Miles Davis – All Blues

Who is Miles Davis?  Full name: Miles Dewey Davis  Born: 26th May 1926 in Illinois  Died: 28th September 1991  First instrument was the trumpet, he had a number of teachers but he felt that he learnt the most from Elwood Buchanan a jazz trumpeter. It was through Elwood that Davis was introduced to a variety of jazz music.  Attended the Juilliard School of Music in New York.  Met Bebop legends Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie in New York.  Left Juilliard after one year to start to play on the jazz circuit.

 Worked as Charlie Parker as his sideman & recorded songs for the Dial record label.  Parker was like a mentor to Davis, he introduced him to many big name jazz artists which helped him to develop his talent.  1948 Davis left Parker’s band to form his own ensemble & began to look for a new way of playing jazz to break away from the constrictions of Bebop.  In the following year 1949 Davis recorded the album The Birth of The Cool with his ensemble. This introduced a more relaxed jazz sound.

 After the Second World War Bebop, which is also know as Bop developed from Swing music.

Features of Bebop  Fast tempo.  Lots of improvisation.  Complex harmonies.  Excited syncopated rhythms.  Irregular phrase lengths.  Less of a strict structure.

 Davis wanted to move away from the constricting features of Bebop. His solos changed the way in which jazz was played. Davis started to adopt the below techniques:

 Improvise tuneful, singable melodies rather than crazy runs.  Used scales as the basis for his improvisations.  Lyrical style of playing.  Used a key signature rather than changing the chord every bar.  Used the natural sound of the trumpet rather than making it sound forced. Used the lower registers of the trumpet.

 Davis’ addiction to the drug heroine negatively affected his musical work and output.  After struggling with his drug addiction Davis took some time out of the New York jazz scene making his comeback at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1955.  Later that year he put together a new musical ensemble The New Miles Davis Quintet including some of the top musicians of the time Paul Chambers and John Coltrane. It was this ensemble that recorded the album Kind of Blue in 1959 which included the track All Blues. This album is considered to be his best album.