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By
Grace
Dead Rebel Of The Week
~ Miles Davis ~
(1926 - 1991)
Once or twice in every generation, in every field of excellence, there comes along a soul so bright that he or she puts all conventions upside down and shakes them all around. Innovative and ingenious people like Einstein, Da Vinci, Tolkien and Mozart all put their King Kong footprints in the sands of time and the world followed suit, playing in the castles they built. These people are rebels by how I define the word: people who strive to change their world through determination, ideals and talent, while never compromising on their own integrity, no matter how loudly everybody else cries “NO!”.
Miles Davis was such a man.
Born blacker than thou into a rather wealthy family in Illinois, he quickly developed a knack for music. Maybe the fact that his mother was a pianist and that his father bought him his first trumpet at the age of 9 helped. Maybe, I don’t know, and it doesn’t really matter. Tons of people play instruments when they’re kids. Doesn’t make them rebels. Same with Miles. It is not so much his upbringing, or even adult life, that makes him so interesting. He was into the same drugs and shit all the other contemporary musicians were, but instead it is rather the legacy of his mind and music that we are going to focus on. That is what matters.
It is not until the age of 18, when he’s thrown a bone as the third trumpet player in Billy Epstein’s traveling jazz circus, that he’s starting to realize his own potential. He got to play with legends like Dizzie Gillespie and Charlie Parker, and maybe that is what finally stirred some slumbering giant genius inside his mind fully awake. It turned out that young Miles had a somewhat superior musical sense, compared to the rest of us mere mortals. That superior musical sense is what changed the world of music, as according to Miles Davis.
This was first evident in his tone. Trumpet players were “supposed to” utilize a sweet vibrato, to fatten up and sensitize their sound. Not so with Miles. Instead he went the opposite way and worked hard to perfect his round and flat tone, feeling that he was free to convey anything only when his “voice” was naked and raw, without the fake heartstrings of the sappy vibrato. This is one of the first pillars of his musical genius; his brutal honesty. Listen, kids… Without honesty your voice is useless. No matter what you say; it has no strength, power or meaning, if you don’t mean every single word, and stick by that sentiment 100%, no matter what. Being a rebel for your own damn cause is tougher than most care to ever explore, but as long as there is brutal honesty in the message you want to put forth, you are halfway there. Miles’ earlier albums epitomize this honesty on recordings such as the legendary “Birth of the Cool” (1957) and the masterful “Kind of Blue” (1959).
The second thing that made him greater than anybody else in the 20th century was his total understanding of music. All sorts of music. If you could play it, he could too, but he could also make it even better – taking conventional themes to new unconventional heights without batting an eye. He connected all the dots, no matter how far from each other they were originally, and re-drew the maps of music, covering whole new aspects and genres. This is important. What most people fail to realize these days – politicians, self-appointed experts, Monday morning quarter backs, leaders, followers and Joe Schmoes – is that you MUST be able to play the Devil’s Advocate with any problem, opinion or belief. If you don’t understand where other people are coming from, you will never be successful in making people see things your way. This is true in music, as in politics and religion as well. You already know what you think of things, but to get through to other people, you have to be able to discern their thought patterns and mental states – to grasp the machinations of minds other than yours. This is what separates a great leader from a crap leader; by understanding how to talk to people, you can get any message across. Miles Davis understood perfectly how to make music work. His way. And the world understood. Perfectly.
On albums like “Milestones” (1958) he married bebop, blues and jazz, and managed to paint a beautiful and complete picture of just music - plain and simple. On the amazing “Sketches of Spain” (1960) we are treated to a jazzy version of old classic Spanish music, arranged Davis-style, with soft trumpets and Latin beats, creating an unparalleled blend of styles.
The third thing that made Miles unique is the matter of the Thought and the Box. We all know that to see new ways we have to “think outside the box”. To any sort of thinkers, this comes as no surprise, I’m sure, but to Miles there was no box, period. He looked at the world with eyes and mind wide open. Nothing was taboo. Musical times, beats and modes were merely recommendations to him, and he flat out broke most of the “rules” as established by centuries of Great Masters, by mixing keys and scales with off-beats and odd times. He single-handedly reinvented the brave-hearted musician’s approach to music, laying the groundwork for what has become the most freethinking of all musical forms; fusion. He had always been a champion for oddities, but on “Bitches Brew” (1970) he got up on the fucking mountain and gave the ultimate master class in “thinking outside the box”.
There would be no progressive artists like Rush, Dream Theater, Yes or Frank Zappa without Miles Davis. On a larger scale, there would be no revolutionary changes in our world without the free thinkers. Miles taught us to embrace what sets us apart from others; to use it to our, and to the world’s, advantage. Even if we just occasionally venture outside the safe confines of those boundaries and regulations. The only other 20th century artist of equal bravery and importance would be Shostakovich, who ran his own race in the Soviet Union at the same time. But that is another tale.
Miles Davis truly belongs to a very select club of immortals, from all walks of life, who created new worlds in the image of their souls. By sticking to their guns and letting their incredible minds pour into their life work, infusing it all with original ideas and mould-breaking designs, they changed the world around them for the future to come – or at least until somebody else picked up that torch and shook things all around again. It’s the everlasting Genius Relay, kids, and most of us are just silent bystanders, with our jaws on the floor and our heads in the clouds. These guys are The Untouchables - The Ones Who Change the World While the Rest of Us Eat Pie.
A man like Miles Davis may be too complicated of a musical spirit for most people to digest on a Monday night, but there is so much else you can appreciate his life work for: brutal honesty, a way to connect the dots, and an exceptional way of disregarding that box that other people spend most of their lives inside.
Miles Davis was a bona fide rebel and he changed the world. What more do you need?
