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High Times
Joined: 25 Oct 2004
Posts: 744
Location: music written by JK/Toby Smith
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 Posted: Sat Apr 29, 2006 20:29 |
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MILES DAVIS - ONE OF JAY'S FAVOURITE JAZZ MUSICIANS
hi lets talk about Miles Davis, the greatest jazz musician on Earth.
JK once said he is his fan!!! i am his big fan also. check his very late 50s (beginning from "kind of blue" 1959) and 60s albums, you'll become his big fan. HE CANT BE COMPAREd to anybody else , he is the best, deepest and the coolest.
Miles Davis
Davis' 1959 album Kind of Blue, likely the best-selling jazz album ever.Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) was one of the most influential and innovative musicians of the 20th century. A trumpeter, bandleader and composer, Davis was at the forefront of almost every major development in jazz after World War II. He played on some of the important early bebop records and recorded the first cool jazz records. He was partially responsible for the development of modal jazz, and jazz fusion arose from his work with other musicians in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Free jazz was the only post-war style not significantly influenced by Davis, although some musicians from his bands later pursued this style. His recordings, along with the live performances of his many influential bands, were vital in jazz's acceptance as music with lasting artistic value. A popularizer as well as an innovator, Davis became famous for his languid, melodic style and his laconic, and at times confrontational, personality. As an increasingly well-paid and fashionably-dressed jazz musician, Davis was also a symbol of jazz music's commercial potential.
Davis was late in a line of jazz trumpeters that started with Buddy Bolden and ran through Joe "King" Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie. He has been compared to Duke Ellington as a musical innovator: both were skillful players on their instruments, but were not considered technical virtuosos. Ellington's main strength was as a composer and leader of a large band, while Davis had a talent for drawing together talented musicians in small groups and allowing them space to develop. Many of the major figures in post-war jazz played in one of Davis's groups at some point in their career.
Davis was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 13, 2006. He has also been inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.
Early life (1926 to 1945)
Miles Davis was born into a relatively wealthy African-American family living in Alton, Illinois. His father, Miles Henry Davis, was a dentist, and in 1927 the family moved to a white neighborhood in East St. Louis. They also owned a substantial ranch, and Davis learned to ride horses as a boy.
Davis's mother, Cleota, wanted Davis to learn the violin—she was a capable blues pianist, but kept this hidden from her son, feeling that "negro" music was not sufficiently genteel. At the age of nine, one of Davis's father's friends gave him his first trumpet, but he did not start learning to play seriously until the age of thirteen, when his father gave him a new trumpet and arranged lessons with local trumpeter Elwood Buchanan and, later, a man named Mone Peterson. Against the fashion of the time, Buchanan stressed the importance of playing without vibrato, and Davis would carry his clear signature tone throughout his career.
Clark Terry was another important early influence and friend of Davis's. By the age of sixteen, Davis was a member of the musician's union and working professionally when not at high school. At seventeen, he spent a year playing in bandleader Eddie Randle's "Blue Devils". During this time, Sonny Stitt tried to persuade him to join the Tiny Bradshaw band then passing through town, but Cleota insisted that he finish his final year of high school.
In 1944, the Billy Eckstine band visited St. Louis. Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker were members of the band, and Davis was taken on as third trumpet for a couple of weeks because of the illness of Buddy Anderson. When Eckstine's band left Davis behind to complete the tour, the trumpeter's parents were still keen for him to continue formal academic studies.
Bebop and the birth of the cool (1944 to 1955)
CD reissue of Davis's 1957 LP Birth of the Cool, collecting much of his 1949 to 1950 work.In 1944 Davis moved to New York City, ostensibly to take up a scholarship at the Juilliard School of Music. In reality, however, he neglected his studies and immediately set about tracking down Charlie Parker. His first recordings were made in 1945, and he was soon a member of Parker's quintet, appearing on many of Parker's seminal bebop recordings for the Savoy and Dial labels. Davis's style on trumpet was already distinctive by this point, but as a soloist he lacked the confidence and virtuosity of his mentors, and was known to play throttled notes (a trademark of Davis's) and to sometimes stumble during his solos.
By 1948 he had served his apprenticeship as a sideman, both on stage and record, and a recording career of his own was beginning to blossom. Davis began to work with a nonet that featured then-unusual instrumentation such as the French horn and tuba. The nonet featured a young Gerry Mulligan and Lee Konitz. After some gigs at New York's Royal Roost, Davis was signed by Capitol Records. The nonet released several singles in 1949 and 1950, featuring arrangements by Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan and John Lewis. This began his collaboration with Evans, with whom he would collaborate on many of his major works over the next twenty years. The sides saw only limited release until 1957, when eleven of the twelve were released as the album Birth of the Cool (more recent issues collect all twelve sides).
Between 1950 and 1955, Davis mainly recorded as a leader for Prestige and Blue Note records in a variety of small group settings. Sidemen included Sonny Rollins, John Lewis, Kenny Clarke, Jackie McLean, Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Thelonious Monk, J. J. Johnson, Percy Heath, Milt Jackson and Charles Mingus. Davis was influenced at around this time by pianist Ahmad Jamal, whose sparse style contrasted with the "busy" sound of bebop.
