Home / Full timeline / Miles Davis, the jazz legend who helped to define the genre, dies of pneumonia, respiratory failure, and stroke at St. John’s Hospital and Health Center in Santa Monica, California.
Miles Davis, the jazz legend who helped to define the genre, dies of pneumonia, respiratory failure, and stroke at St. John’s Hospital and Health Center in Santa Monica, California.
1991 (Sep 28)
Miles Davis, the jazz legend who helped to define the genre, died of pneumonia, respiratory failure, and stroke at St. John's Hospital and Health Center in Santa Monica, California. He was sixty-five. A risk-taking innovator who was forever evolving as a musician, Davis was perhaps the best jazz trumpeter in modern times. He had an unmistakably distinct sound—sometimes haunting, sometimes melancholy, and virtually free of vibrato. Davis played for his own ear and often performed with his back to the audience. He constantly created more distinctive musical styles than any other musician in jazz history. Davis also influenced some of the best musicians, from saxophonists John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter to keyboardist Herbie Hancock and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. Davis played bebop with Charlie Parker's ensemble in the mid-1940s. In the 1950s, he formed his own group, introducing such forms as "cool jazz," hard bop, and jazz-rock, and he experimented with new forms of electrified jazz and funk. Some of Davis's most notable albums include The Miles Davis Chronicles, Birth of the Cool, Sketches of Spain, Kind of Blue, Blue Sorcerer, In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, On the Corner, Star People, and Tutu.
References:
- • Hornsby, Alton. Chronology of African-American History: Significant Events and People from 1619 to the Present. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.