Description:
Miles Davis never eclipsed Louis Armstrong as the greatest trumpeter. His playing didn't parade the greatest range or technique, or the most powerful tone. And he never matched Duke Ellington as jazz's greatest bandleader. He didn't create sustained brilliance, in five decades, with a stable organization that produced an unbroken string of popular hits. But Davis never set out to be the greatest virtuoso or to master the greatest orchestra. He was music's not jazz's most relentless, yet restless, genius: He drew from and in turn created music in ever wider circles and diverse idioms, while his trumpet sound got ever more intimate. By the time of his death he deserved to be considered, alongside Armstrong, the most important trumpeter and, beside Ellington, the most influential bandleader. His epitaph should be his dictum, "I have to change. It's a curse." |