When was miles davis born

From then to , Davis remained vital and popular, receiving the Grammy Lifetime Acheivement Award in Skip to main content. Date of death: Sep 28, Related Audio. Aug 09, Apr 29, Apr 27, Mar 30, Apr 24, And note that he said music, not jazz. But his own music was straining the bonds of category as early as Birth of the Cool, the collection of recordings that initiated a still-evolving exchange of ideas between jazz and European-based classical music. Critics and musicians who are still trying to hold the line against this cultural democratization, mostly from the classical and jazz camps, are classist bigots fighting a losing battle with musical and social realities.

His stylish mother, an accomplished keyboard player and violinist, wore mink coats and diamonds; Davis credited her with inspiring his own sartorial elegance. Davis grew up in East St.

The worst of them occurred in , less than a decade before Miles III was born, and the bitterness and tension lingered on. In the year-old Miles Davis first heard modern jazz — the music that changed his life — when Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie played in St. After sitting in with the band for the two weeks Eckstine was in St. Louis, Davis wanted to go on the road. His family restrained him, but he was able to convince them to send him to New York, ostensibly to study classical music at Juilliard, in September In May , he made his recording debut, backing the blues singer Rubberlegs Williams.

But Parker, whose drug use was already taking on mythic proportions, did not introduce Davis to drugs, as many people once thought. Other musicians had already introduced him to marijuana which he rarely smoked , heroin which he soon became addicted to , and cocaine one of the principal enthusiasms of his later life. But Davis was too strong-willed to put up with the indignities and uncertainties of drug dependence indefinitely.

He kicked heroin in and had reportedly given up both cocaine and alcohol by the mid-Eighties. He made his first recordings as a leader on August 14th, , with Parker — playing tenor saxophone rather than his customary alto — featured as a sideman.

In the trumpeter put together a nine-piece group to play compositions and arrangements with a richer, almost orchestral texture. The group — which included saxophonist Gerry Mulligan and played two songs arranged by Gil Evans — was mostly white. And though he often spoke out on racial matters with a caustic directness that led some critics to call him arrogant and even a racist in reverse, Davis continued to be colorblind when hiring musicians; several of his post bands were racially mixed as well.

For several years he performed and recorded sporadically while fighting his heroin habit. In , with his drug addiction behind him, Davis made important recordings with Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, and other formidable figures.

By Davis altered his style again, recording The Birth of the Cool as part of a nine-piece band arranged by Gerry Mulligan. One year later he gave an historic solo performance at the Newport Jazz Festival that earned him a recording contract with Columbia Records.

His album Bitches Brew earned him a Grammy Award and a gold record and placed him at the height of his international fame. Davis however had returned to alcohol and drug abuse and was forced to retire in Davis periodically returned to the stage in the s, however, he refused to play earlier hits.

Only during what would be his last concert in did Davis perform old standards.