Biography of Miles Davis

The evolution of jazz

May 26, 1926
September 28, 1991
Tell the life of Miles Davis is equivalent to trace the entire history of jazz trumpet player, bandleader, composer of the most brilliant ever first person, Miles Davis was one of the architects. Miles Dewey Davis III hide on May 26, 1926 Illinois rural; at eighteen is already in New York (with a decent experience in the jazz clubs of St. Louis), bored at the Juilliard School of Music lessons and playing every night in Harlem jam session of the premises and fiery 57th, alongside Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. The experience of the be-bop was born the first work of Davis, "Birth of the Cool", recorded between 1949 and 1950 and published as long playing in 1954. The influence of these recordings on the entire jazz scene is huge, but the early ' 50 are for Davis (and for many of his fellow musicians), the dark years of heroin.
Exit the tunnel in 1954, and in a few years sets up a legendary John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley Sextet. The recordings from this period are all classics: from the series of albums for Prestige (walkin', Cookin', Relaxin', Workin', steamin') orchestral discs arranged by his friend Gil Evans (Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess, Sketches of Spain), to experiments with modal music (Milestones), in what is considered by many critics the album of jazz history, the beautiful "Kind of Blue" of 1959. The early ' 60 's free-jazz musicians seen undermining the primacy of innovator Miles Davis, who finds that kind of music too unrealistic and artificial.
Responding in 1964 by creating another formidable group, this time a Quartet with Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Ron Carter and Wayne Shorter, and switch to gradually approach to rock and electric equipment (a collaboration with Gil Evans and Jimi Hendrix that would remain in history fell through only the tragic deaths of Hendrix). Increasingly fascinated by psychedelic rock of the West Coast, at the end of the Decade Davis appears to big rock festival and won the audience of young whites "alternative". Albums such as "In a Silent Way" and "Bitches Brew" mark the birth of jazz rock and pave the way to the phenomenon of fusion. Restless personality of Davis, however, seems to take it to the meltdown: a renewed addiction, clashes with police, a serious automobile accident, health problems of all kinds, human relations increasingly strained. In 1975 Miles Davis retires from the stage and closes at home, a victim of drugs and in the grip of depression. All the damage to finished, but they're wrong.
After six years he returned to blow his trumpet, more fierce than ever. Regardless of the critics and jazz purists, it launches out in all kinds of contamination with newer sounds: funk, pop, electronics, music by Prince and Michael Jackson. In his free time he devoted himself, successfully, to painting. The public did not abandon him. The latest incarnation of the great genius of jazz, is, surprisingly, the pop star: Davis continues to play on stages around the world, until a few months after his death. On September 28, 1991 a bout of pneumonia at the age of 65 years, crushes him in Santa Monica, California. His body rests in the Woodlawn cemetery in Bronx, New York.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.