This year marks what would be the 100th birthday of Miles Davis, one of the most beloved and iconic jazz artists of the 20th century. Pacific Northwest jazz musicians praise the trailblazer’s spacious, intentional and graceful approach to improvisation and composition.
Davis was born in Alton, Illinois on May 26, 1926, into a wealthy middle class family, according to The Rough Guide to Jazz. His father, Miles Dewey Davis Jr., was a dentist and ranch owner, and his mother, Cleota Henry Davis, was a music teacher and violinist.
Davis started trumpet at 9, and quickly developed on the instrument. While in school, he played in his high school jazz band and also with a St. Louis-based band called Eddie Randall’s Blue Devils. In 1944, he went to study at Julliard, but eventually dropped out to get bandstand experience, playing the clubs in New York City with artists like Coleman Hawkins and Charlie Parker.
By 1948, Davis had started his own group and in 1949, he got his first international exposure playing at the Paris Jazz Festival. The next year saw the dawn of the iconic Miles Davis Quintet with John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones. The group recorded six albums in 12 months.
With another iteration of this group, featuring saxophonists Cannonball Adderley and John Coltrane, Davis released Kind of Blue in 1959. This record, which introduced an atmospheric and laid back modal sound to the jazz vocabulary, is regarded by many as one of, if not the, most influential record in the canon.
Davis established himself as one of the most influential musicians and bandleaders in modern jazz, and he maintained that reputation throughout his decades-long career as a performer, bandleader, and composer. Davis, who died Sept. 28, 1991, is still remembered as one of jazz’s most creative and celebrated musical voices.
Here’s what four regional musicians had to say about Davis’ impact on their music careers.
Thomas Marriott, Seattle jazz trumpeter
“Miles Davis is somebody who has always had a huge influence on me, and I think one of the reasons why his music and his playing have been so impactful to me is that he has a way and a style of playing that creates an excitement and a drama and an energy, without using a lot of notes and without using a lot of flash. He uses a lot of space, and the sound; a very intense, very beautiful, but also very intense sound to communicate a lot of emotion.
And most of the time, as we play, we think about building emotion by going from simple to complex, soft to loud, low register to high register, all of those things. And Miles does use those things, but his use of space is particularly compelling because it really brings you in. It really makes you listen. It really captivates your attention. Also it reflects a certain kind of vulnerability, that it's not flashy, and that it doesn't have to be about that, and that the music is really not about the notes, it's how you play them.”
Dmitry Matheny, jazz trumpeter and flugel hornist
“When I was five years old, my father would play the classic album, Kind of Blue, and the music filled our little apartment. I was mesmerized. I said, ‘Daddy, what's that sound?’ And he replied, ‘That's jazz. That's Miles Davis.’ I was hooked. After that, whenever anybody asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say, I'm going to be a jazz musician, just like Miles Davis. Now that's a true story. His sound and style have been a major inspiration to me ever since.”
Riley Mulherkar, trumpeter and member of The Westerlies
“When I was in third grade, I received a copy of Miles's record, Kind of Blue, and that set me on a trajectory of dedicating my life to this music, of studying the instrument, the trumpet, of transcribing his notes and trying to get inside Mile’s sound, trying to get inside his mind, getting older and discovering more and more of his records and his great bands.
For me, it was really his collaborations with Gil Evans that changed my life. His record, Porgy and Bess remains maybe my favorite record of all time. So when I think about a favorite song, or favorite songs by Miles, for me it goes back to that record, you know, the way it starts with the power of the “Buzzard Song” or the intimacy of a track like “My Man's Gone Now,” or the one that always really gets me is “Prayer.” That's a song I turn to over and over and over again. So happy birthday Miles Davis, and I'm so grateful for all the music he gave the world.”
Alex Chadsey, jazz pianist
“I think the reason Miles had such a huge impact on my life, musically and personally, was that as someone who had sort of been steeped in classical piano music for so many years, hearing Miles for the first time was like tasting a new kind of freedom musically.
Miles Davis was one of the artists who made me really fall in love with the jazz tradition and made me want to play jazz. You know, everything Miles played, he played it with so much feeling and so much soul and also grace and elegance.
And everything he played, he made it sound so easy. And of course, as I soon found out when I started trying to play jazz myself, was that it's not easy. That's the sign of a true master, someone who can make something that's actually so difficult sound so easy.”
