![]() And note that he said music, not jazz.ĭavis was contemporary music’s living link with the first wave of modern jazzmen - early Davis associates included Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk. But Davis’s assertion that he “changed music five or six times” was no idle boast. ![]() A few exceptional individuals - Coltrane, Ornette Coleman - changed music more than once. Even the most brilliant jazz revolutionaries, from Louis Armstrong to Charlie Parker, tended to create a radically new style on their instrument and then stick to it and develop it while the rest of the world caught up. And when it comes to innovation - or as Davis put it, “changing music” - the man had few, if any, peers. In jazz, even more than in other idioms created primarily by black Americans, innovation is the mainspring of the art. But great players don’t always add up to great bands Davis knew the difference and insisted on having both. The list of musicians who broke into the front ranks through tenures in Davis’ bands reads like a who’s who: saxophonists John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley and Wayne Shorter pianists Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, and Chick Corea drummers Philly Joe Jones, Tony Williams, and Jack DeJohnette guitarists John McLaughlin and John Scofield. In a music that has known more great players than great bandleaders, Davis set standards for ensemble style and interaction again and again. Many people remember the moment they first heard one Miles album or another the way they remember the Kennedy or Lennon assassinations - as turning points in history and in their own lives. His albums - from Birth of the Cool (recorded in 19) to Kind of Blue (1959) and Sketches of Spain (1960), through the electric maelstroms of Bitches Brew (1970) and Pangaea (1975) and on to such recent releases as Tutu (a Grammy winner in 1987) - are more than superb recordings. He was one of the most personal, gifted and influential trumpet players to grace the second half of our now-waning century. But “changing music” isn’t the only thing Davis will be remembered for. Miles’ off-the-cuff self-assessment seems right on the mark now that this indomitable spirit has left us. “Well,” he said, “I’ve changed music five or six times.” Rattled, the woman asked him, “What have you done that’s so important in your life?”Īgain, Davis had a ready answer. “Jazz is ignored here because the white man likes to win everything,” Davis responded with his usual asperity. But trouble seemed inevitable.Īccording to Davis’ account, he was sitting at a table with a woman he described as “a politician’s wife” when she asked him an apparently well-meant question about America’s neglect of jazz. In his frank, fearless autobiography, Miles, he wrote that Cicely Tyson, one of the many women in his life, had invited him and that he went out of respect for one of the award recipients, Ray Charles. It was uncharacteristic for a man who had always been bluntly honest, about himself and about others, to even show up for such an occasion. Miles Davis - the celebrated trumpeter and musical innovator who died September 28th at the age of 65 - reluctantly agreed to attend an awards dinner at the Reagan White House back in 1987.
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