News & Updates — Miles Davis

Julian "Cannonball" Adderley became one of the highly respected alto saxophonists of the hard bop and soul-jazz eras. Indeed, with his bluesy wail and accessible style he was one of jazz's most popular and visible artists in the late '60s and into the '70s before his death from a stroke. Originally from Tampa, he and his brother Nat, a cornetist, grew up in Tallahassee FL, both of them earning early professional experience in the early '40s backing Ray Charles in Florida. Cannon moved to Ft Lauderdale for awhile before a move to NYC in '55, the year he first recorded...

Happy birthday to that bitter bastard genius, the incomparable Miles Davis!! From bebop to cool jazz to modal to out-funk/fusion to pop, Miles played it all and never cared what the critics thought of him! My personal favorite era was his '70s hard-avant-funk, some of which sounds so brutal that it borders on proto-death metal!

Canadian pianist, arranger, composer, bandleader, Gil Evans was the first call arranger time and time again with Miles Davis and later developed an obsession with Jimi Hendrix. Born in Toronto but moving around mining towns until the family settled in California, he saw Duke Ellington play in '27 and got the orchestration bug. He also took influence from Kurt Weill and Spanish & Brazilian music. He moved to NYC in the '40s with a gig arranging for Claude Thornhill.  In the late '40s his apartment hosted incubator sessions with Miles, Charlie Parker, Gerry Mulligan, George Russell and others to develop...

The great jazz bass virtuoso Paul Chambers, forever immortalized by his old pal John Coltrane as "Mr PC", brought the instrument to a new level in his very short time on the planet. He was an early popularizer of the bowing technique and contributed greatly to harmonic advancement for the instrument. Born in Pittsburgh and raised in Detroit, Chambers played brass instruments before switching to bass at 14. He quickly started playing classical music while still in high school, as well as jazz with Barry Harris before moving to NYC in the mid-'50s. He held a regular gig with Miles...

The original hippy, the mystical eden ahbez wrote a tune called "Nature Boy" and by chance was able to hand it to Nat King Cole who turned it into a mega-hit in 1948. He looked like a hippy long before it was a thing and lived outdoors in Los Angeles. He lived under the "L" of the Hollywood sign and held a job as a piano player in a raw foods store. He was a vegetarian, straight edge and an anti-vaxer and wore a white robe. This lifestyle inspired "Nature Boy", and after the hit by Cole, ahbez became an...