Miles Davis facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Miles Davis
Davis in his New York City home, c. 1955–56; photograph by Tom Palumbo
Background information
Birth name	Miles Dewey Davis III
Born	(1926-05-26)May 26, 1926 Alton, Illinois, U.S.
Died	September 28, 1991(1991-09-28) (aged 65) Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Genres	Jazz
Occupation(s)	Musician bandleader composer
Instruments	Trumpet flugelhorn cornet piano electric organ
Years active	1944–1975 1980–1991
Labels	Capitol Prestige Columbia Fontana Warner Bros.
Associated acts	Miles Davis Quintet
Education	Juilliard School
Spouse(s)	Frances Taylor ​ ​ (m. 1959; div. 1968)​ Betty Mabry ​ ​ (m. 1968; div. 1969)​ Cicely Tyson ​ ​ (m. 1981; div. 1989)​

Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musical directions in a five-decade career that kept him at the forefront of many major stylistic developments in jazz.

Early life

Davis was born on May 26, 1926, to an affluent African-American family in Alton, Illinois, 15 miles (24 kilometers) north of St. Louis. He had an older sister, Dorothy Mae (1925-1996), and a younger brother, Vernon (1929-1999). His mother, Cleota Mae Henry of Arkansas, was a music teacher and violinist, and his father, Miles Dewey Davis Jr., also of Arkansas, was a dentist. They owned a 200-acre (81 ha) estate near Pine Bluff, Arkansas with a profitable pig farm. In Pine Bluff, he and his siblings fished, hunted, and rode horses. Davis's grandparents were the owners of an Arkansas farm where he would spend many summers.

In 1927, the family moved to East St. Louis, Illinois. They lived on the second floor of a commercial building behind a dental office in a predominantly white neighborhood. Davis's father would soon become distant to his children as the Great Depression caused him to become increasingly consumed by his job; typically working six days a week. From 1932 to 1934, Davis attended John Robinson Elementary School, an all-black school, then Crispus Attucks, where he performed well in mathematics, music, and sports. At an early age he liked music, especially blues, big bands, and gospel.

The house at 1701 Kansas Avenue in East St. Louis, Illinois, where Davis lived from 1939 to 1944

In 1935, Davis received his first trumpet as a gift from John Eubanks, a friend of his father. He took lessons from "the biggest influence on my life," Elwood Buchanan, a teacher and musician who was a patient of his father. His mother wanted him to play the violin instead. Against the fashion of the time, Buchanan stressed the importance of playing without vibrato and encouraged him to use a clear, mid-range tone. Davis said that whenever he started playing with heavy vibrato, Buchanan slapped his knuckles. The family soon moved to 1701 Kansas Avenue in East St. Louis.

According to Davis "By the age of 12, music had become the most important thing in my life." On his thirteenth birthday his father bought him a new trumpet, and Davis began to play in local bands. He took additional trumpet lessons from Joseph Gustat, principal trumpeter of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Davis would also play the trumpet in talent shows he and his siblings would put on.

In 1941, the 15-year-old attended East St. Louis Lincoln High School, where he joined the marching band directed by Buchanan and entered music competitions. Years later, Davis said that he was discriminated against in these competitions due to his race, but he added that these experiences made him a better musician.

When a drummer asked him to play a certain passage of music, and he couldn't do it, he began to learn music theory. "I went and got everything, every book I could get to learn about theory." At Lincoln, Davis had a band that performed at the Elks Club. Part of his earnings paid for his sister's education at Fisk University. Davis befriended trumpeter Clark Terry, who suggested he play without vibrato, and performed with him for several years.

With encouragement from his teacher, Davis filled a vacant spot in the Rhumboogie Orchestra, also known as the Blue Devils, led by Eddie Randle. He became the band's musical director, which involved hiring musicians and scheduling rehearsal. Years later, Davis considered this job one of the most important of his career. Sonny Stitt tried to persuade him to join the Tiny Bradshaw band, which was passing through town, but his mother insisted he finish high school before going on tour. He said later, "I didn't talk to her for two weeks. And I didn't go with the band either." In January 1944, Davis finished high school and graduated in absentia in June.

Career

Tommy Potter, Charlie Parker, Max Roach, Miles Davis, Duke Jordan in August 1947

In September 1944, Davis accepted his father's idea of studying at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City. After passing the audition, he attended classes in music theory, piano and dictation.

