Miles Davis, The True Cool Cat (Sumbmission #4)

Miles Davis. Many hear this name and shrug it off. "Who is that", "Is he someone important?" these are the  frequent questions of a musically uneducated person. This post is focused with bridging the gap of ignorance in order to open up the eyes to more people and how this men like Miles Davis can change the face of music. With trumpet in hand, Davis flows out his soul into the air mixing melancholy with the exciting and sometimes confusing. There is a solid formality to him, a "swagger"  he carries that most don't, and it makes him who he is. His music is the embodiment of his own soul. Miles Davis, at the time of his very first recording, was a bit of an outcast in the music industry. A man with no direction, but only when he met John Coltrane(another powerhouse in the jazz age) did things start to change. In his 58' sessions, Miles produced his famous "Milestones" album, which in today's world, stands as a pinnacle of jazz imagination and interpretation. This sparked the term "Kind of Blue Period" and many believe that his works within from, 1955-1961, to be his greatest works ever. This period was a phase of typical jazz style music, not branching out for new innovative sounds. But there is something about his music, a feeling one can't pin down, that makes Miles stand out. Even today, many jazz artists use miles as a comparison Miles Davids, but there is no real comparison. His works redefined what "bop" jazz could be. His sextet burst onto the scene and he caught fire, a ragin' blazing fire. But like many artists, Miles wanted to push his music forward, and create something never heard before. Well in the 1960's he did just that. By this time his style was well known, and Mile's was yearning for something different. Teaming up with Gil Evans, he produced albums that incorporated his renowned jazz style with classical orchestrations. An odd pair at first glance, but his "Sketches of Spain" album was also a fresh breathe in the jazz world. With wild electric bass riffs along with the fluid sounds of cellos, Miles reinvents what jazz can be. New broad colorful sounds added a sense of eeriness to his works. Sounding almost too weird to be music but not so weird as to cause disconnect with the music itself. Gil's original compositions pushed Miles even further. He redefined jazz He would go on to do this several times throughout his life. Therefore, as obvious as anyone can predict, from 1957-1968 was called the "Sketches of Spain Era". His colorful blending of typical jazz lines and classical orchestrations pushed Miles to the forefront of the jazz era, and people were getting excited. Miles produced albums that incorporated smooth tones with basic superimposed rifts and sometimes would create music that's so complex in style and life that it just seems hard to understand. This was Miles' goal, however. Miles went through a couple of period redefining, re-imagining, and reshaping. His flamboyant complexities made Miles one of THE BEST jazz artists of all time. Even his Funk Era helped define who he was. Mr. Davis embodied what music could be. Miles is truly the cool cat of the music biz.