At the dawn of the 1980s trumpeter Miles Davis emerged from a five-year retirement and made his way back into the limelight. Dogged by health issues, by his own account Davis had spent much of his hiatus watching television, engaging in personal excess, and rarely picking up his trumpet. His chops were weak, and he also had his own legacy to contend with--a remarkable 30-year span of creativity from 1945 to 1975 that placed him in the middle or at the front of some of the most significant changes in jazz.
