Miles Davis
American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer (1926-1991) · United States · Musicians · Died at 65
Miles Davis is read about 4,178 times a day, in 86 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 15 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 390 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?He kept turning the corner just as the rest of jazz caught up. Five decades, maybe seven distinct styles - bebop, cool jazz, modal, fusion - and each time he moved, the genre's center of gravity moved with him.
A life in dates
AmandlaAlbum1988Honorary Doctorate of Paris Nanterre UniversityAward1986
TutuAlbum1985You're Under ArrestAlbum1984Léonie Sonning Music PrizeAward1983Star PeopleAlbum1981
The Man With the HornAlbum1976
Water BabiesAlbum1974
Big FunAlbum1973“My ego only needs a good rhythm section.”In their words21 March 1973In "My ego only needs a good rhythm section" is also the title of an interview/article by Stephen Davis for The Real Paper (21 March 1973)1970
Bitches BrewAlbum1969
Filles de KilimanjaroAlbum1968
Miles in the SkyAlbum1965
E.S.P.Album1964“What am I supposed to say to that? That's ridiculous. You see the way they can ____ up music? It's a mismatch. They don't complement each other.”In their words18 June 1964Assessing the Ellington/Mingus/Roach recording of the Ellington-Tizol composition "Caravan", from ; in s "Blindfold Test" (June 18, 1964);“Take it off! That's some sad ____, man. In the first place, I hear some Charlie Parker cliches. . . . They don't even fit. Is that what the critics are digging?”In their words18 June 1964Reviewing "Lena" from Taylor's in DownBeats "Blindfold Test" (June 18, 1964); reproduced in The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Sixties (1966)1963Quiet NightsAlbum1958“The music has gotten thick. Guys give me tunes and they're full of chords.”In their wordsAbout the new modal style. Interviewed by The Jazz Review (1958); Quotes in Paul Maher, Michael K. Dorr (2009) Miles on Miles: Interviews“You can't play anything on a horn that Louis hasn't played." and "I love Pops" (Louis' nickname) … Louis has been through all kinds of styles. That's good tuba, by the way.”In their wordsIn The Jazz Review with Nat Hentoff (1958); also in , , , and in many other books1957“I can't tell... All those white tenor players sound alike to me.”In their wordsAssessing saxophonist for one of s "Blindfold Test" columns, c. 1957, in response to "Cycle," the opening track from Collette's ; as quoted1926Born26 May 1926Also in Deutsch
Photos 12
The house at 1701 Kansas Avenue in East St. Louis, Illinois, where Davis lived from 1939 to 1944
Tommy Potter, Charlie Parker, Max Roach, Miles Davis and Duke Jordan in August 1947
Davis on piano with Howard McGhee (trumpet), Joe Albany (pianist, standing) and Brick Fleagle (guitarist, smoking), September 1947
During the 1950s, Davis started using a Harmon mute on his trumpet. It became part of his signature sound for the rest of his career.
Davis performing in Antibes, France, in July 1963
Davis performing at Töölö Sports Hall (Messuhalli) in Helsinki, Finland, in October 1964
Davis performing in 1971In their own words 10
, My ego only needs a good rhythm section.
What am I supposed to say to that? That's ridiculous. You see the way they can ____ up music? It's a mismatch. They don't complement each other.
Take it off! That's some sad ____, man. In the first place, I hear some Charlie Parker cliches. . . . They don't even fit. Is that what the critics are digging?
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24.2K subscribersAlbums 24
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AMAmandla
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Miles Dewey Davis III was born into an upper-class Illinois family in 1926 and picked up trumpet as a teenager. He dropped out of Juilliard to play in Charlie Parker's bebop quintet, then recorded the Birth of the Cool sessions that helped define that sound. A heroin addiction shadowed the early 1950s, but a comeback at Newport in 1955 led to Columbia Records and 'Round About Midnight with John Coltrane and Paul Chambers. Kind of Blue followed in 1959 - still the bestselling jazz album ever, more than six million copies worldwide - and through the 1960s he cycled lineups and styles, from orchestral work with Gil Evans to the post-bop abstractions of his second great quintet with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. In 1969 he went electric with In a Silent Way, then Bitches Brew the next year, fusing jazz with rock and funk in ways that split the audience and sold a million records. After five years off for health, he returned in the 1980s with pop-leaning albums and sold-out tours, working until a stroke and pneumonia killed him in 1991 at sixty-five.
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