Black Music Sunday: Remembering Miles Davis on his 98th birthday

Miles Dewey Davis III was born on May 26, 1926, in Alton, Illinois. Today would have been his 98th birthday. He joined the ancestors on Sept. 28, 1991, but his impact on the world of music lives on.

His affluent parents did not plan for him to be a jazz musician, and it’s likely no one who knew him in his early years ever dreamed he would become one of the most influential musicians of all time.

When discussing Davis’ impact, there is the man, the mystique, and his music. Please join me in paying tribute and celebrating his birthday.

RELATED STORY: Black Music Sunday: Jazz Appreciation Month 2023 features trumpeter extraordinaire Miles Davis

I have gathered several documentaries on Davis’ life and music, but let’s start with a brief biographical summary. The official Miles Davis website has a detailed timeline of his life and work that opens with his early years.

His birth date was May 26, 1926 and he was named Miles Dewey Davis III by his father—a college-educated dentist who also ran a profitable pig farm, and was a upstanding “race man” to use the parlance of the day: a proud African American. From him, Miles learned to never look upon the color of his skin as a detriment. He credited his equally accomplished mother, Cleota Henry Davis, who played violin and gave lessons on the organ, for a tenacious, independent spirit and taste in clothes. She also gave him two 78rpm recordings that he treasured and that started him on his musical path: one by Duke Ellington and the other by Art Tatum.

Miles grew up in a racially mixed, middle-class neighborhood in East St. Louis. The Mississippi River was walking distance in one direction and his school was in the other, and he received a strict upbringing; education was an unquestioned necessity, and a college degree was the goal. His earliest musical memories include the country blues and gospel he heard when visiting his paternal grandfather in rural Arkansas, and the popular black hits of his day that he caught on late night radio. In the early 1930s, that meant big bands and swing, the sounds of Fletcher Henderson and Louis Armstrong.

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By the age of 12, music became Miles’ primary focus and his father bought him a trumpet over his mother’s objections; she preferred he take up the violin. A trumpet student during the 1930s could not have asked for a better locale than the St. Louis area—the city was already known for its rich tradition of brass players. All benefited from being just upriver from New Orleans; some had been schooled by German immigrants who shared a deep understanding of the instrument.

This biographical sketch of Davis from the National Endowment for the Arts continues his story:

His first professional music job came when he joined the Eddie Randall band in St. Louis in 1941. In the fall of 1944 Davis took a scholarship to attend the Julliard School, a convenient passport to New York. It didn't take him long to immerse himself in the New York scene and he began working 52nd Street gigs alongside Charlie Parker in 1945. Soon, Davis found work with Coleman Hawkins and the big bands of Billy Eckstine and Benny Carter.

During the late 1940s, a number of musical contemporaries began to meet and jam regularly at the small apartment of arranger-pianist Gil Evans. Among them were saxophonists Gerry Mulligan and Lee Konitz, and pianist John Lewis. Out of this group of musicians, Davis formed the nonet to record his first major musical statement, Birth of the Cool. In addition to the standard piano, bass, and drums rhythm section, Davis' nonet horn section used French horn and tuba along with trombone and alto and baritone saxophones, lending the band a unique harmonic sound.

In 1955, Davis assembled his first important band with John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones, adding Cannonball Adderley in 1958. By this time Davis, influenced by George Russell's theories, had begun playing in modes rather than standard chord changes, which led to his most famous album (and the all-time biggest-selling jazz album), Kind of Blue, in 1959. Davis also continued an important musical partnership with Gil Evans, recording four releases in five years: Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess, Sketches of Spain, and Quiet Nights.

Here’s the complete recording of his seminal album, “Kind of Blue.”

“Sketches of Spain” was the first Davis album I owned.

William Ruhlmann at All Music details the auspicious beginnings and tail end of Davis’ decades-long career:

By September 1964, the final member of the classic Miles Davis Quintet of the '60s was in place with the addition of saxophonist Wayne Shorter to the team of Davis, Carter, Hancock, and Williams. While continuing to play standards in concert, this unit embarked on a series of albums of original compositions contributed by the bandmembers themselves, starting in January 1965 with E.S.P., followed by Miles Smiles (1967 Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance by a Small Group or Soloist with Small Group [7 or Fewer]), Sorcerer, Nefertiti, Miles in the Sky (1968 Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance by a Small Group or Soloist with Small Group), and Filles de Kilimanjaro. By the time of Miles in the Sky, the group had begun to turn to electric instruments, presaging Davis' next stylistic turn. By the final sessions for Filles de Kilimanjaro in September 1968, Hancock had been replaced by Chick Corea and Carter by Dave Holland. But Hancock, along with pianist Joe Zawinul and guitarist John McLaughlin, participated on Davis' next album, In a Silent Way (1969), which returned the trumpeter to the pop charts for the first time in four years and earned him another small-group jazz performance Grammy nomination. With his next album, Bitches Brew, Davis turned more overtly to a jazz-rock style. Though certainly not conventional rock music, Davis' electrified sound attracted a young, non-jazz audience while putting off traditional jazz fans.

