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Miles Davis

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One of my favorite trumpet players is Miles Davis. Miles Davis, "American jazz musician, a great trumpeter who as a bandleader and composer was one of the major influences on the art from the late 1940s." Miles Davis was, and still is one of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time. His style and smoothness on the trumpet caught the ears of many people.

Miles Davis was born in Alton, Illinois., on May 26, 1926. For most of Miles's life he was raised in East St. Louis in an upper middle class family. Before Davis got interested into music he liked sports a lot. He loved playing baseball, football, boxing, and basketball. The first trumpet he received was in his preteen years. He practically fell in love with it the first time he played it. Davis liked to play in his high school band and in R&B bands.

In 1942 Miles married his wonderful wife, Irene. In July of 1944 he sat in with Billy Eckstine and his band, where he met his life long idols, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. In the fall, Miles goes to New York to attend Juilliard School of Music. "I spent my first week in NY and my first month's allowance looking for Charlie "Bird" Parker. Later I roomed with Parker for a year and followed him around down to 52nd street. Every night I'd write down chords, on matchbook covers. Next day, I'd play these chords, all day in the practice rooms at Juilliard, instead of going to classes."

"Instead of taking classes he hooked up with Bird, playing in his quintet comprising from 1946-1948." After that Miles goes out to form a band of his own. His first band that he formed was actually a quintet comprising John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones. The quintet was a big success.

During 1950-1955 Miles became a pretty busy man. "In the middle of January 1951, around the seventeenth, I played on three recording sessions: one with Bird for Verve Records early in the day, then on my own date for Prestige, and then on a date for Sonny Rollins. On Bird's date, I think we had Bird, my self, Walter Bishop on piano, a guy named Teddy Kotick on bass, and Max Roach on drums."

Also during this time he became addicted to heroin and started sending his career and his life downward.

"Sometime during 1955 Miles makes a "comeback" performance at the Newport Jazz festival . His reception goes so well it eventually results in a recording contract with Columbia Records." In the year 1959 Davis' most famous album, "Kind of Blue", was performed by his sextet. It include great musicians like Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, and pianist Bill Evans.

"Subsequently Davis returned to modal playing only intermittently for several years, meanwhile gradually piecing together a new quintet centred on drummer Tony Williams and including pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and saxophonist Wayne Shorter. This group, too, achieved peaks of nervous tension and rhythmic contrast, using the harmonic techniques of free jazz by 1966."

In the year 1969 Davis created a new type a jazz. It was a mix between jazz and rock fusion music. The style was accompanied by a number of electronical instruments. This new style was brought before everyone to hear in his "highly influential" album "Bitches Brew".

Then in 1975 he suddenly retired. His health wasn't good at all, and he was very much into recreational drugs. "It was hell trying to get off all those drugs, but I eventually did because I have a very strong will to do whatever I put my mind to. That's what helped me to survive. I got it from my mother and father."

After all of the misery and pain he went through he finally decided to come back. "I was ready to go back to music, to see what I had left." He came back with a new band. "The rock influence was soon replaced by funk and pop elements and, as he became stronger, Miles Davis' trumpet playing proved to still be in excellent form. He toured constantly during his last decade and his personality seemed to have mellowed a bit."

During his last years he toured to different places around the world and recorded there. He tried to live his life to the fullest of his ability, and he did. Then in 1991 he died of a terrible stroke. But he will never be forgotten. People of many different locatoins and different eras listen to his music. Miles Davis' musical career lasted for forty-five years, and the spotlight shinned on him for all of those years, but five. He released over 100 albums. He set style in fashion and in jazz. He might be dead, but his music will still go on and on forever

Bibliography:
Davis, Miles. Miles: The Autobiography. Simon & Schuster. 1989

DownBeatJazz.com. "Miles Davis." Miles Davis. 25 Jan. 2001. http://www.downbeat.com/sections/artists/text/bio.asp?from=fans&id1=2357

Encyclopedia Britanica. "Miles Davis Biography." http://www-music.duke.edu/jazz_archive/artists/davis.miles/22/Biography.html

Tomczyk, Larry. "Milestones." Milestones, a brief Miles Davis biography. 1995 http://miles.rtvf.nwu.edu/~miles/sivadselim/mdbriefbio.html

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