Miles Davis

Born in Alton, Illinois in 1926 and raised in East St. Louis, Miles Davis established himself in the 1940s in New York upon contact with Charlie Parker and the bebop scene, before early on steering his playing toward a leaner sound, without vibrato, and a more spacious phrasing. Trumpeter, bandleader and composer, Miles Davis traverses several jazz aesthetics by reformulating them from within, from the cool jazz of Birth of the Cool (1957, a compilation of sessions from 1949-1950) to the hard bop of Walkin’ (1957), then to modal jazz with Milestones (1958) and Kind of Blue (1959). His career is also marked by his collaborations with Gil Evans on Miles Ahead (1957), Porgy and Bess (1959) and Sketches of Spain (1960), as well as by groups that became touchstones in the history of jazz with John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter or Tony Williams. From the late 1960s, Miles Davis evolved his music toward electric forms, open to rock rhythms, funk and repetitive textures, notably on In a Silent Way (1969), Bitches Brew (1970) and On the Corner (1972). Returning to the stage in the 1980s after a period of interruption, Miles Davis continued his explorations between jazz, fusion, pop and synthetic grooves on The Man with the Horn (1981), Tutu (1986) and Amandla (1989). Dying in 1991 in California, Miles Davis leaves a discography that tracks, over nearly five decades, the major transformations of modern jazz.