Bitches Brew, released in March 1970, reached the pop Top 40 and became Davis' first album to be certified gold. It also earned a Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Arrangement and won the Grammy for large-group jazz performance. He followed it with such similar efforts as Miles Davis at Fillmore East (1971 Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Performance by a Group), A Tribute to Jack Johnson, Live-Evil, On the Corner, and In Concert, all of which reached the pop charts. Meanwhile, Davis' former sidemen became his disciples in a series of fusion groups: Corea formed Return to Forever, Shorter and Zawinul led Weather Report, and McLaughlin and former Davis drummer Billy Cobham organized the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

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By now, he was an elder statesman of jazz, and his innovations had been incorporated into the music, at least by those who supported his eclectic approach. He was also a celebrity whose appeal extended far beyond the basic jazz audience. He performed on the worldwide jazz festival circuit and recorded a series of albums that made the pop charts, including We Want Miles (1982 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance by a Soloist), Star People, Decoy, and You're Under Arrest. In 1986, after 30 years with Columbia, he switched to Warner Bros. and released Tutu, which won him his fourth Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance.

Here’s his “Bitches Brew,” which sparked major controversy among “purist” jazz fans.

Davis’ 1986 album “Tutu,” which featured R&B and funk riffs and rhythms, increased his popularity with younger listeners.

When exploring the man behind the music, this conversation with award-winning poet and author Quincy Troupe is an excellent starting point. Troupe is co-author of “Miles: The Autobiography.” 

Listening to Troupe brought back memories of my day-long encounter with Miles, which occurred a little more than a year after I helped my friend Betty Mabry track down his address, because she was determined to meet him. She did end up meeting him and he married her soon after, jilting his then-inamorata, actress Cicely Tyson. Betty left him one year later and went on to become a phenomenon in her own right as the funk-rock pioneer Betty Davis. I wrote about this in “Jazz trumpet players could blow the house down like nobody else.”

Betty escaped abuse by leaving him but left her girlfriend, Loretta, behind. I ran into Loretta in the street one day when she was living with Miles, and the sunglasses she was wearing concealed a black eye. Loretta invited me to go home with her because she needed to talk. That is where I met Miles. 

It was a pretty strange scene. There was a lot of booze, cocaine, and other drugs. Miles kept asking me in a raspy voice, “Do you want to see my shoes? I have closets full of shoes.” I declined—then sorrowfully left Loretta to deal with the insanity and didn’t go back. Addiction and abuse are part of his story, and I hear that side of him in his music, right alongside the beauty.

I find it fascinating to hear musicians talk about him and his music. Here is a video featuring Marcus Miller, Freddie Hubbard, Jimmy Heath, Ron Carter, Roy Haynes, and James Moody.

Here are the video notes for “’Round Miles: A Miles Davis Documentary”:

Six Jazz legends gather at the Catalina Jazz club to discuss the style and personality of Miles Davis. We filmed this as research for the 2015 film, Miles Ahead, but the conversation turned out to be so compelling, we decided to release it as a standalone documentary. In many ways, Miles Davis and his contribution to music are a reflection of the pendulum that was mid-20th century America. By definition, a pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely- or more appropriately, a metronome. Prejudice, persecution, drug abuse, and relevancy weighed heavily on the black Jazz musician at the turn of the century. Miles Davis’ response…smash the metronome. In other words, find your own rhythm and do not seek freedom. Take it.

Documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson produced and directed the PBS documentary “Miles Davis: The Birth of the Cool,” which premiered on Feb. 25, 2020. He discusses making the film in this “Factual America” podcast.

Actor Don Cheadle played Davis in the 2016 biopic “Miles Ahead,” which he also directed. Here’s the trailer.

A look at his extensive discography makes it clear that one article about this legend can only scratch the surface of his music. I will leave it to you to post your favorites in the comments section below, so that we’ll have many miles of Miles.

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