Jazz Articles about Miles Davis

About Miles Davis

Album Review

Miles Davis: Miles Davis at Newport 1955-1975: The Bootleg Series Vol. 4

Read "Miles Davis at Newport 1955-1975: The Bootleg Series Vol. 4" reviewed by Maurizio Comandini

by Maurizio Comandini
September 28, 2015

Il criterio utilizzato dai produttori della Sony Legacy, per questo quarto box della eccellente 'The Bootleg Series,' è piuttosto interessante e singolare: il legame che lega assieme varie performance di Miles Davis con i suoi vari gruppi, non è quello temporale come succede di solito, ma bensì quello spaziale, per di più preso in senso molto lato. Infatti il collante per i brani contenuti in questo cofanetto di quattro CD è il Festival di Newport, inteso in senso letterale ma ...

Extended Analysis

Miles Davis at Newport 1955-1975: The Bootleg Series Vol. 4

by Doug Collette
August 24, 2015

There's a theory a nascent jazzlover could build an estimable collection of the music simply by picking and choosing from the discography of Miles Davis and the various musicians with whom he's collaborated over the years. Likewise, the mercurial alterations of style enacted by the man with the horn reflect the evolution of the music itself, never so vividly captured as this edition of The Bootleg Series. On Vol. 4 At Newport 1955-1975, the ascension of Davis as ...

Book Review

Listen To This: Miles Davis And Bitches Brew

by Ian Patterson
May 26, 2015

Listen To This: Miles Davis and Bitches Brew Victor Svorinich 202 Pages ISBN: 978-1-62846-194-7 The University Press of Mississippi 2015 Surprisingly, Victor Svorinich's book is the first dedicated exclusively to a study of Miles Davis's ground-breaking album Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970). Surprising, because just about every facet of the iconic trumpeter's career has already been exhaustively documented. Svorinich, a music faculty member of Kean University in Union, New Jersey, previously put the microscope ...

Live Review

Jazz and Theatre: A Review of “Miles & Coltrane: Blue”

by K. Shackelford
May 19, 2015

When trying to understand the rise and phenomenon of jazz music in the 1950's and 1960's, understanding the life of the jazz musician is equally important. Many of their stories illuminated heroic musical genius birthed out of pain, hope, and a charged political ethos. The play Miles & Coltrane: Blue delivered a snapshot of this experience through the lens of jazz icons Miles Davis and John Coltrane. It was recently performed at The International Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro, North ...

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Building a Jazz Library

1959: The Most Creative Year in Jazz

by Nathan Holaway
April 8, 2015

1959 was arguably the most creative year in all of jazz history. Bird had already passed away, and this year would see the passings of Lester Young and Billie Holiday. Musically speaking, when we read jazz history texts or see the labels among the many diverse styles of jazz (i.e “Free Jazz," “Modal Jazz," “Third Stream," etc...), we tend to separate these different styles into alternate universes. In fact, many of the contributions we now consider to be jazz “classics" ...

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Building a Jazz Library

Miles Davis

by AAJ Staff
April 5, 2015

Trumpeter Miles Davis (1926-1991) is perhaps the most influential figure in the history of jazz. He regularly reinvented his sound, changing styles abruptly and pulling the rest of the jazz community along with him. Davis moved from East St. Louis to New York City in 1944, ostensibly to attend Juilliard. But he soon lost interest in school and spent his time gigging with local musicians. In 1945, at the age of nineteen, he joined Charlie Parker's quintet, where ...

Book Excerpts

Listen to This: Miles Davis and "Bitches Brew"

by Victor Svorinich
March 26, 2015

The following is an excerpt from the “MUSIC" chapter of Listen to This: Miles Davis and “Bitches Brew" by Victor Svorinich (University Press of Mississippi, 2015). Call It Anything “I'd like to say one thing about Miles Davis. One time he said to me, 'Hey Wayne, do you get tired of playing music that sounds like music?'" --Wayne Shorter “Call It Anything" was one of the working titles used for Bitches Brew. It ...