 50 years of career in jazz, he played the trumpet in a lyrical and melodic style and made his sound more intimate and personal. His contribution to the jazz music is so tremendous and without his career history, the history of jazz is incomplete. He won an unique place in the history of jazz with his new innovation and experimentalism. He took initiation and fuse jazz with rock, but it is important to understand that he did not make jazz-rock, he enriched jazz with the fusion of rock that became tremendous success.

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Early Life

Miles Dewey Davis III was born to Miles Davis Jr. and Cleota Henry in an African-American wealthy family on May 25, 1926 in Alton, Illinois. He has one older sister and one younger brother. His father was a dentist and his mother was a one time music teacher. In 1928 they moved to East St.Louis. He had a happy childhood and lived in white neighborhood. He started his musical career with a trumpet given by his father at the age of thirteen and soon a member of high school band. When he was student, he was coached by his earliest idol, the great St. Louis trumpeter Clark Terry. In 1941 he started playing as a semiprofessional with St. Louis jazz band and performed locally with Billy Eckstine’s band at his high school period and soon became a local phenomenon.

Davis as a Musician

He joined at New York’s Juilliard School of Music where he stayed with alto saxophonist Charlie Parker whom he had met earlier In St. Louis. In New York he studied classical music at day time and at night he played in his quintet on the 1945 Savoy sessions, the classic recordings of the bebop movement. Later he joined with Benny Carter, Billy Eckstine, Charles Mingus and Oscar Pettiford. He never had completed his studies as he preferred to play at the clubs that helped him to mark his name on the bebop scene with Charlie Parker and shaped his distinctive trumpet style. He also got the opportunity to play with Coleman Hawkins, Kai Winding, and Benny Carter’s orchestra in California. He nearly played three years for Parker’s group and achieved ranks very fast and learned Bird and Diz which brought him a good name as trumpet player. He perfected his trumpet while he was working with the bebop genius Charlie Parker that brought him early fame. As he perfected himself as a bebop trumpeter he felt to get rid of the bebop’s style and to add more melodic elements in jazz that thought resulted in to the influential recording Birth of the Cool in 1949, which in turns gave ‘birth’ to the so-called ‘cool,’ or West Coast, jazz school and helped him to establish his own musical identity and to get rid of the influence of Parker and the other beboppers. “As a trumpeter Davis was far from virtuosic, but he more than made up for his technical limitations by emphasizing his strengths: his ear for ensemble sound, unique phrasing, and a distinctive haunted tone. He started moving away from speedy bop and toward something more introspective” (Miles Davis. 2007).

Unfortunately, in the early 1950s he became heroin dependent and that brought his career to a near halt almost for three years. The heroin addiction slowed down his performance almost for five years he struggled with heroin use and ultimately in 1955 he kicked his drug habit off and had great come back at New Part Jazz Festival. In 1949 he attempted to lead group successfully and in which he took Jazz in a new and promising direction. In cooperation with Gil Evans he formed nonet that dared to use non-traditional instruments in jazz settings such as French horn and Tuba that brought immense fame to him. He invented a challenging style known as “cool jazz” and released under the name The Birth of the Cool, which influenced vast majority of musicians. This group consists of Lee Konitz, Gerry Mulligan, and Max Roach, among others. In this group he demonstrated some of his personality trait that recurred throughout his life such as including musicians regardless of race and community. It was not worthy that he was livid in an era where race discrimination is at its extreme. As a person he is spirited revolutionist and even said that “he’d give a guy with green skin and “polka-dotted breath” a job, as long as they could play sax as well as Lee Konitz.” (The Second Great Quintet Period).

Miles Davis became very famous and a hot commodity immediately after his triumphant performance of Thelonius Monk’s classic Round Midnight at the 1955 Newport Jazz Festival. He created a permanent quintet in collaboration with John Coltrane, Red Garland, “Philly Joe” Jones, and Paul Chambers. He had a gift for hearing the music in his head and putting together a band of incredible musicians with contrasting style and to generate a never ending musical impact in the Jazz lovers. Later he made some alterations in his group by adding Cannonball Adderly and replaced Jone and Garland with Jummy Cobb and Bill Evans to achieve musical perfection. In the late 50s his group popularized modal Jazz with his classics including Milestones and Kind of Blue. The group achieved tremendous success but unfortunately after getting established most of his members left him for forming their own group, this was constant throughout his career. Among the bandleaders who got established from Miles band were John Coltrane, Cannoball Adderly, Red Garland, “Phylly” Jo Jones, Bill Evans, Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, Keith Jarret, Tony Williams, Herbie Hancock, John McGlaughlin, Chick Corea, John Scofild, Kenny Garret, Mike Stern, and Bob Berg.

In collaboration with Gil Evans he made another record, Sketches of Spain, in which he plays a Spanish Flamenco music backed by an orchestra and with his beautiful and clear tone and it almost sound like as if his trumpet is singing that made it unique and became very popular. “It’s always been a gift with me, hearing music the way I do. I don’t know where it comes from, it’s just there and I don’t question it.” (The biography of Miles Davis). He experimented with different groups for three years and in his late 30s and renewed his group with young players with fresh ideas. In 1963, he established his second legendary quintet that features Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and 16 year old drumming protégé Tony Willims and pushed the limits of freedom and that produced some fiery Jazz. In 1968, he again made some changes in his group with the addition of Zawinul as keyboardist and he introduced electric instruments over traditional one. He has always been an experimentalist as a musician and kept making alterations in his group and added British guitarist John McGloughlin and placed Jack DeJohnette when Tony Willims left the group to form his own band and he took Jazz in a totally new direction with the record Bitches Brew by fusing Rock Music with jazz and used electric music heavily and this record commenced the fusion revolution in jazz.

