And today it’s exactly 100 years since the birth of this guy… a character who sailed the “mare magnum” of Jazz for 50 years.
He started from the vertical flights of Bird’s Bebop, then became “cool” and elegant, pulled Trane out from near-anonymity, but his drive, hunger, and curiosity were so voracious that he was always 1 meter ahead and at least 1 second before anyone else on the new and unexplored, leading him to expand the legacy with modal, and gifting that heart-in-your-throat jazz the breath of melody it lacked, the “calibration” of silence, opening up endless and unsuspected horizons and thus granting absolute freedom to all who were thirsty and eager to drink from that source.
It doesn’t matter if sometimes the idea, the burning spark at the start or the intuition came from others—he would never have admitted it, but surely he made that idea so much better that even its creator could never have imagined it so magnificent.
And so it was when he wanted to infuse music with electricity… always 1 meter ahead, always 1 second before, always… and never basking in the glory of all that bounty he’d already created—something that anyone else, even with only 10% of what this guy produced, could have lived off for five lifetimes—he never stopped. In fact, sometimes (even there), he knew when it was time (and that’s not for everyone), and the years went by until he was playing Michael Jackson or Cindy Lauper songs… horror, one might say, but that’s not the point. Let’s always remember where he started, what he went through, and where he arrived. That’s the perspective.
So much, so much… and he alone.
Happy Birthday Miles, and thank you for before, for now, and for tomorrow.
Miles Davis - Black Satin
Miles Davis - Spanish Key
Miles Davis - So What (Audio) (Official Audio)
Miles Davis - 'Round Midnight (Audio) (Official Audio)
Miles Davis - Boplicity