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Miles is an absolute mothcr-fucker of a musician. He s just Though some of the finest records he made in the 60 ’s
simply one of the most vitally important makers of music were also collaborations with Gil Evans, this sort of
that stalks the earth today, both as a player and improviser on tightly- arranged coolness was clearly not where Miles wanted
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his own and as a leader and shaper of other musicians. Miles to stay. It s usualK said that his work in the early ' 50 s was
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Davis, virtually alone among the important jazz creators of the unimportant , that he didn t play too much or too well, that
' 40 ' s and 50 s, has dared to grow and change and venture into drugs (before he kicked them with all the fierce determination
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new shapes and forms. his fighter' s stance suggests) weakened and defeated him.
Miles doesn’t go out of his way to be kind. He There e s truth to this, of course, but, on the other hand, he did
acknowledges his debts and sometimes praises the play brilliantly (if with restraint ) on, for instance, the Blue
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musicianship of others (though not over gcnerously) hut he is Note sessions of 51, 53, and 54. In any case, the white jazz
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quite outspoken about the fact that he no longer has any use, critic establishment widely and loudly hailed Miles *
any time, for the conventions of music The Way It Used To triumphant “return”, after he played a magically powerful
Be. He has left his former contemporaries sadly and finally solo on “ 'Round Midnight ” at the 1955 Newport Jazz
behind; they arc hors concoun, and he knows it, and he says Festival.
it. Miles Davis today sounds like no one else at all. He is as He kicked into a new period of prolific activity. He
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far away from his early 40 s professional beginnings as time continued to record, though more frequently and with more
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could possibly let him be. He hasn t wasted his years. grace and strength, with men like Sonny Rollins, Lucky
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Miles Dewey Davis III, born is 1926 in Alton, Illinois, across Thompson, Milt Jackson, Monk, Mingus, Elvin Jones, et al.
the Mississippi from St. Louis, son of a dentist, made his first And he led, initially on Prestige, the definitive jazz group of
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recordings in 1945, with Charlie Parker. That s called Starting the 50 s and early 60 s. The incredible, explosive, stunningly
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at the Top. He had jammed with Parker in St. Louis, then gone influential quintet: a young, brash over reachcr of a
to New York to find him. He studied at Julliard. And in the tenor-player from Philadelphia, John Coltrane, Red Garland
streets and in the clubs. He scribbled chbrd changes on on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, Philly Joe Jones on drums.
matchbook covers. The whole thing. In 1960, Miles made Sketches of Spain with Gil Evans for
His bop recordings (with almost everyone who was anyone) Columbia. It was an inspired marriage of cultural and musical
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of the mid * and late 40 ’ s show a clean, clear, young sound sensitivities; many maintain that the Davis/Evans adaptation of
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with (already) a highly developed linear sense, a sense of the the second movement of Rodrigo’s “Concerto dc Aranjuez” is
subtleties of a spatial approach to sound progressions. In 1949 among the most successful jazz/classical meetings ever staged.
and 1950, Miles led the legendary “Birth of the Cool” The album also proved quite plainly that Spanish music could
recording sessions for Capitol. (These , have just been swing and that Miles Davis was not a prisoner of any musical
idiom.
re- released, complete for the first time on LP, as a part of
Capitol’s uneven but oft- interesting jazz classics series.) These In 1961, Miles went to Columbia full-time; his tenure there
were highly structured, intellectualized jazz tracks, part Claude started with Miles Davis in Person and has carried through (so
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Thornhill, part Oakland/Paris neo- impressionism, part far) to Uve/ t viL His groups have included Wynton Kelly,
something altogether new. Gil Evans and Gerry Mulligan did Wayne Shorter, Hank Mobley, George Coleman, Ron Carter,
the arrangements, and Miles was joined by players like Lee Tony Williams, Joe Zawinul, and more. In 1969 came Fillet de
Konitz, John Lewis, J.J. Johnson, Mulligan himself, and even Kilimanjaro, an album that was somehow ... well...
Gunther Schuller, that ‘fraidy- cat formalist of contemporary different. The roles of the rhythm players seemed to be
American composition, who played French horn on several extended, given new importance; Miles himself seemed to be
tracks. playing more rhythmically than ever. loiter that year, when
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