Miles Davis: Jazz

Miles Davis

The process of establishing Miles Davis in the field of the jazz music has many different aspects. The story of his professional development is very interesting and unstable as it has its breakthroughs and setbacks, and indeed, all turning points in his life has made a significant impact on the evolution of the jazz music sound. In this essay, I am going to discuss how Miles Davis affected every stream of jazz and how jazz affected him during his all life.

Miles Davis started his career at the age of fifteen and continued this work for the next fifty years. He is considered to be not only an important figure in the history of jazz, but also a pioneer as many of new jazz genres came into existence thanks to him. Being a solo

artist, a member or a bandleader of few different quintets and ensembles at different times of his career, Davis recorded many albums with hundreds of songs, won seven Grammys and tried himself in different genres of jazz music during his musical career.
At the very beginning, his style of playing on a trumpet was slower and less flashy making it similar to the classical jazz. It was a comparatively short time of his life, from his sixteen to nineteen. However, later a great influence on his style and his life was made by the Miles’s idol, Charlie Parker, a saxophonist who at that time was the member of Billy Eckstine’s band and made the proto-be-bop music. The main difference of the be-bop genre is an inventive soloing and dynamic rhythm variations. In the 1940s, it was a new popular wave in jazz, and Miles Davis was bound to follow it.
Miles was very determined in his desire to be a musician, so in 1945 he stopped studying at the Juilliard School of Music in New York in order to become a fully-fledged jazzman. Later, he performed mostly with Parkers’ quintet which consisted of John Lewis as the pianist, Nelson Boyd as the bassist, and Max Roach, the drummer. Moreover, he cooperated with the Charlie Mingus’ band, Benny Carter, and Eckstine’s orchestra. During all this time and till 1948, Miles was working with be-bop. Miles was young and still developing the strength of his lip muscles; he could not play fast, high or loud as his co-workers in the quintet. Importantly, while Miles was working with the Parker’s quintet, he improved his skills of the fast performance and became a good be-bop player. Nevertheless, he still felt better playing light sounds. Thank to this, the jazzman’s personal musical direction was more dramatic and original.
In 1948, Miles felt that he was no more comfortable playing be-bop, so he decided to change something in it.

Looking for a new sound, he started to work with the arranger Gil Evans, and this cooperation gave birth to a new wave of “cool jazz”. Later, this genre called West Coast cool jazz brought many other new sub-genres. During the same year, Miles formed his own band with a nine members in it where he combined in addition to himself a trombone, a baritone saxophone, an alto saxophone a tuba, and a French horn. At that time, the band included such musicians as John Lewis, Kenny Clarke, Kai Winding, Gerry Mulligan, Lee Konitz and J. J. Johnson. All of them have brought into music relaxing notes.

In the period of 1949-1950, the band recorded twelve compositions with the “cool” sound that were included in the album Birth of Cool which was released in 1954. That “cool” sound gave a push for the work in the next few years. Another album Boplicity clearly showed the evolution of the sound: the tempo was more slowly but the compositions still had such bop characteristics as the light style of drumming, keeping the beat with the help of bass, and the playing in unison at the beginning of the