Playing in the jazz clubs of New York, Davis was in frequent contact with users and dealers of drugs, and by 1950, in common with many of his contemporaries, he had developed a serious heroin addiction. For the first part of that decade, although he gigged a great deal and played many sessions, they were mostly uninspired, and it seemed that his talent was going to waste. No one was more aware of this than Davis himself, and his wife. In the winter of 1953-1954 he returned to East St. Louis and, with the help and encouragement of his father, he kicked heroin, locking himself away from society until the drug was fully out of his system.
After overcoming his heroin addiction, Davis made a series of important recordings for Prestige in 1954, later collected on Bags' Groove, Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants and Walkin'. At this time he started to use the Harmon mute to darken and subdue the timbre of his trumpet, and this muted trumpet tone was to be associated with Davis for the rest of his career.
However, the 1954 recordings were not released immediately, and the recovery of his popularity with the jazz public and critics had to wait until July 1955, when he played a legendary solo on Monk's "'Round Midnight" at the Newport Jazz Festival. This performance thrust Davis back into the jazz spotlight, leading to George Avakian signing Davis to Columbia and the formation of his first quintet.
First quintet and sextet (1955 to 1958)
In 1955, Davis formed the first incarnation of the renowned Miles Davis Quintet. This band featured John Coltrane (tenor saxophone), Red Garland (piano), Paul Chambers (double bass) and Philly Joe Jones (drums). Musically, the band picked up where Davis's late 1940s sessions had left off. Eschewing the rhythmic and harmonic complexity of the then-prevalent bebop, Davis was allowed the space to play long, legato, and essentially melodic lines in which he would begin to explore modal music. Davis still admired Ahmad Jamal, and the quintet's music reflects his influence as well.
Davis's 1958 album Milestones.The first recordings of this group were made for Columbia Records in 1955, released on 'Round About Midnight. Davis was still under contract to Prestige, but had an agreement that he could make recordings for subsequent releases using his new label. His final recordings for Prestige were the product of two days of recording in 1956, released as Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet, Steamin' with the Miles Davis Quintet, Workin' with the Miles Davis Quintet and Cookin' with the Miles Davis Quintet.
Though today it is often regarded as one of the greatest groups in jazz history, Davis's choice of sidemen received some criticism at the time. Additionally, the quintet was never stable; several of the other members used heroin, and the Miles Davis Quintet disbanded in early 1957.
In 1958, the quintet reformed as a sextet, with the addition of Julian "Cannonball" Adderley on alto saxophone, and recorded Milestones. Musically, it encompasses both the past and the future of jazz. Davis showed that he could play both blues and bebop (ably assisted by Coltrane), but the centerpiece is the title track, a Davis composition centred on the Dorian and Aeolian modes and featuring the free improvisatory modal style that Davis would make his own. One of the tracks, "Billy Boy", features just the rhythm section, without horns—a very unusual feature in itself.
Recordings with Gil Evans (1957 to 1963)
Davis's 1960 album Sketches of Spain.In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Davis recorded a series of albums with Gil Evans, often playing flugelhorn as well as trumpet. The first, Miles Ahead (1957), showcased his playing with a jazz big band and a horn section beautifully arranged by Evans. Tunes included Dave Brubeck's "The Duke", as well as Léo Delibes's "The Maids Of Cadiz", the first piece of European classical music Davis had recorded.
In Davis and Evans's Porgy and Bess, a 1958 arrangement of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, the framework of the Gershwin songs provided ample space for Davis to improvise, showing his mastery of variations and expansions on the original themes, as well as his original melodic ideas.
Sketches of Spain (1959 to 1960) featured tunes by contemporary Spanish composers Joaquin Rodrigo and Manuel de Falla, as well as Gil Evans originals with a Spanish theme. Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall (1961) includes Rodrigo's "Concierto de Aranjuez", along with other tunes recorded at a concert with an orchestra under Evans's direction.
Sessions in 1962 and 1963 resulted in the album Quiet Nights, a short collection of bossa nova tunes which was released against the wishes of both Evans and Davis. An unsuccessful session in 1968 was the last time the two men collaborated.
Kind of Blue (1959 to 1964)
After recording Milestones, Garland and Jones were replaced by Bill Evans and Jimmy Cobb. Davis probably hired Evans for his harmonically sophisticated approach. For various reasons, Evans's stay in the group was relatively brief, and he departed late in 1958, replaced by Wynton Kelly.
In March and April 1959, Davis re-entered the studio with his working sextet and Bill Evans to record what is widely considered his masterpiece, Kind of Blue. The album was planned around Evans's piano style. It was also influenced by concepts that Evans had learned while working with George Russell on the earliest recordings of modal jazz and passed on to the sextet. Kelly only played on "Freddie Freeloader", and was not present at the April session. "So What" and "All Blues" had been played by the sextet at performances prior to the recording sessions, but for the other three compositions, Davis and Evans prepared skeletal harmonic frameworks which the other musicians saw for the first time on the day of recording, in order to generate a fresh and spontaneous improvisational approach. The resulting album is probably the best-loved and (according to the RIAA) best-selling jazz album ever, and also has proven to be a huge influence on other musicians.
