"Straight No Chaser"
The Music of Miles Davis
Born in 1926, Miles grew up in East St. Louis, Illinois, to a privleged life. He began playing the trumpet when he was 13-years-old, after receiving the instrument from his father. He loved music and admired jazz greats Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, whom he listened to on the radio.
The Emergence of "Bebop"
Miles had his first professional gig when he was 17. He traveled across the river to St. Louis, Missouri to hear well-known jazz musicians play in clubs. Mesmerized by their talent and style, he would listen to their all-night jam sessions. One of them was Charlie Parker, a talented saxophonist. Charlie was the creative force behind a new form of jazz, later to be called “bebop”. In playing bebop, musicians shifted accents to give the music an unpredictable and exciting sound.
Bebop had a following in New York City, the hottest jazz scene in the country at that time. Miles moved to New York where he could listen and learn bebop from the jazz greats Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. Miles’ mother demanded that he attend college and get a degree instead of becoming a jazz musician. Miles compromised and agreed to study classical music at New York’s prestigious Julliard School of Music.
Miles Finds a Whimsical Style Miles found his own style in1949, and formed a nine-pieced piece band, The Miles Davis Nonet. Some people criticized him for hiring white musicians like Lee Konitz and Gerry Mulligan, but Miles never cared what color a person was if they could play music he liked.
Having departed from bebop’s feverish pace, Miles used his trumpet to project a tender, dreamy sound. His music had a unique, poetic quality. He continued inventing new ways of making music and in doing so, discovered many up-and-coming musicians like John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock.
In addition to his recordings with his own small jazz groups, Miles also had great success with a large orchestra that his friend Gil Evans wrote the music for. In later years, Miles experimented with fusing rock and pop music with jazz. From this union came: Straight No Chase in 1958 and would remain his personal testimony and signature piece.
Introduction of Electronic Sound and SynthesizersSome jazz buffs say that Miles' music was somewhat skewed of the purest form of jazz the moment he brought amplifiers into the studio and cut Bitches Brew. With his whimsical shifting back and forth of his consciousness, Miles stitched various textures of electronic sound and synthesizers that featured original performances by Wayne Shorter, Carlos Garnett, Dave Liebman, Joe Zawinui, and Chick Corea.
Also, featured was Hancock, Cedric Lawson, John McLaughlin, Reggie Lucas, David Creamer and Pete Cosey. Joining this ecclectic mix of musicians was Dominique Gaumont, Colin Walcott, Dave Holland, Michael Henderson, Harold Williams, Khalil Balakrishna and Tony Williams. Included in this group was Jack DeJohnette, Al Foster, Badal Roy, Don Alias and Mtume.
One of his well-known contributions to the jazz world was Panthalassa. Miles stepped off into another world with a re-mixed compilation of cuts from his best tracking days from 1969 to 1974.This resulted in a production far greater than the sum of its parts. "His music is a brew indeed, wildly contrasting rhythmic bottoms and electronic serial sound,” wrote Imamu Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), author of Blues People and Black Music ( Harper Perennial ).
His Iconic Legacy Lives on
Davis gave up recording entirely due to illness, undergoing surgery for hip replacement in 1975. Five years would pass before he returned to action by recording, The Man With the Horn in 1980 and touring in 1981. By now, he was an elder statesman of jazz, and his innovations had been incorporated into the music. He was also a celebrity whose appeal extended far beyond the basic jazz audience.
Surprising jazz fans, on July 8, 1991, Miles joined an orchestra led by Quincy Jones at the Montreux Jazz Festival. He performed some of the arrangements written for him in the late '50s by Gil Evans. He died of pneumonia, respiratory failure, and a stroke within months. Doo-Bop, his last studio album, appeared in 1992. It was a collaboration with rapper Easy Mo Bee, and won a Grammy for Best Rhythm & Blues Instrumental.
The track "Fantasy" was nominated for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo. Released in 1993, Miles & Quincy Live at Montreux andwon Davis his seventh Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance. Miles Davis still remains the most mercurial of jazz artists.
From the eulogy at Miles Davis' funeral in 1991, "Let us always be able to hear 'Straight No Chaser' any time we want to."
Miles Davis
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