Miles Davis - So What

Our final musician we will be looking at is Miles Davis. Born in 1926, he is another very influential musician. He takes jazz in a new direction more relaxed and "chill", cool jazz. He takes another step as well and creates jazz fusion to keep up with the evolution of popular music. Jazz fusion is a combination of jazz and any other musical genre, most of the time rock.

Davis' career was during arguably the most influential time for African Americans, the Civil Rights Movement. Davis was able to push his career and music through the racism and oppression and become a very successful African American Musician. He changed his music to evolve around the popular music of the day to help jazz become more main stream. This upset some traditional jazz musicians but it was very successful for Davis.

Cool jazz is my favorite type of jazz, it is very relaxing and easy to listen to. That is what makes Miles Davis so great, he makes every note he plays count. He uses fewer notes for a more complete song. Listen to "So What" posted below and you will see what I mean. There are much fewer note in this song compared to "Leapfrog" or "Groovin' High" and it is much easier to listen to.