“A lot of people ask me where music is going today. I think it's going in short phrases. If you listen, anybody with an ear can hear that. Music is always changing. It changes because of the times and the technology that's available, the material that things are made of, like plastic cars instead of steel. So when you hear an accident today it sounds different, not all the metal colliding like it was in the forties and fifties. Musicians pick up sounds and incorporate that into their playing, so the music that they make will be different.” ― Legendary jazz trumpeter Miles Davis (5/26/1926 - 9/28/1991), from his "Miles: The Autobiography" (1989), describing his view of music evolving.
Davis played with other jazz greats in his prime years: Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Herbie Hancock among many others. His albums Kind Of Blue (1959) and Sketches of Spain (1960) remain classics of the cool jazz era. While critics felt the quality of his work declined in his later years, he is generally regarded as one of the most influential musicians of any genre.
(photo: Horace / ZumaPress)
