Miles Davis

Trumpet

He often played it with a Harmon mute, which gave him his quiet, pinched sound.

💡 Did you know? His father gave him his first trumpet for his thirteenth birthday.

Kind of Blue

It was made in just two studio sessions; the musicians got little more than sketches.

💡 Did you know? Improvising over scales instead of chord changes made it the model for modal jazz.

Juilliard School

He attended only briefly; his real school was the jazz clubs of 52nd Street.

💡 Did you know? He had come to New York mainly to find Charlie Parker.

Charlie Parker

Davis became the trumpeter in Parker’s quintet and learned fast bebop there.

💡 Did you know? At nineteen he shared the stage with the most important improviser of his time.

Cool jazz

The recordings were later collected as “Birth of the Cool”.

💡 Did you know? Many of the pieces were arranged by Gil Evans and Gerry Mulligan.

Bitches Brew

The album is seen as a starting point of jazz fusion and earned Davis his first gold record.

💡 Did you know? Many of his players went on to form their own fusion bands, such as Weather Report.

Prince of Darkness

He often turned his back on the audience while playing and spoke in a hoarse whisper.

💡 Did you know? The voice came from a throat operation after which he raised it too soon.

John Coltrane

Coltrane was struggling with heroin addiction at the time, and in 1957 Davis let him go for a while because of it.

💡 Did you know? Coltrane later became one of the greatest figures in jazz in his own right.

Sketches of Spain

Evans arranged the slow movement of Joaquín Rodrigo’s guitar concerto for orchestra and trumpet.

💡 Did you know? Davis and Evans had already recorded “Miles Ahead” and “Porgy and Bess” together.

1991

He died at 65 after a stroke and pneumonia.

💡 Did you know? That same summer he had played the old Gil Evans pieces with Quincy Jones in Montreux.

Miles Davis