song.
In the early 1950s, Miles has become addicted to heroin, and this deteriorated his progress in music for some time. Thus, his performances were more incidental and rare. Till the middle of ‘50s, he overcame this addiction and appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival where he made a good impression playing “Round Midnight”. As a result, a major label Columbia offered him to sign a contract. This provided the jazzman with a lot of opportunities, and he organized a quintet featuring bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Philly Joe Jones, saxophonist John Coltrane, and pianist Red Garland.
Being known as the father of the “birth of cool”, Miles Davis was among the first to turn away from it with the recording of “Walkin” in 1954. This composition is a twelve-bar blues, and it sounds more like a funk and is not so “cool” jazz (Sales 171). The “cool bop” was pronounced as a “white man’s music”, and the “hard bop” was a return to the “soul”, so to say, to the roots of jazz (Kingman 389). At that time, Davis already was a very influencial person in jazz music. Firstly, he was the best-selling recording player who brought authentic jazz to the audience. Secondly, Miles was a trumpet stylist. In addition to this, he was a jazz leader with the talent to launch every new trend and to form the future course of jazz (Sales 176).
In his later work, Miles changed the rules of style again; specifically, he took the softer tone from the “cool” jazz and made the melodic activity slower. By mixing different sounds, he again developed his own unique style. Besides, the phrasing also was fragmented leaving room for the rhythm section, from which he set himself apart by playing scale-oriented rather than chord-oriented long notes. By the 1958, Miles had been using slower moving harmonies and modal scales. For example, “rather than weave a melody through complex bop or funk harmonies, he suspended his melodies based on early modes, above the harmony” (Tanner et al. 223). This tendency can be heard in the “Milestones” recording: the standard chord changes are absent; instead of them, Miles added a series of scales as the base for improvising. This is called “modal” technique in style, and it had a “profound impact on the future of jazz” (Sales 178). It is important to understand that Davis just made the modal jazz more popular; however, he did not invent it (Sales 180). The best representation of this sound can be Miles’ album Kind of Blue. This album was recorded at 1959, and it became the highest selling jazz album of all time; it was sold over four million copies (Tanner et al. 224).
Besides Miles, Coltrane and Chambers, the band included Bill Evans as the new pianist, Cannonball Adderley, the alto saxophonist, and the drummer Jimmy Cobb. The album was recorded over two sessions and pivots not only around Miles’ great playing, but also that of classically trained Bill Evans. This album with it every song starting with the first one “So what” made Miles’ a king of jazz. According to Evans, “Miles conceived these settings only hours before the recording dates.” Miles’ second composition of the quintet was noted in the history of his career as the “second great quintet”. It included such musicians as the Shorter, Hancock, Carter, and Williams.
From 1969 to 1975, Davis’ did the biggest work in his career, technically and soundly. During this time, he experimented with a new sounding of “fusion”, tried to make an innovation, and took the most controversial direction. As the rock and roll rised, Davis began to use electronics and a rock aesthetic. For example, he changed his instrument to make it sound more like rock: he added a wah-wah effect pedal and electric keyboards for his trumpet. In addition, he invited to his band musicians who had some rock experience. Davis knew that the use of the rock beat would attract the attention of new audience, so he began to use the rock method of recording big amounts of material and then recording it on a tape to make albums. This can be clearly seen in his recordings “In a Silent Way” and “Bitches Brew” which were released in 1969.
Made in a fusion genre, “Bitches Brew” has become a historical event in the jazz music.

In this composition, Miles meshed the jazz idiom with rock elements. This new style gave the musicians much freedom for creativity. Jack DeJohnette and Billy Cobham both played the drums while Harvey Brooks played the electric bass. Miles Davis’ instrument was electrified for this album, and other members were adding a lot of rock to the sound as well. Of course, this made a right influence on people and brought a lot of new listeners. This music was as cool as it only could be. For the next few years, Miles continued to experiment with fusion jazz and introduced Keith Jarrett and Airto Moreira into the small

group.
By the end of 1975, Miles was sick. He has broken two ankles, and it affected his ability to work, it made him weaker. It was the longest period when Miles had been off the public. After five years, in 1980, he returned with The Man with the Horn. In 1981, the jazzman went back to his tour in Europe.
The last recorded album of Miles Davis during his lifetime was called Aura. It happened in 1984, but the album was actually released in five years. This album won Miles the fifth Grammy. As he was not so active anymore in music, the great surprise for Miles’ fans was his performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1991. The jazzman played music which was written in the end of ‘50s by Gil Evans. In the same year, Miles died because of pneumonia at the age of 65. However, in 1992 the world received the last album of this great artist. It was recorded with rapper Easy Mo Bee.
In summary, during his life Miles recorded such a substantial number of sounds that they covered almost all ever-known styles of jazz. The only sub-genre Miles did not touch directly in his compositions was the New Orleans jazz. Miles Davis was a great artist, performer and a leader for his co-workers. Nowadays, he is known as a king of jazz, and his developments will always remind of him as such. As much as he could, he was working on music; jazz was more than just work for him or the way to raise money – jazz was his life. Miles was not only an artist performing another sound, but he was like a scientist bringing his research to another level; he was making his music an art. Miles did a great job by mixing parts of well-known jazz and parts of his nature. Thus, many times he changed his ways, but it only led him to amazing discoveries. His cultural heritage was evaluated not only with a number of awards but also with the memories among his listeners as Mileas Davis is undoubtedly an unforgettable person in the jazz music.

Works Cited
Merod, Jim. “The Question of Miles Davis”. Boundary 2001. Web. 13 May 2016.
Tanner, P. O., D. W. Megill, and M. Gerow (2001) Jazz.New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Print.
Sales, Grover.Jazz: America’s Classical Music. New York: Da Capo Press,1992. Print.
Kingman, Daniel. American Music: A Panorama. New York: Schirmer Books,1900. Print.
McConnell, Frank.“The Prince of Darkness: Miles Davis R.I.P.” Commonweal 1991. Web. 13 May 2016.Ruhlmann, William. “Artist Biography.” Allmusic 2016.Web. 13 May 2016.
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