50 Fun Facts About Miles Davis

Miles Davis was born in 1926 in Alton, Illinois, and raised in which nearby city?

His father was a dentist and his mother a violinist and music teacher; the family also owned a 200-acre Arkansas farm.

Davis's boyhood teacher Elwood Buchanan slapped his knuckles whenever he played with what?

The lesson stuck: Davis prized 'a round sound with no attitude in it' for the rest of his career.

Davis moved to New York in 1944 to study at which institution, dropping out after three semesters?

He spent most of his time in Harlem clubs hunting for his idol Charlie Parker, who became his roommate.

Whom did Davis replace in Charlie Parker's quintet in 1945?

His solo on Parker's 'Now's the Time' that November already hinted at cool jazz.

Which unusual instruments for modern jazz did the Miles Davis Nonet use on Birth of the Cool?

The arrangements by Gil Evans, John Lewis and Gerry Mulligan aimed at a thick, almost orchestral sound imitating the human voice.

The nonet's dozen tracks for Capitol were finally compiled on an album in which year?

The sessions sold little at the time but shaped the 'cool' or 'West Coast' style; the band's only live engagement was opening for Count Basie.

At the 1949 Paris Jazz Festival, Davis began an affair with which French singer and actress?

The trip 'changed the way I looked at things forever'; they were lovers on and off for years.

Which drug addiction derailed Davis's early 1950s, until he kicked it at his father's home in 1954?

A DownBeat interview with Cab Calloway made the habit public, which Davis never forgave.

Some critics credit which April 1954 Davis album with creating the hard bop genre?

The period also saw him adopt the Harmon mute placed close to the microphone, and the spacious phrasing inspired by pianist Ahmad Jamal.

Davis's famous rasping voice was the result of what?

Doctors told him to stay silent after a 1955 operation on his larynx; he got into a row and permanently damaged his vocal cords.

Miles Davis's acclaimed 1955 comeback performance took place at which festival?

Columbia's George Avakian signed him with a $4,000 advance, though he still owed Prestige four albums.

Which saxophonist replaced Sonny Rollins to complete Davis's 'first great quintet' in 1955?

With Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, they made 'Round About Midnight, his first Columbia album.

The quintet's 1956 marathon Prestige sessions were released as four albums with what kind of titles?

Each was acclaimed and helped establish the group as one of the best in jazz.

Who directed Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1957), whose soundtrack Davis improvised while watching the film?

The band of French musicians plus drummer Kenny Clarke used no written score.

Which 1957 record began Davis's five-album collaboration with arranger Gil Evans?

It included Delibes's 'The Maids of Cadiz', the first classical piece Davis recorded.

Sketches of Spain (1960) centres on the second movement of which Joaquín Rodrigo work?

The album also drew on Manuel de Falla; classical players struggled to improvise and jazz players struggled with the charts.

Which classically trained pianist did Davis hire in 1958 to play modal jazz?

His impressionistic approach shaped Kind of Blue, but he quit after eight months of touring, exhausted.

Kind of Blue was recorded in which year?

The sessions took place in March and April; the sextet saw three of the five tunes for the first time in the studio.

On which single Kind of Blue track does Wynton Kelly play piano?

'So What' and 'All Blues' had been road-tested; the other three tunes were new to the band in the studio.

How many US platinum certifications had Kind of Blue earned by 2019?

That is over five million US copies, and Congress passed a resolution in 2009 honouring it as a national treasure.

Outside which New York club was Davis beaten and arrested by police in August 1959?

He needed five stitches after being told to 'move on' while escorting a woman to a taxi; he was acquitted of assault in 1960.

The cover of Someday My Prince Will Come (1961) shows Frances Taylor after Davis demanded Columbia do what?

Taylor was a dancer he had met at Ciro's in Los Angeles in 1953.

How old was drummer Tony Williams when he joined Davis's band in 1963?

Williams and the 23-year-old Herbie Hancock made Davis 'excited all over again'.

Which saxophonist, lured from the Jazz Messengers in 1964, became the main composer of Miles Davis's second quintet?

The album E.S.P. (1965) was named after one of his compositions.

The second quintet's open approach, abandoning chord sequences, became known by what phrase?

From 1967 the band also played its concerts as continuous sets, each tune flowing into the next.

