Miles Davis essays

Miles Davis essays Miles Davis is an icon, a true legend of music. He was a masterful trumpet player who "explored the instrument's lower register and tended to play slower, more lyrical lines, often melancholy, rather than the showers of high notes," such as that of Dizzy Gillespie and others (Miles pp). Davis, who released a multitude of recordings during his forty-five year career, offering a bewildering array of different styles, was at the center of almost every movement in modern jazz, from early be-bop, the cool sound, hard bop, orchestral experimentation, the "modal revolution," and fusion (Miles pp). Davis played with most of the key jazz artists from the post- war era, including Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and Tony Williams (Miles pp). Davis has been called the Picasso of Jazz, for he reinvented himself and his sound endlessly in his musical quest (Cool pp). "He was an artist that defied (and despised) categorization, yet he was the forerunner and innovator of many distinct and important musical movements (Cool pp). Davis, an original, lyrical soloist, and demanding group leader, was the most consistently innovative musician in jazz from the late 1940's through the 1960's (Dewey pp). Probably the one single artist that best represents the turbulent course jazz has taken through the years is Miles Davis (Miles Miles Dewey Davis III grew up in East St. Louis, took up the trumpet at the age of thirteen and two years later was playing professionally with local jazz bands around town (Dewey pp). In September 1944, he moved to New York City, ostensibly to enter the Institute of Musical Art, now the Juilliard School, however, it was actually to locate his idol Charlie Parker (Dewey pp). Davis joined Parker in live performances and recording sessions from 1945-1948, and at the same time played in other groups and toured with big ba...