50 free Miles Davis trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Miles Davis trivia for jazz heads, record collectors and anyone who owns Kind of Blue and wants to know what came before and after it. The quiz opens in East St. Louis with the dentist's son whose teacher rapped his knuckles for using vibrato, then follows him to Juilliard, to Charlie Parker's bebop quintet, and to Gil Evans's apartment where the nonet that became Birth of the Cool was hatched. The middle rounds cover the great 1950s: the Prestige marathon sessions, the first quintet with Coltrane, the Newport comeback, the raspy voice that earned him the 'prince of darkness' tag, Ascenseur pour l'échafaud improvised to picture, Sketches of Spain, and the six weeks in 1959 that produced Kind of Blue and the beating outside Birdland. Later questions take in the second quintet of Shorter, Hancock, Carter and Williams, the electric shock of In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew, the Isle of Wight crowd, the five-year silence, the pop covers, Tutu, Scrooged, the Legion of Honour and the trumpet buried with him at Woodlawn. Questions run from easy to expert and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. See also our jazz and John Coltrane quizzes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Miles Davis was born in 1926 in Alton, Illinois, and raised in which nearby city?
East St. Louis
His father was a dentist and his mother a violinist and music teacher; the family also owned a 200-acre Arkansas farm.
Q 02Davis's boyhood teacher Elwood Buchanan slapped his knuckles whenever he played with what?
heavy vibrato
The lesson stuck: Davis prized 'a round sound with no attitude in it' for the rest of his career.
Q 03Davis moved to New York in 1944 to study at which institution, dropping out after three semesters?
Juilliard
He spent most of his time in Harlem clubs hunting for his idol Charlie Parker, who became his roommate.
Q 04Whom did Davis replace in Charlie Parker's quintet in 1945?
Dizzy Gillespie
His solo on Parker's 'Now's the Time' that November already hinted at cool jazz.
Q 05Which unusual instruments for modern jazz did the Miles Davis Nonet use on Birth of the Cool?
French horn and tuba
The arrangements by Gil Evans, John Lewis and Gerry Mulligan aimed at a thick, almost orchestral sound imitating the human voice.
Q 06The nonet's dozen tracks for Capitol were finally compiled on an album in which year?
1957
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.
Q 07At the 1949 Paris Jazz Festival, Davis began an affair with which French singer and actress?
Juliette Gréco
The trip 'changed the way I looked at things forever'; they were lovers on and off for years.
Q 08Which drug addiction derailed Davis's early 1950s, until he kicked it at his father's home in 1954?
heroin
A DownBeat interview with Cab Calloway made the habit public, which Davis never forgave.
Q 09Some critics credit which April 1954 Davis album with creating the hard bop genre?
Walkin'
The period also saw him adopt the Harmon mute placed close to the microphone, and the spacious phrasing inspired by pianist Ahmad Jamal.
Q 10Davis's famous rasping voice was the result of what?
arguing too soon after throat surgery
Doctors told him to stay silent after a 1955 operation on his larynx; he got into a row and permanently damaged his vocal cords.
Q 11Miles Davis's acclaimed 1955 comeback performance took place at which festival?
Newport
Columbia's George Avakian signed him with a $4,000 advance, though he still owed Prestige four albums.
Q 12Which saxophonist replaced Sonny Rollins to complete Davis's 'first great quintet' in 1955?
John Coltrane
With Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, they made 'Round About Midnight, his first Columbia album.
Q 13The quintet's 1956 marathon Prestige sessions were released as four albums with what kind of titles?
Cookin', Relaxin', Workin' and Steamin'
Q 21Outside which New York club was Davis beaten and arrested by police in August 1959?
Birdland
He needed five stitches after being told to 'move on' while escorting a woman to a taxi; he was acquitted of assault in 1960.
Q 22The cover of Someday My Prince Will Come (1961) shows Frances Taylor after Davis demanded Columbia do what?
depict black women on his covers
Taylor was a dancer he had met at Ciro's in Los Angeles in 1953.
Q 23How old was drummer Tony Williams when he joined Davis's band in 1963?
17
Williams and the 23-year-old Herbie Hancock made Davis 'excited all over again'.
Each was acclaimed and helped establish the group as one of the best in jazz.
Q 14Who directed Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1957), whose soundtrack Davis improvised while watching the film?
Louis Malle
The band of French musicians plus drummer Kenny Clarke used no written score.
Q 15Which 1957 record began Davis's five-album collaboration with arranger Gil Evans?
Miles Ahead
It included Delibes's 'The Maids of Cadiz', the first classical piece Davis recorded.
Q 16Sketches of Spain (1960) centres on the second movement of which Joaquín Rodrigo work?
Concierto de Aranjuez
The album also drew on Manuel de Falla; classical players struggled to improvise and jazz players struggled with the charts.
Q 17Which classically trained pianist did Davis hire in 1958 to play modal jazz?
Bill Evans
His impressionistic approach shaped Kind of Blue, but he quit after eight months of touring, exhausted.
Q 18Kind of Blue was recorded in which year?
1959
The sessions took place in March and April; the sextet saw three of the five tunes for the first time in the studio.
Q 19On which single Kind of Blue track does Wynton Kelly play piano?
Freddie Freeloader
'So What' and 'All Blues' had been road-tested; the other three tunes were new to the band in the studio.
Q 20How many US platinum certifications had Kind of Blue earned by 2019?
Five
That is over five million US copies, and Congress passed a resolution in 2009 honouring it as a national treasure.
Q 24Which saxophonist, lured from the Jazz Messengers in 1964, became the main composer of Miles Davis's second quintet?
Wayne Shorter
The album E.S.P. (1965) was named after one of his compositions.
Q 25The second quintet's open approach, abandoning chord sequences, became known by what phrase?
time no changes
From 1967 the band also played its concerts as continuous sets, each tune flowing into the next.
Q 26Which 1969 album, recorded in a single session, marked Davis's entry into jazz fusion?
In a Silent Way
Producer Teo Macero pieced its two side-long tracks together from different takes; some critics cried 'sell-out'.
Q 27Bitches Brew (1970) reached what peak position on the Billboard album chart?
No. 35
It went gold in 1976 and had sold a million copies by 2003, helping revive jazz's commercial fortunes.
Q 28Davis played to the largest crowd of his career, an estimated 600,000 people, at which August 1970 event?
the Isle of Wight
That year he opened for rock acts like the Steve Miller Band and Neil Young at the Fillmore East.
Q 29Whose funeral was the last one Davis ever attended, after plans to record together were cut short?
Jimi Hendrix's
The guitarist died in September 1970; Davis's 30-minute 'He Loved Him Madly' later paid tribute to Ellington.
Q 30Davis's 1970 soundtrack album Jack Johnson accompanied a documentary about which sportsman?
a heavyweight boxer
Davis was a lifelong boxing fan who modelled his attitude on Sugar Ray Robinson.