Miles Davis Alumni

For a new twist in my blog I am going to talk about all the people that I can think of that played with Miles Davis. Many of these people I enjoy hearing as well. I first heard Miles Davis in 9th grade when I took out an album called Kind Of Blue. Still to this day is one of the most important Jazz albums of it's time. On that album the stage was already set for famous Miles Davis alum. You had Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane and Bill Evans. All these people would go on to make some of the most important music you would ever hear. I as a 9th grade person did not get that. I thought these musicians were just friends or for that matter did not have the impact that they had. Stupid me, I guess.

Two people from Kind Of Blue after about a year did make an impact on me. These two people were Bill Evans and the other was John Coltrane. Both had great music ahead of them. Sadly, Coltrane did not last another decade, but his music was great and prolific. I stumbled up both Bill Evans and John Coltrane at the library also. I picked up their music and quickly listened to what they had to say. Both have some great stuff and I did feature them in the blog so check out those posts when you have some time. Bill Evans is still one of my favorite piano players. John Coltrane is also one of my favorite saxophone players too. The music is far cry of what they made in that Columbia studio in March and April of 1959.



After hearing Kind of Blue I went to seek out other Miles Davis albums. The next one I went hunting for was Bitches Brew. With hearing nothing except told to listen to it by a friend I bought the two tape set for a whopping $15.00 (a poor high school kid like myself). I put in my tape player and realized it was far different then what I was used to hearing. The simple saxophone and piano was replaced by organ, electric piano, electric bass and a lot of other things. The other thing that was noticed was the the music was longer which intern made the album longer. An hour and half worth of music. I got myself a treat.

The music of Bitches Brew also had a full load of musicians that I would admire and listen to. These included John McLaughlin, Dave Holland, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Wayne Shorter, Lenny White, Jack DeJohnette and others. a few of these people are in some of the posts I have written about. All these people that I mention above have at least one album that I would listen to again and again. Even the musicians I did not name also have been influenced in my musical listening.



After a few years of getting into the last part of Miles Davis career I realized that he then too had musicians that were famous too. He added people like Mike Stern, John Scofield, Kenny Garrett, Mino Cinelu, and Marilyn Mazur just to name a few. These people I also listen to with great interest. These musicans continue to perform to this day and at one point a few of these will get their own blog posts. The period of the 1980's for Miles was tough and you could see his past mistakes had caught up to him. Too bad to, because I wish I saw him like a few of my friends.

I made the mistake that I missed a period of Miles Davis that I should have went back to in the first place. The era of the Mid 1960's. At that the time of listening to the 1980's stuff a friend handed me a tape called E.S.P. He told me that was that this was the most influential of the Miles Davis. He also told me that the alum on this album are the ones I should pay attention to. It was the Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams and Wayne Shorter that changed the course of Jazz forever. After hearing E.S.P. I soon realized that I needed to listen a lot more closely to his music.

All in all if you really want to study the history of Jazz you should start with Miles Davis's alumni. There are so many different styles and ideas with all these great musicians. I do not even know where to start or point to a direction. Miles had great music because he had great people backing him. They learned from him and from there they too intern made great stuff. Take a listen and tell me what you think. If you need suggestions let me know, but I will tell you the music that you hear from a Herbie Hancock or Wayne Shorter or Dave Holland or even a Keith Jarrett or John McLaughlin does not need any introduction. Their music is the stuff of what makes it all great and unique. Enjoy what Miles Davis liked in their music and enjoy the fact that the music of the legacy will stand the test of time. Enjoy!!