Miles Davis, 1955
Photo by Tom Palumbo
Miles Davis was born 96 years ago today.
A jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader and composer, Davis is widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. With his musical groups, Davis was at the forefront of several major developments in jazz. They included bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz and jazz fusion.
His album, Kind of Blue, is the best-selling album in the history of jazz. On November 5, 2009, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan sponsored a measure in the U. S. House of Representatives to recognize and commemorate the album on its 50th anniversary.
The measure also affirms jazz as a national treasure and "encourages the United States government to preserve and advance the art form of jazz music." It passed, unanimously, with a vote of 409–0 on December 15, 2009.
As an innovative bandleader and composer, Davis has influenced many notable musicians and bands from diverse genres. Many well-known musicians rose to prominence as members of Davis's ensembles.
They included saxophonists Gerry Mulligan, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, George Coleman, Wayne Shorter, Dave Liebman, Branford Marsalis and Kenny Garrett; trombonist J. J. Johnson; pianists Horace Silver, Red Garland, Wynton Kelly, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett and Kei Akagi; guitarists John McLaughlin, Pete Cosey, John Scofield and Mike Stern; bassists Paul Chambers, Ron Carter, Dave Holland, Marcus Miller and Darryl Jones; and drummers Elvin Jones, Philly Joe Jones, Jimmy Cobb, Tony Williams, Billy Cobham, Jack DeJohnette and Al Foster.
Davis’s influence on the people who played with him has been described by music writer and author Christopher Smith: “Miles Davis' artistic interest was in the creation and manipulation of ritual space, in which gestures could be endowed with symbolic power sufficient to form a functional communicative, and hence musical, vocabulary. [...] Miles' performance tradition emphasized orality and the transmission of information and artistic insight from individual to individual. His position in that tradition, and his personality, talents, and artistic interests, impelled him to pursue a uniquely individual solution to the problems and the experiential possibilities of improvised performance.”
In 1986, the New England Conservatory awarded Miles Davis an Honorary Doctorate for his extraordinary contributions to music.
Davis died in 1991 from the combined effects of a stroke, pneumonia and respiratory failure in Santa Monica, California at age 65.
Here, Davis performs “Round About Midnight,” 1967
Miles Davis performs "All Blues" in Milan, Italy, 1964
Miles Davis performs Live Electric and Brutal in Berlin, 1973
Photo by David Gahr