Miles Davis - Book

Trumpeter Miles Davis (1926-1991) was one of the great stylists in jazz history. Like a phoenix, he chose to reinvent himself repeatedly, rejecting clichés and repetition, questioning successes that would have satisfied others, and constantly seeking new musical territory. Essential albums such as Birth of the Cool, Round About Midnight, Miles Ahead, Ascenseur pour l'échafaud, Kind of Blue, E. S. P. and Bitches Brew mark this unique journey. Miles Davis was one of the few jazz musicians to achieve great acclaim. He also wanted celebrity, living the last two decades of his life as a rock star. This image of a fashionable musician, shaped by the 1980s, persisted into the early twenty-first century. Jean-Pierre Jackson challenges that image in his Miles Davis. Examined frankly in its aesthetic and biographical context, the musician's work gains even greater force. Like every volume in the Classica series, this book includes a bibliography, an index, a chronology and an annotated discography.