The same year, while taking a break outside the famous Birdland night club in New York City, Davis was beaten by the New York police and subsequently arrested. Believing the assault to have been racially motivated, he attempted to pursue the case in the courts, before eventually dropping the proceedings. Such treatment was markedly at odds with his treatment outside the U.S., and especially on his regular European tours, where he was fêted by society.
Coltrane, who had been eager to form his own group, was convinced by Davis to play with the group on one final European tour in the spring of 1960. He then departed to form his classic quartet, although he returned for some of the tracks on the 1961 album Someday My Prince Will Come. Davis tried various replacement saxophonists, including Sonny Stitt and Hank Mobley. The quintet with Hank Mobley was recorded in the studio and on several live engagements at Carnegie Hall and the Black Hawk supper club in San Francisco. Stitt's playing with the group is found on the Live in Stockholm CD.
In 1963, Davis's long-time rhythm section of Kelly, Chambers and Cobb departed. He quickly got to work putting together a new group, including tenor saxophonist George Coleman and bassist Ron Carter. Davis, Coleman, Carter and a few other musicians recorded half an album in the spring of 1963. A few weeks later, drummer Tony Williams and pianist Herbie Hancock joined the group, and soon thereafter Davis, Coleman and the young rhythm section recorded the rest of the Seven Steps to Heaven album.
The young rhythm section clicked very quickly with each other and the horns; the group's rapid evolution can be traced through the aforementioned studio album, In Europe (July 1963), My Funny Valentine, and Four and More (both February 1964). The group played essentially the same repertoire of bebop and standards that earlier Davis bands did, but tackled them with increasing structural and rhythmic freedom and (in the case of the up-tempo material) breakneck speed.
Coleman left in the spring of 1964, to be replaced by avant-garde saxophonist Sam Rivers, on the suggestion of Tony Williams. Davis, however, who knew of Rivers's leanings toward free jazz, a genre which Davis disdained, knew that Rivers was not the ideal replacement he was looking for. Rivers remained in the group only briefly, but was recorded live with the quintet in Japan; the group can be heard on In Tokyo (July 1964).
By the end of the summer, Davis had managed to convince Wayne Shorter to quit Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, a reluctant decision because Shorter had become musical director of that group. Shorter's arrival completed the trumpeter's Second Great Quintet. Surely enough, Shorter became the principal composer of Miles's quintet, and some of his compositions of this era ("Footprints", "Nefertiti") are now standards. While on tour in Europe, the group quickly made their first official recording, Miles in Berlin (Fall 1964).
Second quintet (1965 to 1968)
By the time of E.S.P. (1965) the lineup (Davis's second great quintet, and the last of his acoustic bands) consisted of Wayne Shorter (saxophone), Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass) and Tony Williams (drums).
A two-night Chicago gig by this band in late 1965 is captured on the 8-CD set The Complete Live at The Plugged Nickel 1965 released in 1995. Unlike the group's studio albums, the live engagement still shows the group playing primarily standards and bebop tunes, albeit with a greater degree of freedom than in previous years.
This was followed by a series of strong studio recordings: Miles Smiles (1966), Sorcerer (1967), Nefertiti (1967), Miles in the Sky (1968) and Filles de Kilimanjaro (1968). The quintet's approach to improvisation came to be known as "time no changes," because while they retained a steady pulse, they abandoned the chord-change-based approach of bebop. Through Nefertiti, the studio recordings consisted of primarily originals composed by Wayne Shorter, and to a lesser degree the other sidemen. In 1967, the group began the unusual practice of playing their live concerts in continuous sets, with each tune flowing into the next and only the melody indicating any sort of demarcation; Davis's bands would continue to perform in this way until his retirement in 1975.
Miles in the Sky and Filles de Kilimanjaro, on which electric bass, electric piano and guitar were tentatively introduced on some tracks, clearly pointed the way to the subsequent fusion phase in Davis's output. Davis also began experimenting with more rock-oriented rhythms on these records, and by the time the second half of Filles de Kilimanjaro had been recorded, Dave Holland and Chick Corea had replaced Carter and Hancock in the working band, though both Carter and Hancock would contribute to future recording sessions. Davis soon began to take over the compositional duties of his sidemen.
Electric Miles (1969 to 1975)
Davis's first jazz fusion album, In a Silent Way (1969).Recent boxed sets have shown that Davis's progression from the "free-bop" (or postbop) of the Second Quintet to the dense, rhythmic world of fusion was much less abrupt than it seemed initially, when In a Silent Way followed Filles de Kilimanjaro. Miles's influences, widely attributed to the tastes of his future wife Betty Mabry, were the late 1960s acid, funk and rock heroes, namely Sly and the Family Stone, James Brown and Jimi Hendrix. Slightly later, most prominently on 1972's On the Corner, the influence of Karlheinz Stockhausen became evident. This transition required that Davis and his band adapt to modern, electric instruments in both live performances and the studio.