In mid-1945, Davis failed to register for the year's autumn term at Juilliard and dropped out after three semesters because he wanted to perform full-time. Years later he criticized Juilliard for concentrating too much on classical European and "white" repertoire, but he praised the school for teaching him music theory and improving his trumpet technique.

Davis made his professional debut as a member of saxophonist Charlie Parker's bebop quintet from 1944 to 1948. Shortly after, he recorded the Birth of the Cool sessions for Capitol Records, which were instrumental to the development of cool jazz. In the early 1950s, Davis recorded some of the earliest hard bop music while on Prestige Records. After a widely acclaimed comeback performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, he signed a long-term contract with Columbia Records, and recorded the album 'Round About Midnight in 1955. It was his first work with saxophonist John Coltrane and bassist Paul Chambers, key members of the sextet he led into the early 1960s. During this period, he alternated between orchestral jazz collaborations with arranger Gil Evans, such as the Spanish music-influenced Sketches of Spain (1960), and band recordings, such as Milestones (1958) and Kind of Blue (1959). The latter recording remains one of the most popular jazz albums of all time, having sold over five million copies in the U.S.

Davis made several line-up changes while recording Someday My Prince Will Come (1961), his 1961 Blackhawk concerts, and Seven Steps to Heaven (1963), another mainstream success that introduced bassist Ron Carter, pianist Herbie Hancock, and drummer Tony Williams. After adding saxophonist Wayne Shorter to his new quintet in 1964, Davis led them on a series of more abstract recordings often composed by the band members, helping pioneer the post-bop genre with albums such as E.S.P (1965) and Miles Smiles (1967), before transitioning into his electric period. During the 1970s, he experimented with rock, funk, African rhythms, emerging electronic music technology, and an ever-changing line-up of musicians, including keyboardist Joe Zawinul, drummer Al Foster, and guitarist John McLaughlin. This period, beginning with Davis's 1969 studio album In a Silent Way and concluding with the 1975 concert recording Agharta, was the most controversial in his career, alienating and challenging many in jazz.

After a five-year retirement due to poor health, Davis resumed his career in the 1980s, employing younger musicians and pop sounds on albums such as The Man with the Horn (1981) and Tutu (1986). Critics were often unreceptive but the decade garnered Davis his highest level of commercial recognition. He performed sold-out concerts worldwide, while branching out into visual arts, film, and television work.

In October 1989, he received a Grande Medaille de Vermeil from Paris mayor Jacques Chirac. In 1990, he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In early 1991, he appeared in the Rolf de Heer film Dingo as a jazz musician. In 2006, Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which recognized him as "one of the key figures in the history of jazz". Rolling Stone described him as "the most revered jazz trumpeter of all time, not to mention one of the most important musicians of the 20th century," while Gerald Early called him inarguably one of the most influential and innovative musicians of that period.

Personal life

In 1957, Davis began a relationship with Frances Taylor, a dancer he had met in 1953 at Ciro's in Los Angeles. They married in December 1959 in Toledo, Ohio. Taylor filed for divorce in 1966; it was finalized in February 1968.

In September 1968, Davis married 23-year-old model and songwriter Betty Mabry. Mabry, a familiar face in the New York City counterculture, introduced Davis to popular rock, soul, and funk musicians. Jazz critic Leonard Feather visited Davis's apartment and was shocked to find him listening to albums by The Byrds, Aretha Franklin, and Dionne Warwick. He also liked James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, and Jimi Hendrix, whose group Band of Gypsys particularly impressed Davis. Davis filed for divorce from Mabry in 1969.

Davis and Cicely Tyson in 1982

By 1979, Davis rekindled his relationship with actress Cicely Tyson, who helped him to regain his enthusiasm for music. The two married in November 1981, but their tumultuous marriage ended with Tyson filing for divorce in 1988, which was finalized in 1989.

In 1984, Davis met 34-year-old sculptor Jo Gelbard. Gelbard would teach Davis how to paint; the two were frequent collaborators and were soon romantically involved.

Death

Davis's grave in Woodlawn Cemetery, with headstone inscribed with the beginning notes of one of his compositions, "Solar"

Davis died on September 28, 1991. He was 65 years old. His death was attributed to the combined effects of a stroke, pneumonia, and respiratory failure.

A funeral service was held on October 5, 1991, at St. Peter's Lutheran Church on Lexington Avenue in New York City that was attended by around 500 friends, family members, and musical acquaintances, with many fans standing in the rain. He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City, with one of his trumpets, near the site of Duke Ellington's grave.

