His 1959 album Kind Of Blue is a genuine musical landmark artistically unimpeachable, it’s also one of the most commercially successful jazz records of all time.
And the music he made - whether with his first quintet, featuring John Coltrane, or his mid-’60s quintet with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, or with Gil Evans’ orchestra - always stretched boundaries, always challenged his contemporaries to keep up. He was featured in magazines for his personal style, and interviewed by Playboy when that was extremely prestigious. In the 1950s and 1960s, Davis emerged as one of the most famous jazz players in the world, not just for his music but for his image as well. His trumpet style was completely different than that of his predecessor, Dizzy Gillespie - he avoided rocketing high notes in favor of a more melodic approach that didn’t always mesh perfectly with what Parker and his bandmates were doing, but would ultimately become one of the most influential sounds in jazz. He first recorded as a leader in 1946, at the same time that he was a member of Parker’s band, and appearing on numerous recordings that are still regarded as landmarks in jazz history. Louis, IL to New York to study at Juilliard, and promptly heading for Harlem to play with Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and other already established figures on the bebop scene. Many jazz fans and jazz critics insist nothing he recorded after 1968 is actually jazz at all (a statement I happen to agree with I just don’t think of that as a bad thing).ĭavis got his start in the 1940s, moving from his native East St. On the other hand, major portions of his catalog are as controversial today as they were the day of their release. The ideas explored on his 1965-68 quintet albums, for example, cause many to still regard them as the pinnacle of acoustic jazz his and his bandmates’ melodic, harmonic and rhythmic innovations are still being explored (not to say imitated) by present-day musicians. How important? He’s one of the two or three jazz musicians non-jazz fans have heard of, and may even have heard something by.ĭavis reshaped jazz in his own image multiple times. Miles Davis was one of the most important musicians of the 20th Century.
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