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Davis, Miles
7 articles on Davis, Miles
Davis, Miles
Source: Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-first Century
(b. 26 May 1926; d. 28 September 1991), trumpeter, composer, and jazz innovator. Born in Alton, Illinois, Miles Dewey Davis III was arguably the most innovative jazz artist of the post–World War II era. Davis was intimately involved in the development of nearly every significant jazz innovation during the period 1945–1991, including modal jazz, jazz fusion, and freebop, and was the first to record cool jazz records. Alongside Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, and Charles “Yardbird” Parker, he is considered one of the iconic figures of jazz. Besides being famous for the muted yet melodic sound that became his signature, Davis is also popularly known for his no-nonsense personality and demeanor, which made him a highly controversial artist and a postmodern symbol of defiance. Moreover, he is renowned for his dedication to both ...
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Source: Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition
Word Count: 1816 Includes: Bibliography1926–1991
African American trumpet player and bandleader who contributed significantly to bebop, cool jazz, modal jazz, and fusion. The role of Miles Davis is unparalleled in the history of Jazz. Many great jazz musicians—including Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie—gained renown for their technical mastery and their distinctive approaches to improvisation. Others, such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, and Ornette Coleman, achieved greatness less through instrumental prowess than through compositions and performances in a distinctive style. Miles Davis is unique in having made his mark through neither technical mastery nor a single identifiable style, but rather through his constant evolution and stylistic innovation. Jazz scholar ...
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Source: African American National Biography
(26 May 1926–28 Sept. 1991), trumpeter, bandleader, and composer, was born Miles Dewey Davis III in Alton, Illinois, the son of Miles Davis II, a dentist, and Cleota H. Henry, both from Arkansas. When Miles was one year old, his family moved to a multiracial neighborhood in East St. Louis, Illinois, where his father prospered, buying a farm in nearby Millstadt. Young Miles first studied trumpet with Elwood C. Buchanan and Joseph Gustat, the principal trumpeter with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, and he soon found work in local dance bands.Caught up in the new music called bebop, Davis left for New York City after graduation and enrolled in the Juilliard School of Music, where he was exposed to the music of such composers as Hindemith and Stravinsky, and where he studied trumpet with William Vacchiano, principal trumpeter with the New ...
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Source: American National Biography Online
Word Count: 4490 Includes: Bibliographyjazz trumpeter and bandleader, was born Miles Dewey Davis III in Alton, Illinois, the son of Miles Dewey Davis, Jr., a dentist, and Cleota Henry. When Davis was one year old, the family moved to East St. Louis, Missouri, where his father practiced dental surgery and farmed, raising special breeds of hogs. They settled in a white neighborhood while Davis was in elementary school. He took up trumpet at age thirteen, studying in school and taking private lessons from jazz trumpeter Elwood Buchanan and the ...
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Source: The Oxford Companion to United States History
Word Count: 346(1926–1991), musician. Born in Alton, Illinois, a dentist's son, Miles Davis began playing the trumpet professionally in his teens. In 1944 he enrolled in a New York conservatory but gravitated to Harlem's jazz nightclubs. He soon was recording with Charlie Parker and working with big bands. Davis began leading groups, and in 1949 his nonet recorded the Birth of the Cool arrangements, helping to introduce the impressionistic “cool” jazz style. Slowed by heroin addiction, Davis resurfaced in 1955 with an acclaimed quintet (including John Coltrane). It recorded Milestones, Kind of Blue, and other albums, roaming from a classic bebop style to modal explorations. Davis also created Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain (1958–1960) with arranger Gil Evans. These albums were among the most influential in ...
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Source: The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature
Word Count: 383(1926–1991), jazz trumpeter and bandleader. Miles Davis's musical legacy is a haunting muted tone on ballads, the selection of complementary sidemen, and a visionary genius that placed him at the forefront of jazz's epochal stages including bop, cool, hard bop, third stream, and fusion. His accomplishments include the groundbreaking nonet sessions known as the Birth of the Cool (1949); the modal Kind of Blue (1959); the collaborations with arranger Gil Evans in Porgy and Bess (1958) and Sketches of Spain (1960); and the use of electronic instrumentation and improvisation on the best-selling Bitches Brew (1969). Davis also scored the Louis Malle film Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud (1957).Davis's arresting trumpet style, lyrical and elliptical, and his complicated public persona made him a living legend. His good looks and sartorial ...
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Source: Grove Music Online
(b. Alton, IL, 25 May 1926; d. Santa Monica, CA, 28 Sept 1991). American jazz trumpeter and bandleader. An original, lyrical soloist and a demanding group leader, he was the most consistently innovatory musician in jazz from the late 1940s until the mid-1970s. Davis grew up in East St Louis and took up the trumpet at the age of 13; two years later he was already playing professionally. He moved to New York in September 1944, ostensibly to enter the Institute of Musical Art but actually to locate his idol, Charlie Parker. He joined Parker in live appearances and recording sessions (1945–8), at the same time playing in other groups and touring in the big bands led by Benny Carter and Billy Eckstine. In 1948 he began to lead his own bop groups, and he participated in an experimental workshop centred on the arranger ...
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