Miles Davis Essay, Research Paper

This book, written by Miles Davis, is the autobiography tht he wrote a few years

before he died. In this book I found how he first became interested in jazz. It

also explains how he became one of the best jazz players of all time. Miles was

born in Alton, Illinois in 1926 and grew up in eastern St. Louis. He learned how

to play trumpet while in high school on the trumpet that his father gave to him

for his 13th birthday. He was a bog fan of jazz and said that the thing that

made up his mind to be a musician was wheh he first heard Billy Eckstines band

with Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet, and Charlie parker playing the sax. He then

moved to New York looking for Charlie Parker and to study classical trumpet at

Juilliard School of music. Aftera while parkers drug problem began to take over

his life, and this also affected Davis. Davis took some time toget over that,

and by the late 50s he was a much bigger star than he had been before due to

some of his recent recordings. In 1969, Davis started to record more electronic

music, which was the start of the azz-Rock. Later on, when he came out with the

albums A Tribute to Jack Johnson, and On the Corner, fans were dissapointed, and

thought it was a terrible portrayal of the jazz they knew. Miles then sort of

dissapeared from the view of the public eye between 1975 and 1981, but even when

he came back, he wasn?t as into playing anymore as he had used to be. He

played again a couple times before he died in 1991 at 65 years old. As for the

author?s description of the book, it was all first person, because he wrote

the book himself with the help of Quincy Troupe. My conclusion to this book

strenghtens what I think about musicians. I don?t understand why lots of

famous people and especially musicians experiment with drugs. I would think that

if their life is going well why mess with it. Another thing this book made me

think about is that Miles is still a very widely known artist. Before reading

this book I hadnt known that he died in 1991, I thought that him and his music

was something that died long ago and only older people listened to. That is

wrong though. I enjoyed this book and didn?t realize before how much work it

takes to live forever in history.