By the time In a Silent Way had been recorded in February 1969, Davis had augmented his standard quintet with additional players. Hancock and Joe Zawinul were brought in to assist Corea on electric keyboards, and the young guitarist John McLaughlin made the first of his many appearances with Miles at this time. By this point, Wayne Shorter was also doubling on soprano saxophone. After the recording of this album, Tony Williams left to form his group Lifetime and was replaced by Jack DeJohnette.
Six months later, an even larger group of musicians, including Jack DeJohnette, Airto Moreira and Bennie Maupin, recorded *****es Brew. These two records were the first truly successful amalgamations of jazz with rock music, laying the groundwork for the genre that would become known simply as "fusion".
Both *****es Brew and In a Silent Way feature "extended" (more than 20 minutes each) compositions which were never actually "played straight through" by the musicians in the studio. Instead, Miles and producer Teo Macero selected musical motifs of various lengths from recorded extended improvisations and edited them together into a musical whole which only exists in the recorded version. *****es Brew, in particular, is a case study in the use of electronic effects, multi-tracking, tape loops and other editing techniques.
*****es Brew (1970), Davis's first Gold album.During this period, Davis toured with the "Lost Quintet" of Shorter, Corea, Holland and DeJohnette. Though Corea played electric piano and the group occasionally hinted at rock rhythms, the music was edgy, uncompromising post-bop that frequently spilled over into full-blown free jazz. The group's repertoire included material from *****es Brew, In a Silent Way, the 1960s quintet albums, and an occasional standard.
Both records, especially *****es Brew, proved to be huge sellers for Davis, and he was accused of "selling out" by many of his former fans, while simultaneously attracting many new fans who listened to Davis alongside the more popular rock acts of the late 1960s.
Davis reached out to new audiences in other ways as well. Starting with *****es Brew, Davis's albums began to often feature art much more in line with psychedelic or black power movements than with his earlier albums' art. He took significant cuts in his usual performing fees in order to open for rock groups like the Steve Miller Band, the Grateful Dead and Santana. (Carlos Santana has stated that he should have opened concerts for Davis, rather than the other way around.) Several live albums were recorded during the early 1970s at such performances: It's About That Time (March 1970; Shorter's last appearance with the group), Black Beauty (April 1970; Steve Grossman replacing Shorter on saxophones) and At Fillmore (June 1970; Keith Jarrett joining the group as a second keyboardist). In contrast with the Lost Quintet, the music on these albums is funkier and more rock-oriented, with relatively few free jazz tendencies. Corea began to rely heavily on effects like ring modulation, and Dave Holland shifted to the electric bass (having primarily played acoustic bass for the previous year).
By the time of Live-Evil (December 1970; Jarrett as the only keyboardist, Gary Bartz replacing Grossman on saxophones, and Michael Henderson replacing Holland on electric bass), Airto Moreira percussion. Davis's ensemble had transformed into a much more funk-oriented group. Davis began experimenting with wah-wah effects on his horn. The ensemble with Bartz, Jarrett and Henderson, often referred to as the "Cellar Door band" (the live portions of Live-Evil were recorded at a club by that name), never recorded in the studio, but is documented in the six CD Box Set "The Cellar Door Sessions" which was recorded over four nights in December of 1970.
1970 saw Davis contribute extensively to the soundtrack of a documentary about the great African-American boxer Jack Johnson. A devotee of boxing, Davis drew parallels between Johnson, whose career had been defined by the fruitless search for a Great White Hope to dethrone him, and Davis's own career, in which he felt the establishment had prevented him from receiving the acclaim and rewards that were due him. The resulting album, 1971's A Tribute to Jack Johnson, contained two long pieces that used the talents of many musicians, some of whom were not credited on the record itself, including the guitarists John McLaughlin and Sonny Sharrock. Working with producer Teo Macero, Davis created what many critics regard as his finest electric, rock-influenced album, though its use of editing and studio technology would be fully appreciated only upon the release of the five-CD The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions in 2003.
Davis refused to be confined by the expectations of his audience or music critics, and continued to explore the possibilities of his new band. On The Corner (1972) showed a seemingly effortless grasp of funk without sacrificing the rhythmic, melodic and harmonic nuance that had been present throughout his entire career. The album also showed the influences of Paul Buckmaster's studio arrangements and Stockhausen in its layered recording and post-production editing. However, this record provoked fierce disparagement from many critics, with one noting: "I love Miles, but this is where I get off."
After recording On the Corner, Davis put together a new band, with only Michael Henderson and percussionist Mtume returning from the Cellar Door band. This band included guitarist Reggie Lucas, tabla player Badal Roy, sitarist Khalil Balakrishna and drummer Al Foster. The band was unusual in that none of the sidemen were major jazz instrumentalists; as a result, the group's music emphasized rhythmic density and shifting textures instead of individual solos. This group, which recorded in the Philharmonic Hall for the album In Concert (1972), was unsatisfactory to Davis. Through the first half of 1973, he dropped the tabla and sitar, took over keyboard duties, and added guitarist Pete Cosey to the group. The Davis/Cosey/Lucas/Henderson/Mtume/Foster ensemble would remain virtually intact over the next two years. Initially, Dave Liebman played saxophones and flute with the band; in 1974 he was replaced by Sonny Fortune.