Which 1969 album, recorded in a single session, marked Davis's entry into jazz fusion?

Producer Teo Macero pieced its two side-long tracks together from different takes; some critics cried 'sell-out'.

Bitches Brew (1970) reached what peak position on the Billboard album chart?

It went gold in 1976 and had sold a million copies by 2003, helping revive jazz's commercial fortunes.

Davis played to the largest crowd of his career, an estimated 600,000 people, at which August 1970 event?

That year he opened for rock acts like the Steve Miller Band and Neil Young at the Fillmore East.

Whose funeral was the last one Davis ever attended, after plans to record together were cut short?

The guitarist died in September 1970; Davis's 30-minute 'He Loved Him Madly' later paid tribute to Ellington.

Davis's 1970 soundtrack album Jack Johnson accompanied a documentary about which sportsman?

Davis was a lifelong boxing fan who modelled his attitude on Sugar Ray Robinson.

Which avant-garde composer, introduced to Davis by Paul Buckmaster in 1972, influenced On the Corner?

Davis complained Columbia marketed On the Corner to jazz stations when it was meant for young black R&B listeners.

Miles Davis's live albums Agharta and Pangaea document two sets played on 1 February 1975 in which city?

By then Davis was ill and playing with his back to the audience; he quit music entirely later that year.

Roughly how long did Davis's retirement from music last, from 1975?

During it, he wrote, 'sex and drugs took the place music had occupied in my life'.

Which actress nursed Davis after his 1982 stroke, got him off drink and drugs and encouraged him to draw?

A Chinese acupuncturist helped him regain the use of his paralysed right hand; painting became a lifelong pursuit.

You're Under Arrest (1985) covered 'Human Nature' and which Cyndi Lauper song?

Davis argued that today's standards had been Broadway pop songs, so he was just updating the repertoire.

Tutu (1986), his first album using programmed synths and drum loops, was made with which bassist-producer?

The cover is an Irving Penn portrait; a collaboration with Prince, 'Can I Play With U', stayed unreleased until 2020.

Davis had a small part as a street musician in which 1988 Christmas comedy?

Bill Murray starred; Davis later played a jazz musician in the 1991 Australian film Dingo.

Who conducted the orchestra when Miles Davis revisited his Gil Evans arrangements at Montreux in 1991?

The concert was released posthumously as Miles & Quincy Live at Montreux.

Which French culture minister made Davis a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1991?

Two years earlier the mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, had given him the city's Grande Médaille de Vermeil.

Davis's final live performance, on 25 August 1991, took place at which venue?

He died a month later in Santa Monica of a stroke, pneumonia and respiratory failure, aged 65.

Davis was buried with a trumpet in Woodlawn Cemetery, near which jazz giant's grave?

His posthumous Doo-Bop (1992) was hip-hop influenced, one last stylistic leap.

How many Grammy Awards did Davis win in his career?

He received 32 nominations, a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990 and three Grammy Hall of Fame awards.

Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in which year?

The Hall called him 'one of the key figures in the history of jazz'.

The 2015 biopic Miles Ahead was directed by and starred which actor as Davis?

It was Cheadle's feature directing debut, with Ewan McGregor as a journalist and Emayatzy Corinealdi as Frances Taylor.

At which Columbia Records facility in New York was Kind of Blue recorded?

Two sessions, on March 2 and April 22, 1959, produced the whole album on three-track tape.

Which saxophonist's 1959 arrival muted Kind of Blue's initial impact, irritating Davis?

His Five Spot residency and The Shape of Jazz to Come stole attention; Davis never reconciled himself to free jazz.

In which year did Kind of Blue enter the National Recording Registry's very first class?

Colin Larkin had already ranked it the number one jazz album of all time in 1994, and Rolling Stone placed it 12th among all albums in 2003.

Which Grammy did Bitches Brew win in 1971?

In 1976 it became Davis's first album certified Gold by the RIAA, and it has sold more than a million copies.

How many edits does the Bitches Brew track 'Pharaoh's Dance' contain?

Its stop-start opening was built entirely in the studio from tape loops, with producer Teo Macero treating the studio as an instrument.

Who painted the cover of Bitches Brew?

The album was recorded over three days in August 1969 at Columbia's Studio B and released the following March.