The family was financially well-to-do, and in 1927 they relocated to East St. Louis. Davis began studying music at his parent’s request when he was only thirteen years old. Three short years later, Davis was playing professionally when he wasn’t attending school. When Davis was seventeen, he spent the year in Eddie Randle’s band Blue Devils. More offers came pouring in, but keeping with his mother’s wishes for him to graduate high school, Davis declined these opportunities.
It wouldn’t prove long before Davis received another significant opportunity. In 1944, Davis became the third trumpeter in the Billy Eckstine band, opposite Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. The band eventually left to tour, and Davis relocated to New York City. The move was sanctioned by Davis’s parents under the assumption he was capitalizing on a scholarship to Juilliard School of Music. Davis quickly shirked his studies, however, and pursued his ambitions to record.
Seeking out and finding Parker, Davis began recording with the revered musician’s quintet. Davis advanced in leaps and bounds under Parker’s mentorship, growing from an easily throttled soloist to a confident musical leader. In 1949, Davis made his first trip to Europe in order to play at a jazz festival held in Paris.
As Davis grew in popularity and gigs became more and more frequent, the ugly side of the industry began to rear its head. Increased exposure to the club scene meant increased exposure to drugs, and Davis was a fully dependent heroin addict by 1950.
Realizing the drugs seriously threatened his real love of music, Davis returned to his father’s farm in St. Louis, in 1953. He remained until the drugs were out of his system and the habit was overcome.
Returning with a renewed outlook on life and music, Davis wowed the crowd in 1955 with his now-legendary solo at the Newport Jazz Festival. This led to a contract with Columbia Records and Davis’s first band, which included influential saxophonist John Coltrane.
From there, his career flourished for almost the next four decades. Constantly reinventing his style and approach, Davis always remained on the musical forefront, winning numerous accolades along the way. In 1990, he was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. His work can be heard on numerous film soundtracks, including a forty-five second excerpt learned by Val Kilmer for The Salton Sea.
Miles also acted in several feature films. The first was a brief cameo in the comedy Scrooged, opposite Bill Murray, Karen Allen, John Forsythe, Robert Mitchum, Jamie Farr, and Robert Goulet. He starred in the 1991 drama Dingo.
Davis was married and divorced three times. His first marriage to Frances Taylor lasted from 1958 to 1968. His second marriage to Betty Mabry was the most short-lived, lasting from September 1968 to 1969. His last marriage was to actress Cicely Tyson. The marriage took place in 1981 in the home of Bill Cosby who gave away the bride and served as best man. Unfortunately, Tyson and Davis couldn’t make the marriage work, and they divorced in 1988. Davis had four children, three of which were from a teenage relationship with a woman Davis never officially married.
He died September 28, 1991, of pneumonia, respiratory failure, and a stroke. To this day, he is revered for forever changing the landscape of American music.
YUDDY