By the mid-1970s, Davis's previous rate of production was falling. Big Fun (1974) was a double album containing four long jams, recorded between 1969 and 1972. Similarly, Get Up With It (1975) collected recordings from the previous five years. Get Up With It included "He Loved Him Madly", a tribute to Duke Ellington, as well as one of Davis's most lauded pieces from this era, "Calypso Frelimo". Contemporary critics complained that the album had too many underdeveloped ideas.
In 1974 and 1975, Columbia recorded three double-LP live Davis albums: Dark Magus, Agharta and Pangaea. Dark Magus is a 1974 New York concert; the latter two are recordings of consecutive concerts from the same February 1975 day in Osaka, Japan. At the time, only Agharta was available in the US; Pangaea and Dark Magus were initially released only by CBS/Sony Japan. All three feature at least two electric guitarists (Reggie Lucas and Pete Cosey, deploying an array of post-Jimi Hendrix electronic distortion devices; Dominique Gaumont is a third guitarist on Dark Magus), electric bass (Davis still relying on the funk-tinged, stripped-down playing of Michael Henderson), drums, reeds, and Davis on trumpet (also electrified) and organ. These albums, documenting the working bands Miles was leading at that point, were the last music he was to record for five years. Troubled by chronic pain and a serious kidney complaint (Davis suffered from an inherited blood disorder, sickle-cell anemia, as well as diabetes, and a renewed dependence on heroin and cocaine) and again at odds with the law, Davis withdrew almost completely from the public eye. As Gil Evans said, "His organism is tired. And after all the music he's contributed for 35 years, he needs a rest." However, by the beginning of the 1980s he was back in good health and ready to assemble a new band.
While convalescing, Davis saw the fusion music that he had spearheaded over the past decade firmly enter into the mainstream. Whether played by Davis's many protégés, including Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea with his groundbreaking fusion group Return to Forever, John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, and the Weather Report (founders Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul both spent time in Davis's bands), Davis's influence could be heard everywhere, much as it could after each of his previous revolutionary advances.
Davis's 1970s recordings have in recent years undergone a fairly radical reassessment, and are now seen by many as a significant body of work comparable to that of his earlier periods, and as an extremely interesting mixture of ideas gleaned from jazz, funk and rock music, as well as from experimental, "process-oriented" European composers. Recently, Dave Douglas, Wadada Leo Smith, Mark Isham, Tim Hagans, Nicholas Payton and others have recorded albums more or less indebted to Davis's electric era.
Last Decade (1981 to 1991)
As always, Davis assembled his bands from among the finest musicians available, including the saxophonist Bill Evans (no relation to the pianist) and a young bass player named Marcus Miller who would become one of Davis's most regular collaborators throughout the decade. Davis's first new studio album, The Man With The Horn (1981), was relatively poorly received. The same year, Davis prepared to tour again, and formed a touring band with largely different members from those who had played on the album. In May, they played two dates as part of the Newport Jazz Festival, and the concerts, as well as the live recording We Want Miles from the ensuing tour, were well reviewed.
By the time of Star People (1983), Davis's band included guitarist John Scofield, with whom Davis worked closely on both Star People and 1984's Decoy, an underdeveloped, experimental mixture of soul music and electronica. Despite the uneven quality of much of his recorded output, live Davis was still capable of moments, and entire concerts, of great inspiration. With a seven-piece band, including Scofield, Evans, drummer Al Foster and bassist Darryl Jones (later of The Rolling Stones), he played a series of European gigs to rapturous receptions. While in Europe, he took part in the recording of Aura, an orchestral tribute to Davis composed by the Danish trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg.
Back in the studio, You're Under Arrest (1985) included another stylistic detour: interpretations of contemporary pop songs in Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" and Michael Jackson's "Human Nature", for which he would receive much criticism in the jazz press, although the record was otherwise well-reviewed. Davis also noted that many accepted jazz standards were in fact pop songs from Broadway theatre, and that he was simply selecting more recent examples of pop songs to perform. You're Under Arrest would also be Davis's final album for Columbia, due to the long-term deterioration of his relationship with the label; Columbia's strong promotion of Wynton Marsalis was a factor in Davis's departure from the label. A delay in the release of Aura, possibly the most highly regarded album of his last decade, was also a factor.
