Miles Davis is an icon, a true legend of music. He was a masterful
trumpet player who "explored the instrument's lower register and tended to
play slower, more lyrical lines, often melancholy, rather than the showers
of high notes," such as that of Dizzy Gillespie and others (Miles pp).
Davis, who released a multitude of recordings during his forty-five year
career, offering a bewildering array of different styles, was at the center
of almost every movement in modern jazz, from early be-bop, the cool sound,
hard bop, orchestral experimentation, the "modal revolution," and fusion
(Miles pp). Davis played with most of the key jazz artists from the post-
war era, including Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Herbie
Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and Tony Williams (Miles pp). Davis has been
called the Picasso of Jazz, for he reinvented himself and his sound
endlessly in his musical quest (Cool pp). "He was an artist that defied
(and despised) categorization, yet he was the forerunner and innovator of
many distinct and important musical movements (Cool pp). Davis, an
original, lyrical soloist, and demanding group leader, was the most
consistently innovative musician in jazz from the late 1940's through the
1960's (Dewey pp). Probably the one single artist that best represents the
turbulent course jazz has taken through the years is Miles Davis (Miles
Miles Dewey Davis III grew up in East St. Louis, took up the trumpet
at the age of thirteen and two years later was playing professionally with
local jazz bands around town (Dewey pp). In September 1944, he moved to
New York City, ostensibly to enter the Institute of Musical Art, now the
Juilliard School, however, it was actually to locate his idol Charlie
Parker (Dewey pp). Davis joined Parker in live performances and recording
sessions from 1945-1948, and at the same time played in other groups and
toured with big ba...