Essay On Miles Davis

Insight into Miles Davis

Miles Davis was born May 26, 1926 in Alton, Illinois. He was raised in an upper-middle-class family, with his father, Miles Dewey Davis Jr., being a dentist, and his mother, Cleota Mae Davis a music teacher. He spent his childhood in St. Louis and was interested in music by age 12, when he started to take trumpet lessons. At 16, he took up opportunities to play music locally and a year later, Davis joined Eddie Randle’s group known as “The Blue Devils” (Macnie; “Miles Davis” Sony; Ruhlmann).

Davis then attended the Institute of Musical Art in New York City in September of 1944. Once Davis was in New York, he knew he had to meet up with Charlie Parker, whom he had met in 1943. In Manhattan of 1945, Davis started to play with Parker and his quintet, and as a result, quit going to school altogether and focused on becoming a full-time musician (Macnie; Ruhlmann). Davis ended up playing the bebop style that Charlie’s group followed, and played with several other musicians including Benny Carter, Billy Eckstine, Charles Mingus, and Oscar Pettiford. Miles Davis’s musical strengths included “his ear for ensemble sound, unique phrasing, and a distinctively fragile tone” (Macnie).

In 1947, Davis made his first recording and in the summer of 1948, Davis put together a nonet that he played with at the Royal Roost in New York for two weeks in September. He eventually recorded 12 tracks with this nonet for Capitol Records, and these tracks were later put onto the album Birth of the Cool. According to Rolling Stone magazine, this album signaled Davis’s change in style from bebop to something more “introspective” (Macnie; Ruhlmann).

Miles Davis’s heroin addiction interrupted his career from 1949-1953. Although he ...

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...Rhythm & Blues Instrumental Performance. In 1993, when Miles & Quincy Live at Montreux was released, Davis received his seventh Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance. In a few short months, Davis died of pneumonia, respiratory failure, and a stroke (Ruhlmann). His death took place in Santa Monica, California on September 28, 1991 (“Miles Davis Biography”).

Davis was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Music from the New England Conservatory in 1986, an award which recognized his lifetime of success (“Miles Davis” PBS). Miles Davis’s approach to jazz wasn’t very popular when he died, but he did a lot in the jazz genre to make it more popular. He was also very good with solos and was able to appeal to audiences using this solo technique. He serves as a remembrance of being inventive and a reminder that jazz can move forward through these inventions (Ruhlmann).