Again demonstrating his eclecticism during this time period, Davis collaborated with a number of figures from the British new wave movement, including Scritti Politti. Davis — at the invitation of producer Bill Laswell — recorded some trumpet parts during sessions for Public Image Ltd.'s Album album, according to Public Image's John Lydon in the liner notes of their Plastic Box box set, although in Lydon's words, "strangely enough, we didn't use (his contributions)." (Also according to Lydon in the Plastic Box notes, Davis favorably compared Lydon's singing voice to his trumpet sound.)[1]
Having first taken part in the Artists United Against Apartheid recording, Davis signed with Warner Brothers records and reunited with Marcus Miller. The resulting record, Tutu (1986), would be his first to feature modern studio tools—programmed synthesizers, samples and drum loops—to create an entirely new setting for Davis's playing. Ecstatically reviewed on its release, the album would frequently be described as a modern version of the classic Sketches of Spain, and won a Grammy award in 1987.
He followed Tutu with the soundtracks to two movies, Street Smart and Siesta, with neither the films nor Davis's scores being particularly noteworthy (other than Morgan Freeman's celebrated turn as "Fast Black" in Street Smart), but he continued to tour with a band of constantly rotating personnel and a critical stock at a level higher than it had been for fifteen years.
He was married to actress Cicely Tyson in 1981, and they were divorced in 1988.
Miles Davis continued to tour and perform regularly through the last years of his life, before dying from a stroke in September 28, 1991 at the age of 65. He is interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York.
Miles Davis, respected jazz legend. . .
Miles Davis
*Miles Davis was born on this date in 1926. He was an African-American trumpet player and bandleader, one of the most innovative, influential, and respected figures in the history of jazz
Born in Alton, Illinois, Davis was a leading figure in the bebop style of jazz and in combining styles of jazz and rock music. Davis began music lessons after receiving a trumpet on his 13th birthday from his father. Two years later he joined the musicians' union and began playing with a local band on weekends. About this time he met trumpeter Clark Terry, who helped and encouraged him. In 1944, after graduating from high school, he went to New York City to study classical music at the Julliard School of Music. While there, he also began playing with alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, and other pioneers of the new jazz style known as bebop.
In 1945, at the age of 19, he began playing in a combo led by Parker. Earning a contract with Capitol Records, the band went into the studio in January 1949 for the first of three sessions that had a profound influence on the development of the cool jazz style on the West Coast. In February 1957, Capitol finally issued the tracks together on an LP called Birth of the Cool. Davis, meanwhile, had moved on to co-leading a band with pianist Tadd Dameron in 1949, but the trumpeter's progress was impeded by an addiction to heroin that plagued him in the early '50s.
His performances and recordings became more haphazard, but in January 1951 he began a long series of recordings for the Prestige label that became his main recording outlet for the next several years. He managed to kick his habit by the middle of the decade, and he made a strong impression playing “Round Midnight" at the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1955, a performance that led major label Columbia Records to sign him. The prestigious contract allowed him to put together a permanent band, and he organized a quintet featuring saxophonist John Coltrane, pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones that began recording his Columbia debut, Round About Midnight, in October.
However, he had a remaining five albums on his Prestige contract, and over the next year he was forced to alternate his Columbia sessions with sessions for Prestige to fulfill this previous commitment. The latter resulted in the Prestige albums The New Miles Davis Quintet, Cookin', Workin', Relaxin', and Steamin', making Davis' first quintet one of his better-documented outfits. In 1957, Davis teamed with arranger Gil Evans for his second Columbia LP, Miles Ahead. Playing flugelhorn, released in 1958, the album was later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, intended to honor recordings made before the Grammy Awards were instituted in 1959. In December that year, Davis returned to Paris, where he added saxophonist Cannonball Adderley to his group, creating the Miles Davis Sextet, which recorded the album Milestones in 1958.
That July, Davis again collaborated with Gil Evans and an orchestra on an album of music from Porgy and Bess. Back in the sextet, Davis began to experiment, basing his improvisations on scales rather than chord changes. This led to his next band recording, Kind of Blue, in 1959, an album that became a landmark in modern jazz and the most popular disc of Davis' career, eventually selling over two million copies, a phenomenal success for a jazz record. In sessions held in November of that year and March 1960, Davis again followed his pattern of alternating band releases and collaborations with Gil Evans, recording Sketches of Spain, containing traditional Spanish music and original compositions in that style. By the time He returned to the studio to make his next band album in March 1961, Coltrane was guest on a couple of tracks of the album, called Someday My Prince Will Come. The Davis quintet’s next recording preceded the two-LP set Miles Davis in Person (Friday & Saturday Nights at the Blackhawk, San Francisco).
In the spring of 1963, Seven Steps to Heaven was recorded with an entirely new lineup. The sessions included Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams. It was another pop chart entry that earned Grammy nominations for both Best Instrumental Jazz Performance by a Soloist or Small Group and Best Instrumental Jazz Performance by a Large Group. By 1964, the final member of the classic Miles Davis Quintet of the 1960s was in place with the addition of saxophonist Wayne Shorter to the team of Davis, Carter, Hancock, and Williams. While continuing to play standards in concert, this unit embarked on a series of albums of original compositions, Sorcerer, Nefertiti, Miles in the Sky, and Filles de Kilimanjaro.