Legacy and influence

World's first statue of Davis, unveiled in 2001, by Grzegorz Łagowski, in Kielce, Poland

Miles Davis is considered one of the most innovative, influential, and respected figures in the history of music. Based on professional rankings of his albums and songs, the aggregate website Acclaimed Music lists him as the 16th most acclaimed recording artist in history. The Guardian described him as "a pioneer of 20th-century music, leading many of the key developments in the world of jazz." He has been called "one of the great innovators in jazz", and had the titles Prince of Darkness and the Picasso of Jazz bestowed upon him. The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll said, "Miles Davis played a crucial and inevitably controversial role in every major development in jazz since the mid-'40s, and no other jazz musician has had so profound an effect on rock. Miles Davis was the most widely recognized jazz musician of his era, an outspoken social critic and an arbiter of style—in attitude and fashion—as well as music."

William Ruhlmann of AllMusic wrote, "To examine his career is to examine the history of jazz from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s, since he was in the thick of almost every important innovation and stylistic development in the music during that period ... It can even be argued that jazz stopped evolving when Davis wasn't there to push it forward."

His approach, owing largely to the African-American performance tradition that focused on individual expression, emphatic interaction, and creative response to shifting contents, had a profound impact on generations of jazz musicians. In 2016, digital publication The Pudding, in an article examining Davis's legacy, found that 2,452 Wikipedia pages mention Davis, with over 286 citing him as an influence.

The westernmost part of 77th Street in New York City has been named Miles Davis Way. He once lived on the block.

On November 5, 2009, U.S. Representative John Conyers of Michigan sponsored a measure in the United States House of Representatives to commemorate Kind of Blue on its 50th anniversary. The measure also affirms jazz as a national treasure and "encourages the United States government to preserve and advance the art form of jazz music". It passed with a vote of 409–0 on December 15, 2009. The trumpet Davis used on the recording is displayed on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. It was donated to the school by Arthur "Buddy" Gist, who met Davis in 1949 and became a close friend. The gift was the reason why the jazz program at UNCG is named the Miles Davis Jazz Studies Program.

In 1986, the New England Conservatory awarded Davis an honorary doctorate for his contributions to music. Since 1960 the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) honored him with eight Grammy Awards, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and three Grammy Hall of Fame Awards.

In 2001, The Miles Davis Story, a two-hour documentary film by Mike Dibb, won an International Emmy Award for arts documentary of the year. Since 2005, the Miles Davis Jazz Committee has held an annual Miles Davis Jazz Festival. Also in 2005, a London exhibition was held of his paintings, The Last Miles: The Music of Miles Davis, 1980-1991' was released detailing his final years and eight of his albums from the 1960s and 1970s were reissued in celebration of the 50th anniversary of his signing to Columbia Records. In 2006, Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2012, the U.S. Postal Service issued commemorative stamps featuring Davis.

Miles Ahead was a 2015 American music film directed by Don Cheadle, co-written by Cheadle with Steven Baigelman, Stephen J. Rivele, and Christopher Wilkinson, which interprets the life and compositions of Davis. It premiered at the New York Film Festival in October 2015. The film stars Cheadle, Emayatzy Corinealdi as Frances Taylor, Ewan McGregor, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Lakeith Stanfield. That same year a statue of him was erected in his home city, Alton, Illinois and listeners of BBC Radio and Jazz FM voted Davis the greatest jazz musician. Publications such as The Guardian have also ranked Davis amongst the best of all jazz musicians.

Awards and honors

Grammy Awards

• Miles Davis won eight Grammy Awards and received thirty-two nominations.

Other awards

Discography

The following list intends to outline Davis' major works, particularly studio albums. A more comprehensive discography can be found at the main article.

Filmography

Images for kids

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  Davis on piano with Howard McGhee (trumpet), Joe Albany (pianist, standing) and Brick Fleagle (guitarist, smoking), September 1947

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  Davis performing in Antibes, France, in July 1963

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  Davis performing in 1971

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  Davis's septet in November 1971; left to right: Gary Bartz, Davis, Keith Jarrett, Michael Henderson, Leon "Ndugu" Chancler, James Mtume, and Don Alias

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  Davis performing in 1985

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  Davis performing in Strasbourg, 1987

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  Davis at the North Sea Jazz Festival, 1991

See also

In Spanish: Miles Davis para niños