How Did Miles Davis Influence Jazz

Miles Davis, one of jazz’s most influential musicians with career that expanded six decades. Davis was known for his always changing style, from bebop to rock. He had been part of the bebop, cool jazz, hardbop, modal, rock-fusion movements, and shortly before his death working with hip-hop fusion. Throughout his entire career, Miles Davis preferred the audience recognize him for what he was doing then, not what he had done in the past. Over his sixty-year career he had earned several nicknames: The Sorcerer, the Prince of Darkness, and the man who walked on eggshells. In this paper, I plan to examine the influences that Miles Davis had on jazz. Starting with the bebop era, when his career first began, to his final collaboration released following his death. While in school Davis had learned how to play the trumpet, and following graduation he attended Julliard in New York. However, he dropped out of Julliard in 1945 in order join one of bebop’s pioneers, Charlie Parker. It was

The nonet was his chance to prove himself to the jazz community, Davis at the time was not as established as many of the other musicians of the cool jazz movement and he was determined to change that. It was during this time Davis forged a working relationship with arranger Gil Evans, Evans and Davis work on few albums together. Both men had a relationship that was like magic; they worked together to release the album, Birth of Cool, in 1954. This album was responsible for drawing attention to the cool jazz movement and influencing the future of the movement. Davis at the time of the cool jazz movement was gripped by heroin addiction and much of his music influenced by the addiction; Davis made the decision to quit the drug and come back a new man. After beating his addiction to heroin Davis decided to move on to new emerging movement, in jazz,