In the early 1970s he introduced electric instrument and fused funk in to his music. Cocaine use and related bad health and lack of inspiration forced him to retire for five years. He successfully managed to get rid of his cocaine use and instilled new enthusiasm and inspiration and created series of music and kept creating music as he was not the kind to content with his present achievement. His experimenting reached in a new level when he started using new studio technique and the latest technological development in his new recording that won him a series of Grammy Awards during this decade and he kept strengthening the group with replacing with new talents.

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The record Round About Midnight is his classic first quintet which opened him an entrance to Columbia Records and the band became powerful sextet. He began to focus on romantic aspects and created the Kind Of Blue recording with this in his mind and that became one of the great Jazz music of ever. The albums produced in collaboration with Gil Evens were powerful and exciting and was the powerful example his voice acted as catalyst for Gil Evans’ lush and simpactico orchestrations. The collaborative effort of Davis and Evans produced glorious recording Porgy And Bess in which Miles was given the background by Gil Evans helped him to be the ‘singer of the songs’ as he yearned for. “Miles Davis was the “Picasso of Jazz,” reinventing himself and his sound endlessly in his musical quest. He was an artist that defied (and despised) categorization, yet he was the forerunner and innovator of many distinct and important musical movements.” (Davis). Davis was performed in various bands as a leader and worked with the best of musicians of his time but his orchestral collaboration with Gil Evans with whom he worked on Birth of the Cool that resulted in to the creation of Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess, and the celebrated Sketches of Spain and the most famous modal album Kind of Blue released in 1959. In 1972 in car crash he got his both leg broken and related illness caused his retirement and could not perform until 1980, but he no longer had his characteristics of his creative vision. “Miles Davis was probably the single most influential stylist and innovator in post-war jazz.” (Matouk. 2007).

The historic Bitches Brew was a strong example of his experimental attitude of fusion of jazz and rock 400, 000 copies were sold and the release of Brew took him in level of rock-star and he performed in America, Europe, and Japan in a vast audience. The recordings between 1972 and 1975 is marked with qualities of tuned instruments, greater use of electronic instruments and high-powered amplification, and deemphasizing solos in favor of ensemble funk. Davis music began to get commercialized and was and was widely criticized but as a trumpeter he became very famous and his concerts were sold out all over the world and his recordings keep making impression in pop charts. He has a quest for public recognition that led him to take part in TV program and films. He showed appearance in New York jazz radio station through Miami Vice and acted in a film named Dingo. In 1990 Davis received the Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Mile Davis the Picasso of Jazz is an established artist too, but he is artist of self education. He is a versatile genus his talent was not limited in music only, he was an acclaimed artist too and his paintings were widely exhibited in art galleries. He wanted to express his vision not only through music but also through visual art also. He started with traditional primitive figures, but soon experimented in color and composition. His artistic talent was inspired by Milan-based movement known as Memphis. More than two years he worked in paintings and created a vast collection of art work.

Davis, the Person

Davis was a person of complex personality with strengths and weakness. He had shown the courage to challenge the black jazzmen’s expectations by joining a white pianist named Bill Evans in his group but strangely he often taunted him racially. He is a man of paradox as he is a physical fitness enthusiast and at the same time he used enormous quantities of drugs off and on for pain. He often used to behave unfriendly but he proved to be generous to struggling musicians irrespective of color or creed. “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.” (Miles Davis Biography. 2007).

Miles Davis was married three times in his life first to a dancer Frances Taylor, second to a singer Betty Mabry, and finally to an actress Cicely Tyson, but unfortunately all three marriage was failure and ended in divorce. In these three marriages he had three sons and a daughter and seven grandchildren. The ever rolling legend of Jazz music the Picasso of Jazz ended his legendry life 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.” (Miles Davis Biography, 2007).

In 1975 due to his cocaine abuse and related ill health he abruptly announced his retirement but he made his come back in 1981 with a new band and created many popular electrified funk arrangements of jazz. He published his autobiography in 1989 written with the poet Quincy Troupe.

Conclusion

Miles Davis was a man of great musical talent and clear vision on music especially jazz. He used to say that to help music one needed to invent new way of playing with his innovation and experimentalism he did exactly the same. He was pioneer of fusion of rock in jazz. His endeavors helped jazz to enhance its popularity and acceptability in the mind of jazz lovers. One of the leading French magazine described him “The behavior of Miles Davis is not that of an ordinary star. It is that of a man who has decided to live without hypocrisy.” (Miles Davis). Davis took all his effort to popularize with his unmatchable style of performance and that took the jazz and him to the peak of popularity and he became a legend in the history of jazz.

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Works cited

  1. Miles Davis. Biography. Rolling Stone. Real Net works. 2007.
  2. The Second Great Quintet Period. Miles Davis. Official site presented by Miles Davis Properties. LLC.2007.
  3. The biography of Miles Davis. Official site presented by Miles Davis Properties. LLC.
  4. Davis, Miles. Official site presented by Miles Davis Properties. LLC. 2007.
  5. Matouk, John. Miles Davis – Trumpet, Bandleader, Composer. About.com. A part of The New York Times Company. 2007.
  6. . Notable biographies. 2007. Web.
  7. Miles Davis. Performer. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum. Sirius Satellite Radio. 2007.
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IvyPanda. 2022. "Jazz Musician Miles Davis: His Life and Music." June 2, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/jazz-musician-miles-davis-the-whole-biography/.

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IvyPanda. "Jazz Musician Miles Davis: His Life and Music." June 2, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/jazz-musician-miles-davis-the-whole-biography/.

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