"Miles Davis kept forcing jazz in new directions, but his stark, lyrical trumpet sound was a constant, and it still seduces."

"He didn't play the trumpet like a trumpet, he played it like a voice. - Bobby Hutcherson

Jesse Hamlin wrote a great article in the Chronicle Datebook a couple of weeks back. What a great piece and with substance on an idol of mine who recorded what I will always consider the Jazz Classic.

"I play 'Kind of Blue' every day - it's my orange juice." - Quincy Jones


I am guilty. I couldn't hang with him at first during the "rock-jazz fusion that Davis began exploring in the late 60's when he started using electric instruments and dancing backbeat grooves." I'm even ashamed to admit that I walked out on one of his performances at the War Memorial in San Francisco.

However, whatever direction his music took, his influence and music stays with us forever.

"Miles was famous for not looking back or repeating himself. He plunged into whatever music grabbed him at the moment, made it his, then moved on, leaving legions to chew on what he'd done."

"When I hear jazz musicians today playing all those same licks we used to play so long ago, I feel sad for them. I mean, it's like going to bed with a real old person who even smells real old. Now, I'm not putting down old people because I'm getting older myself. But be honest, that's what it reminds me of....I have to always be on the cutting edge of things because that's just the way I am and have always been." Miles Davis from his 1989 autobiography, "Miles."

Labels: Bay Area Jazz, Desert Island Jazz, Jazz, KCSM, Ken Burns, Kind of Blue, Miles Davis, San Francisco Jazz