But Hancock, along with pianist Joe Zawinul and guitarist John McLaughlin, participated on Davis' next album, In a Silent Way, 1969. With his next album, *****es Brew, Davis turned more overtly to a jazz-rock style. He followed it with Miles Davis at Fillmore East, Jack Johnson, Live-Evil, On the Corner, and In Concert all in 1971. Starting in October 1972, when he broke his ankles in a car accident, Davis became less active in the early 1970s, and in 1975 he gave up recording entirely due to illness, undergoing surgery for hip replacement later in the year. Five years passed before he returned to action by recording The Man With the Horn in 1980 and going back to touring in 1981. By now, he was an elder statesman of jazz.
Those who supported his eclectic approach had incorporated jazz, and his innovations into the music, at least. He was also a celebrity whose appeal extended far beyond the basic jazz audience. In 1990 Davis performed a leading role as a jazz musician in the Australian motion picture Dingo 1991. His album Doo-Bop 1999, released the year after his death, was one of the first to fuse jazz with the hip-hop and rap music styles. |
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FunkEducation
Joined: 15 Jul 2004
Posts: 3309
Location: Maracay, Venezuela
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| Posted: Sat Apr 29, 2006 21:24 |
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Applause to you man!!!
That post was beautiful!!! I Love It!
Keep being all the funk you can!!
Congrats man!
Bye
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This is FunkEducation, supporting the 1992-1998 Jamiroquai!!
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High Times
Joined: 25 Oct 2004
Posts: 744
Location: music written by JK/Toby Smith
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| Posted: Sun Apr 30, 2006 18:31 |
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Edgar do you love Miles Davis?
i am his big fan!!! in 1959 he released "Kind Of Blue"- where he invented
trend called cool jazz, whole new direction after 50s be bop.
His 60s stuff (and his later jazz fusion) is magical music!!!
his phrases are unique - slow and unfinished (it was one of his genious methods - to play unfinished phrases - they produce such deep impact) But listen not only to Miles but also to keyboard harmonies - they are
so deep!!! btw Miles had herbie hancock and Tony Williams in his band in 60s - one of Derrick's favourite drummers. |
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Samiroquai
Joined: 13 Jul 2005
Posts: 1020
Location: North Somerset and Manchester, both in England
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| Posted: Sun Apr 30, 2006 21:47 |
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Tony Williams is one of the favourite drummers of any decent drummer. Miles also had Joe Zawinul playing under him - in fact Zawinul wrote 'In A Silent Way' - before he left along with Wayne Shorter to form Weather Report, which included Jaco, of course...
I saw Zawinul here in Manchester a couple of years ago. INCREDIBLE. A living jazz god. Perhaps THE living jazz god, given that the others all had a habit of ODing on coke and killing themselves off. And I shook his hand at the end!
As you can probably guess from the fact I went to see Joe Zawinul, I really dig Miles's fusion stuff. 'Bitches Brew', 'Big Fun', 'Miles In The Sky'... what magnificent albums. And 'Kind Of Blue' instantly changes the ear(s) of anyone the first time they listen to it. This is my best mate's first love, and when he first started playing Miles and Weather Report to me, it was what taught me to listen to music in a different fashion. Them and 'Head Hunters'.
We will quite probably never see anyone else as inventive as Miles Davis when it comes to popular music. He pisses all over anyone else for innovation and the ability to change his style whilst still remaining recognisably him. Which isn't bad for someone who was, technically, basically a pretty crap trumpet player!
Sam |
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anya korjik
Joined: 03 Jul 2005
Posts: 217
Location: Russia,MosQuai
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| Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 08:26 |
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Yes/Miles Davis-the man who turn around the history of jazz//// 
Too many ways to developpe this music^from B-bop to fusion,abstract & acid jazz///THIS IS SUPERMAN 4 JAZZ)
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deesh
Joined: 23 Feb 2002
Posts: 2717
Location: +001
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| Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2006 02:13 |
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high times...
i saw this and thought you would really dig it (if you don't already have it). i'm about to download it now. i'm a miles fan, but not huge. i do have a nice charcoal drawing of him in my living room that one of the inmates at the prison did... . it's pretty good..anyway,
courtesy of my friends over at Rope A Dope (www.ropeadope.com - the best site ever):
MILES ON THE TONIGHT SHOW
via our friends at jazz and conversation, this capsule from a different time and place - miles davis and his band (john coltrane, red garland, philly joe jones and paul chambers) live on the tonight show in 1955. download it all here: www.giantfm.com/jcblog quick link to download (i think): http://www.quietfm.com.nyud.net:8090/Audio/miles1955.mp3
that site looks pretty nice..enjoy 
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deesh
Joined: 23 Feb 2002
Posts: 2717
Location: +001
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| Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 18:36 |
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For you High Times and anyone else that digs Miles Davis:
I got this from Okayplayer...
Andre Benjamin (Andre 3000) is working on a tribute album to Miles Davis....ummmmmmmm 
http://xxlmag.com/online/?p=3960
“ Benjamin is also currently working on a new jazz project tenatively titled “Kind of Black: Benjamin on Davis” in which he reworks the classic 1959 work “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis. Benjamin is to be joined on the project by two Grammy-winners: Acclaimed trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and popular Roots drummer/producer Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson.” - USA Today
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Jaminneapolis
Joined: 22 Feb 2004
Posts: 822
Location: Minneapolis, MN U.S.A.
