Let's Talk Jazz Again : The Chameleon Miles Davis

     Last week I wrote about many Jazz artists, from the ones that are super popular till this day, to the classics of the Jazz community. But among the many great Jazz musicians in music history, there is one that has been my favorite for a long time: Miles Davis, which was the one I mentioned last week as the example of "Hard to listen to". But you couldn't be more wrong to categorize him as that type of artist, no, Miles is one of the most diverse and innovative music genius ever existed.

    My relationship with Miles Davis's music started out very early, but unfortunately, too early for my young mind to comprehend. I think I was around 5th grade, and my German teacher recommended me some pieces of music as we did every week after we had class at the time. And that was when he showed me a live performance of Miles's famous song " So What". (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqNTltOGh5c this is the exact video he showed me back then, enjoy) Besides the super cool atmosphere and the way Miles lit a cigarette right after his solo, nothing really left an impression on me. It wasn't until I joined the wind band in my high school did I revisit the piece, and boy was it so much better to listen to after I gathered enough musical experience. 

    Miles Davis's music are drastically different based on the stage of his career, they are so different from each other that for many people it's hard to believe that all of them are created by one person. He started out with Cool Jazz in the late 1940s to the 1950s, it is a style more calm and relaxing compared to another type of Jazz that was also famous at the time :Bebop. In my opinion, that was also one of the more "friendly to listen to" era of Miles Davis. I recommend the 1957 compilation album "Birth of Cool" for those who are interested in that period of Miles, as the name suggests, cool, stylish, and innovative. Plus the album cover is super cool. Moving up to the mid 50s, Miles started to put more blue influenced elements in his works, and they became more emotional compared to the simply "cool" sounding records. The style was called " Hard-Bop". Most of the songs have a melancholy vibe to it, but still maintained the stylish sound Miles was going for. The 1957 album " Round about Midnight " perfectly executed this idea and is one of my personal favorites from Miles, just press play from the very first song and you will be captivated by the very first note. In the late 50s to the early 60s, Miles revolutionized Jazz once again with something called " Modal Jazz " (Yes Nujabes was inspired by this). Traditional Jazz used chords mostly for song progression, but Miles went the total opposite way by using super simple scales. This was the time when Miles's works started to become more artistic and experimental, which is why they might be hard to listen to, but once you start to get them and appreciate them, they are some of the most beautiful pieces of musics ever created. His most successful album " Kind of Blue" happens to be the birth child of this style, the song " So What" I previously mentioned was also in this album. After he's done with traditional instruments (since he played in every way possible), he switched his target to electric music and rock music which were both relatively new at the time. "Fusion Jazz" is what people later called this genre, Miles mixed electrical instruments with Jazz to create this brand new experimental style, and soooo many bands were inspired by him after this.

    Well I guess that's it for this week's Jazz rant, I still have so much to say about Miles Davis but it would be way to long of an essay for my fellow classmates to read, so if your interested, dive into the world of Jazz and see what you find! See you next week.