Gerrish 1 Matthew Gerrish ENGL 1103 Raymond 10/30/13 The Coolest How can one define cool?

It is an abstract concept to say the last, characterized by a willingness to push the current boundaries of society while simultaneously paying homage to the past and living in the present, all without breaking a sweat. No one could claim to do this better than Miles Dewey Davis III. Born in Alton, Illinois on May 26, 1926 but raised in St. Louis, Davis lived a long and brilliant life as a bandleader, musician, composer, arranger, and composer. It all began in St. Louis, however, at the age of 13. It was around this time that Miles received his first trumpet and began to learn to play. He was a natural, learning from some of the best jazz musicians at the time that would pass through St. Louis on tour. Among these inflences that shaped his early growth were Clark Terry, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Billy Eckstine. His growth was so profound that he was offered and accepted an invitation to join the Juilliard School of music at age 18 in 1944. However, Miles had cooler plans: it was all a scheme to get to New York and perform with Parker and Gillespie. His impact in the jazz world was immediate and quite noticeable. He appeared on recordings with Parker as early as 1945, 1 year after arriving on the scene in New York. He was still only 19 years old. In 1947, at the ripe age of 21, the Miles Davis All-Stars (which included Charlie Parker, Max Roach, John Lewis, and Nelson Boyd) were formed and recorded a session at the legendary Savoy Records, the company largely responsible for the widespread popularization of bebop jazz. By the age of 25, Davis recorded sessions on 52nd Street had

Gerrish 2 made him a bebop legend. But, like anybody truly cool, Davis was not satisfied until he could push the envelope. As the decade was changing and the 1950s were arriving, jazz was changing too at the hands of Miles Davis. His groundbreaking album The Birth of the Cool released that very year shattered the expectations of jazz fans that had grown accustomed to the frantic pace of bebop and swing. Opting to go a more slow and pensive route, The Birth of the Cool was just what the name depicted: the genesis of a new sound that accepted the past, challenged the norms of the time, and portrayed a laid back, oblivious-to-society attitude all the while. While this was occurring, Miles had also signed to Columbia records for what would become one of the longest executive signings in jazz history. After joining with Columbia, Davis was able to pump his new cool sound worldwide. In 1959, he released what was described as the coolest album ever made in Kind of Blue, a masterpiece of what can be called emotionless passion, a style that portrays so much depth and energy with what seemed like so little effort, which some would argue is what being cool is all about. However, the effort put into the creative process was enormous. He drew inspiration from what would seem like the most insignificant things to the average mind. For example, Miles describes in his autobiography a reaction to his first time seeing fire at the age of three. Scared but intrigued, he later prophesize, The fear I had was almost like an invitation, a challenge to go forward into something I knew nothing about (Davis, Troupe). Over the course of his lifetime, Miles Davis won nine Grammy awards across the genres of jazz, R&B, and jazz-fusion, including a Grammy Lifetime achievement award in 1990. Always a man of firsts, another accomplishment of his was becoming the first jazz musician to grace the cover of Rolling Stone magazine after his integration of electric guitar and bass on his

Gerrish 3 Grammy award winning rock/jazz fusion album Bitches Brew. Davis was also a recipient of the prestigious Sonning Award of Lifetime Achievement from Denmark in 1984. As well as winning a plethora of awards, Davis albums were also some of the most sold jazz pieces of all time, reaching a level of success unprecedented for any jazz musician at the time with Kind of Blue reaching an RIAA certified quadruple platinum. They were also received very well critically throughout his career, exemplifying Davis refusal to sacrifice his art for success. To cap all of this success and cement himself a place in music history, Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 13, 2006, fifteen years after his death on September 28, 1991. Perhaps the most important part of his legacy, however, was the new wave of jazz artists he helped to discover and inspire. Among the names were Percy Heath, Sonny Rollins, and Herbie Hancock to name a few, all who went on to their own jazz success and some (like Coltrane) who went on to share Davis stature as jazz legend. Davis always prided himself on his eye for talent, as he hoped to inspire the new wave of cool. Now, his legacy is one of a pioneer in jazz and the creator of a style all his own while achieving commercial success. In other words, indifference to public opinion that resulted in his rise to stardom and wealth: the definition of cool.

Gerrish 4 Works Cited "The Two Sides of Miles Davis." Rolling Stone. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2013.

Davis, Miles, and Quincy Troupe. Miles, the Autobiography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989. Print. Walser, Robert. "Out of Notes: Signification, Interpretation, and the Problem of Miles Davis." JSTOR. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. "Miles Davis." Miles Davis. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2013.