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| Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2006 07:11 |
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"Kind of Blue" is a a great one. Not overrated at all. I put it in when I'm tryin to study. It's good "focus" music.
That and we all remember the famous line from the movie Billy Madison: "If peein your pants is cool, then you can call me Miles Davis!"
Sorry, I had to throw that one in there...
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Wouldn't 'ya like... To walk the sunny avenues of life? |
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Samiroquai
Joined: 13 Jul 2005
Posts: 1020
Location: North Somerset and Manchester, both in England
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| Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2006 14:16 |
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| deesh wrote: |
| Benjamin is to be joined on the project by two Grammy-winners: Acclaimed trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and popular Roots drummer/producer Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson.” - USA Today |
Oh dear God, not Wynton Marsalis... it sounded like a really interesting project until I read that name!
Sam
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More fútbol argentino than you can shake a mullet at - Hasta El Gol Siempre |
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lydianguy
Joined: 19 Aug 2006
Posts: 8
Location: UK
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| Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 03:09 |
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kind of blue
Miles Davis was one of the world's finest instrumentalists, i'm a big fan of his work! Kind of Blue is my favourite of Miles' albums, I also love Sketches of Spain and Bitches Brew.
Kind of Blue was the first Jazz album to concentrate on modes rather than major/minor chord progressions, and Miles' inspiration for making the album came from the book The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization by George Rusell (who was a famous Jazz composer in the 60s).
I didn't know Jay was inspired my Miles though, very interesting to hear! |
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High Times
Joined: 25 Oct 2004
Posts: 744
Location: music written by JK/Toby Smith
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| Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 14:30 |
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i have a film "Miles Electric".
it includes episodes from 60s 70s live gigs so i wish i had those gigs on dvd.
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High Times
Joined: 25 Oct 2004
Posts: 744
Location: music written by JK/Toby Smith
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| Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 14:34 |
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there is 5 disc box set edition of JACK JOHNSON soundtrack !!!!
Disc: 1
1. Willie Nelson (Take 2)
2. Willie Nelson (Take 3)
3. Willie Nelson (Insert 1)
4. Willie Nelson (Insert 2)
5. Willie Nelson (Retake Take 1)
6. Willie Nelson (Retake Take 2)
7. Johnny Bratton (Take 4)
8. Johnny Bratton (Insert 1)
9. Johnny Bratton (Insert 1)
10. Archie Moore
Disc: 2
1. Go Ahead John (Part 1)
2. Go Ahead John (Part 2A)
3. Go Ahead John (Part 1)
4. Go Ahead John (Part 1)
5. Go Ahead John (Part 1)
6. Duran (Take 4)
7. Duran (Take 6)
8. Sugar Ray
Disc: 3
1. Right Off (Take 10)
2. Right Off (Take 10A)
3. Right Off (Take 11)
4. Right Off (Take 12)
5. Yesternow (Take 16)
6. Yesternow (New Take 4)
7. Honky Tonk (Take 2)
8. Honky Tonk (Take 5)
Disc: 4
1. Ali (Take 3)
2. Ali (Take 4)
3. Konda
4. Nem Um Talvez (Take 17)
5. Nem Um Talvez (Take 19)
6. Little High People (Take 7)
7. Little High People (Take
8. Nem Um Talvez (Take 3)
9. Nem Um Talvez (Take 4A)
10. Selim (Take 4B)
11. Little Church (Take 7)
12. Little Church (Take 10)
Disc: 5
1. The Mask (Part 1)
2. The Mask (Part 2)
3. Right Off
4. Yesternow |
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T_R_S
Joined: 02 Jun 2004
Posts: 81
Location: Nørwåy
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| Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 20:13 |
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There are many bootlegs of his concerts around the web. And many European gigs were filmed by the national television companies of the countries he played in. Check out Peter Losin's Miles Ahead website for a list of concerts played. (BTW he doesn't sell them!)
And the Jack Johnson CD box is part of a series. There's also e.g. complete In a silent way sessions, Bitches brew sessions, Cellar door concerts, Miles and Gil Evans, etc.
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Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication! |
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High Times
Joined: 25 Oct 2004
Posts: 744
Location: music written by JK/Toby Smith
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| Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 16:01 |
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i am listening to "So What" from "Kind of Blue"
cool track!!!!!!! |
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Zsoma
Joined: 23 Nov 2004
Posts: 1369
Location: Hungary
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| Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 16:40 |
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| High Times wrote: |
i am listening to "So What" from "Kind of Blue"
cool track!!!!!!! |
2 short stories on So What:
- JB and the JB Horns went into studio to record an album. They had no idea, when Pee Wee Ellis started to play the main theme of Miles's So What with a different rhythm, that's how Cold & Sweat was born...
- Erykah Badu also used So What's main theme in her album Live in the song Rimshot. |
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