Nonet sessions of 1949–50 with Gil Evans and Gerry Mulligan that gave a whole understated style its name (1957)
Birth of the Cool — the 1949–50 Capitol sides, collected on an album in 1957.
Popular music · Jazz & blues
Miles Davis
1926–1991 · American
Bebop, cool jazz, modal jazz and jazz fusion
Miles Davis was the trumpeter who changed direction more often than any other major jazz musician, standing at the centre of bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz and electric fusion in turn. His quintets and his collaborations with arranger Gil Evans produced a run of records that includes the best-selling jazz album ever made.
How to spot them
- ▸Trumpet played with a Harmon mute, stem removed, close to the microphone; a spare, whispering tone and a raspy speaking voice
- ▸Serial reinvention: bebop with Charlie Parker, then cool, then modal, then electric
- ▸The first great quintet with John Coltrane; the second with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams
- ▸Arranger Gil Evans, his collaborator on three orchestral albums; producer Teo Macero
- ▸Playing with his back to the audience, and refusing to announce tunes
Songs & albums
A 1959 album of five modal pieces, with Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley and Bill Evans, that outsells every other jazz record (1959)
Kind of Blue — opening with 'So What'; certified multi-platinum and still the genre's best seller.
A 1960 orchestral collaboration built on Iberian themes, including an adagio by Rodrigo (1960)
Sketches of Spain, arranged by Gil Evans around the Concierto de Aranjuez.
A 1958 orchestral album reworking Gershwin's folk opera (1958)
Porgy and Bess, the second of the Gil Evans collaborations.
A 1958 film score improvised in a Paris studio while a Louis Malle thriller was projected on the wall (1958)
Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Lift to the Scaffold), recorded in a single overnight session.
A 1970 electric double album, cut over three days in August 1969, that opened jazz to rock rhythm sections (1970)
Bitches Brew — the founding document of jazz fusion, assembled by producer Teo Macero from tape splices.
A 1986 album named for a South African archbishop, his first for Warner Bros. (1986)
Tutu, largely written and played by Marcus Miller; it won a Grammy and Irving Penn shot the cover.
Quick-fire facts
- •Born in Alton, Illinois, in 1926 and raised in East St Louis; his father was a dental surgeon
- •He enrolled at the Juilliard School in 1944 mainly to track down Charlie Parker, and dropped out to join Parker's quintet
- •He was beaten by a policeman outside Birdland in New York in 1959 while taking a break between sets
- •The first great quintet was Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones; the second was Shorter, Hancock, Carter and Williams
- •He withdrew from music almost entirely between 1975 and 1980
- •His autobiography, written with Quincy Troupe, appeared in 1989
- •He died on 28 September 1991, aged 65, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006
- •He was named an NEA Jazz Master in 1984
Drill it — 8 cards
1 / 8new card
Sources
- Miles Davis — Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
- National Endowment for the Arts — Miles Davis — NEA Jazz Masters