Miles Dewey Davis III was born on May 26, 1926, in Alton, Illinois, and raised in East St. Louis. Coming from a middle-class family — his father was a prosperous dentist — he received his first trumpet at age 13 and quickly revealed an extraordinary gift for the instrument.
At 18, Davis moved to New York City, ostensibly to study at Juilliard, but his real education came on the bandstands of 52nd Street, where he sought out and eventually played alongside his idol, alto saxophone legend Charlie Parker. Through the late 1940s, Davis immersed himself in the bebop revolution, developing a style that was notably cooler and more introspective than the fiery virtuosity around him.
In 1949–50, he led a groundbreaking series of sessions with an unusual nine-piece ensemble that produced Birth of the Cool — a record that launched the "cool jazz" movement and signaled Davis's lifelong refusal to stand still musically.
After a difficult period struggling with heroin addiction in the early 1950s, Davis made a triumphant comeback. He formed one of jazz's most celebrated groups — the First Great Quintet — and in 1959 recorded Kind of Blue, the best-selling jazz album of all time. Its modal approach, emphasizing scales over complex chord changes, permanently altered the course of jazz.
Davis continued to reinvent himself with stunning regularity. His mid-1960s Second Great Quintet pushed jazz to the edge of free improvisation, and by 1970 he had embraced electric instruments and rock rhythms on Bitches Brew, essentially creating jazz fusion.
Troubled by health problems and personal demons, he withdrew from music for much of the late 1970s, returning in 1981 with renewed energy and a embrace of funk, hip-hop, and pop influences that divided critics but kept him a cultural force until his death.
Miles Davis died on September 28, 1991, in Santa Monica, California. Irascible, visionary, and perpetually restless, he remains one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century — a man who didn't just play music, but repeatedly remade it.
