How Miles Davis revolutionised jazz
“The real music is silence and all the notes just frame that silence.” Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III, also known as Miles Davis, was born on 26 May 1926 in Alton, Illinois, on the banks of the Mississippi River. He was the son of Miles Dewey Davis, a dental surgeon, and Cleota Henry Davis, a piano and violin player. At the age of ten, Dr. John Eubanks, who was close to his father, gave him his first trumpet.
Miles Davis became a professional around 1942, joining the American Federation of Musicians, and despite his young age (16 at the time), he was a regular in the city’s clubs. That same year, he joined Eddie Randle’s Blue Devils band as a trumpeter after a successful audition. He was also put in charge of rehearsals, a real chore which nevertheless gave him an understanding of the off-stage business. With the Blue Devils, he played blues, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Benny Goodman…
In June 1944, Miles was 18 old and hesitated between joining the Faculty of Dental Surgery or following his friend Clark Terry in the U.S. Navy band. His path was to be quite different, as, by a stroke of luck, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie came to pick up Miles at the beginning of a concert to ask him to replace a failing trumpeter. Amazed by this encounter, Miles knew what he had to do, go to New York!
A diamond in the rough
He enrolled at the famous Juilliard School of Music in New York and diligently attended Minton’s, the legendary birthplace of Bebop (in search of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker). Broke as always, Dizzy and Charlie moved in with Miles for a while and introduced him to the intricacies of Bebop. Bird introduced him to other legends of the style such as pianist Thelonious Monk.
Miles replaced Dizzy Gillespie in Charlie Parker’s quintet. With Bird at the top of his game, he recorded Moose The Mooche, Yardbird Suite, A Night in Tunisia. Miles’ gentle, calm playing was in stark contrast to Gillespie’s style. The trumpeter imposes his style, and his fame, he learns a lot from the quintet…he also develops bad habits. Charlie Parker used drugs, heroin to be precise, and if Miles categorically refused to try the needle, he would inevitably become addicted to it later on.
While Miles found fame with Charlie Parker’s quintet, he had one idea in mind…to create his own music. In the summer of 1948, Miles Davis, in collaboration with Gil Evans, decided to set up his own project. He gradually moved away from Bebop and participated in the birth of a new form of jazz.
An orchestra conductor
He founded a nonet, where each section imitates one of the registers of the human voice. The orchestration is rich, the arrangements are meticulous and the slowness of the music breaks with the fast rhythms of Bebop.
In 1949, the nonet went into the studio to record tracks that would make history, inventing a new movement, cool jazz. However, the revolution was not immediate, the soft tone and slow rhythms took several years to become established.
Descent into hell
Back in the United States after a trip to Paris (where he fell madly in love with Juliette Gréco), Miles plunged into heroin. He finances his daily injections of heroin by pimping women, his house is foreclosed on because of unpaid bills and he ends up in jail in Los Angeles after a police raid. Miles continued to play with Charlie Parker, Billie Holliday, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane…but his drug use was a thorn in his side.
In search of the new jazz
In 1959, Miles Davis signed his masterpiece Kind of Blue with the Bluesy. The latter is considered one of the best pieces of modal jazz on one of the most popular jazz records ever made.
In March 1960, Miles toured Europe with Coltrane, giving a memorable concert at the Olympia in Paris, where Coltrane was booed by a large part of the audience…memorable! It was also at this time that free jazz appeared. Miles tried his hand at it with bassist Ron Carter, drummer Tony Williams, pianist Herbie Hancock and saxophonist George Coleman. Miles is on a musical quest but finds it difficult to recapture the momentum of John Coltrane. A succession of prestigious saxophonists replaced him without convincing him: Jimmy Heath, Hank Mobley, Rocky Boyd, Frank Strozier, Sonny Rollins…until the arrival of Wayne Shorter, who played with the Jazz Messengers of the legendary drummer Art Blakey.
“I was very happy to have Wayne because I knew that with him we would make great music. That’s what happened, very quickly. Miles Davis
Miles found new colours, new chords, new phrasing, and above all a new use of space. He adapted to the crazy energy of these young musicians.
Fashions change quickly, it’s already time for rock and funk! Miles anticipated this and initiated a jazz that fused the electric sound, what is known today as jazz fusion. Miles surrounded himself with new musicians, such as guitarist John McLaughlin and keyboardist Joe Zawinul.
His music is all the more marked by funk, black music as opposed to the Blues which he declares “sold to the whites”. He went to find Michael Henderson, a former studio musician for Motown and member of Stevie Wonder’s band. He is not a trained jazzman, but he has a terrific Funky style!
Miles’ electric period literally explodes the classical codes of jazz.
The passer-by
After several years of exploration, Miles retired from the scene in 1975, only to return six years later in 1981. At the end of his career, Miles became a ferryman, recording funk-filled jazz fusion albums with groups of young up-and-coming musicians such as Marcus Miller, Mike Stern, and Kenny Garrett.
Miles’ genius revolutionized jazz, his original, highly structured sound, his evolving conception of music, and his gift for surrounding himself with the best musicians undeniably marked the history of jazz and continues to inspire contemporary musicians from many different backgrounds. His legacy is enormous, his imprint indelible. He opened up many new paths for jazz lovers and new audiences to listen to.
