'Straight No Chaser'
The music of Miles Davis

The music of Miles Davis is not for the classic bebopper, the blues-drenched jazz buff, or the faint of heart who are still in a state of paralyzed confusion from the residue of marijuana binges, LSD trips, and whatever else. His music is not for those who sneer at "jazz fusion" because the powers-that-be may have told them that his music was somewhat skewed of the purest form of jazz the moment Miles brought amplifiers into the studio and cut Bitches Brew. Conversely, the music of Miles is for everyone and anyone who ever loved jazz!

Miles Davis encapsulated the many sides of his prodigious talent with that familiar provocative "Me-ness" that always identified his work instantly. "His music is a brew indeed, wildly contrasting rhythmic bottoms and electronic serial sound," wrote Imamu Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), author of Blues People and Black Music (Harper Perennial). Born in 1926, Miles grew up in East St. Louis, Illinois, to a privileged life. His family had a big house in the city and a 200-acre country estate where he loved to ride horses when he was a boy. Miles began playing the trumpet when he was 13-years-old, after receiving the instrument from his father and began practicing on it regularly. He loved music and admired jazz greats Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, whom he listened to on the radio.

Miles had his first professional gig when he was 17. He traveled across the river to St. Louis, Missouri to hear well-known jazz musicians play in clubs. Mesmerized by their talent and style, he would listen to their all-night jam sessions. One of them was Charlie Parker, a talented saxophonist. Charlie was the creative force behind a new form of jazz , later to be called "bebop." In playing bebop, musicians shifted accents to give the music an unpredictable and exciting sound. Miles was fascinated with bebop's complex melodic and harmonic structure. He wanted to play bebop, too.

Bebop had a following in New York City, the hottest jazz scene in the country at that time. Miles moved to New York where he could listen and learn bebop from the jazz greats Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. Miles' mother demanded that he attend college and get a degree instead of becoming a jazz musician. Miles compromised and agreed to study classical music at New York's prestigious Julliard School of Music.

After attending Julliard for a semester, Miles dropped out to pursue jazz full-time. As an African-American musician, Miles realized he would have difficulty getting work playing in classical symphonies. His goal was to play bebop like his idol, Parker. Night after night, Miles followed his quintet from one club to the next. Eventually, he was invited to be a substitute trumpet player for Charlie's quintet. As a substitute, Miles tried to mimic the playing of Dizzy Gillespie, the leading bebop trumpeter. Dizzy could hit high notes repeatedly and play at a fast, energetic pace. Miles struggled to recreate Dizzy's dynamic style and realized that he needed to find a sound of his own.

Miles found his own style in1949, and formed a nine-pieced piece band, The Miles Davis Nonet. Some people criticized him for hiring white musicians like Lee Konitz and Gerry Mulligan, but Miles never cared what color a person was if they could play music he liked.

Having departed from bebop's feverish pace, Miles used his trumpet to project a tender, dreamy sound. His music had a unique, poetic quality.

Miles continued inventing new ways of making music and in doing so, discovered many up-and-coming musicians like John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. In addition to his own recordings with his own small jazz groups, Miles also had great success with a large orchestra that his friend Gil Evans wrote the music for.

In later years, he experimented with fusing rock and pop music with jazz. From this union came: Straight No Chase in 1958 and would remain his personal testimony and signature piece.

One of his well-known contributions to the jazz world was Panthalassa- the name taken from the global ocean of Mirovia, an ocean that surrounded the oldest known supercontinent, Rodinia.

Miles stepped off into another world with this one, a re-mixed compilation of cuts from his best tracking days from 1969 to 1974; it resulted in a production far greater than the sum of its parts. With his whimsical shifting back and forth of his consciousness, Miles stitched various textures of electronic sound and synthesizers that featured original performances by Wayne Shorter, Carlos Garnett, Dave Liebman, Joe Zawinui, Chick Corea, Hancock, Cedric Lawson, John McLaughlin, Reggie Lucas, David Creamer, Pete Cosey, Dominique Gaumont, Colin Walcott, Dave Holland, Michael Henderson, Harold Williams, Khalil Balakrishna, Tony Williams, Jack DeJohnette, Al Foster, Badal Roy, Don Alias and Mtume.

In the mid-70s, Davis gave up recording entirely due to illness, undergoing surgery for hip replacement. Five years would pass before he returned to action by recording The Man With the Horn in 1980 and going back to touring in 1981. By now, he was an elder statesman of jazz, and his innovations had been incorporated into the music, at least by those who supported his eclectic approach. He was also a celebrity whose appeal extended far beyond the basic jazz audience. He performed on the worldwide jazz festival circuit and recorded a series of albums that made the pop charts, including We Want Miles (1982 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance by a Soloist), Star People, Decoy, and You're Under Arrest. In 1986, after 30 years with Columbia, he switched to Warner Bros. Records and released Tutu, which won him his fourth Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance. Aura, an album he had recorded in 1984, was released by Columbia in 1989 and brought him his fifth Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance by a Soloist (on a Jazz Recording).

Davis surprised jazz fans when, on July 8, 1991, he joined an orchestra led by Quincy Jones at the Montreux Jazz Festival to perform some of the arrangements written for him in the late '50s by Gil Evans; he had never previously looked back at an aspect of his career. He died of pneumonia, respiratory failure, and a stroke within months. Doo-Bop, his last studio album, appeared in 1992. It was a collaboration with rapper Easy Mo Bee, and it won a Grammy for Best Rhythm & Blues Instrumental Performance, with the track "Fantasy" nominated for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo. Released in 1993, Miles & Quincy Live at Montreux won Davis his seventh Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance. Miles Davis still remains the most mercurial of jazz artists! "Let us always be able to hear 'Straight No Chaser' any time we want to" . . . from the eulogy at Miles' funeral (1991).



 
Dolores Bundy may be reached at www.dbnetworkscorp.com or by email dbnetinc@mindspring.com