David Nezelek
Cibbuano
TyronneMiles Davis
December 18th 2007 00:09
Miles Davis - Lungs of Desire
A generation of experience
Few would argue that Miles Davis was a revolutionary musician without peer as a Jazz Trumpeter.
Overcoming professional obstacles and struggling with addiction, tragic loss and personal demons. His passionate and precise notes proving technical brilliance, a lifetime of dedication to his craft shaped and engineered pivotal advancements in the genre.
Davis and his best friend
Following in the footsteps of Southern Trumpet legends like Louis Armstrong and Dizzie Gillespie, Miles Davis was born in Illinois in 1926. The son of a Dentists he grew up with a level of financial security.
Disappointing his mother by not taking up her cherished instrument of the blues piano, Miles once quipped that his father selected the trumpet because he knew of his wife’s disdain for the sound.
Beginning his musical odyssey sometime around 1939 Davis’ first teacher was Elwood Buchanan. A strict believer in getting a natural and balance sound this was where the refined control of his unique style was born.
Within a few years he was working professionally and became fast friends with talented muso Clark Terry. Before the time he left high school he had already performed alongside Dizzie Gillespie and Charlie “Bird” Parker.
Moving to New York City in 1944 he accepted a scholarship at the prestigious Juilliard School of Music to appease his parents. The big apple offered opportunity and Miles ignored study and instead found solace with Charlie Parker.
Making his first recording in 1945 as a member of Parker’s unofficial quartet, he can be heard on numerous influential albums done at the time for the Dial and Savoy label.
The title says it all
After several years in the shadows, Miles Davis emerged as a headlining artist and by the early 1950’s had visited Europe and performed at the Paris Jazz Festival. He also began recording the now seminal bebop blue note sessions with a who’s who of band members.
Around this same time Miles developed devotion for the mistress called heroin. Sincerely hooked on the opiate he broke the bond by returning home and locking himself in his father’s barn for a week.
Once recovered and recuperated Davis continued to build his legacy to the music he loved. For the next three decades honing his own techniques, refining melody and embracing new technology to often sit at the forefront of each new wave of genre invention.
Publicity in the 80's
Instigating change, incorporating electronic beats and rhythms into his work, he influenced the culture as well as the industry. Miles Davis’ death in 1991 was a massive loss that will never be replenished.
Here is an ice cool clip of Miles playing alongside Dizzy for the tune "So What"
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