Miles Davis and the Space Between Notes

A Miles Davis record can make a room feel different before you have worked out why. Perhaps the trumpet seems to leave more air around a phrase than you expected. Perhaps the musicians sound as though they are listening to one another as closely as you are listening to them. Either way, it is worth sitting down before deciding exactly what is happening.

Jazz can be introduced with enough terminology to make a new listener feel they have accidentally arrived for an advanced class. Miles Davis offers another entrance: put on a record, pay attention to the sound and allow your curiosity to arrive at its own pace.

A sound that kept moving

Davis was a trumpeter, bandleader and restless figure in jazz. Across a long career, his work moved through different groups and approaches, including the music associated with Birth of the Cool, the spacious modal language of Kind of Blue and the electric explorations of Bitches Brew. These are not interchangeable moods. That is part of the appeal.

Kind of Blue is a welcoming place to begin, not because it is a secret known only to knowledgeable people, but because its atmosphere gives the listener room. “So What” unfolds with a sense of space and conversation. There is pleasure in hearing Davis alongside the other musicians, rather than treating the record as a monument occupied by one name.

Listening to the company

A bandleader's art includes the people brought into the room and the freedom or direction offered to them. Listen for the exchange between instruments: a phrase answered, a rhythm held steady, a moment in which the music seems to open rather than move straight towards a conclusion.

You do not need to identify every chord to feel the shape of it. If a passage makes you curious, follow that curiosity. If all you can say is that the trumpet sounds lonely, poised or quietly mischievous, that is a perfectly useful beginning.

Let the record take its time

Davis's later electric work may surprise someone who begins with Kind of Blue. Let it. An artist who changes direction leaves listeners the pleasure of changing their expectations too. Some records will become favourites; others may wait patiently until another evening.

The point is not to complete a syllabus. Put a record on, sit somewhere comfortable and listen to the space the musicians leave for one another. Sometimes the most memorable part of a piece is the moment in which nobody seems in a hurry to fill the silence.

A conversation rather than a monument

A great recording can appear intimidating when it has been praised for so long. Kind of Blue is often presented as an essential object, the sort of album one is apparently expected to understand before reaching for the sleeve. It may be more enjoyable to treat it as an invitation.

Notice how the musicians create space for one another. A phrase appears, another instrument responds, and the rhythm gives the conversation somewhere to go. Pianists Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly, saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb all contribute to the album's character. It is a record by Miles Davis, and also a meeting of particular musicians.

The next turn

Moving from one period of Davis's work to another can feel like entering a different room in the same house. The atmosphere changes, the furniture may have been rearranged, and a visitor who arrived expecting a quiet conversation might discover that the evening has become rather more adventurous.

That does not mean you must prefer the difficult record, or learn to admire every experiment immediately. Return to what you enjoy, then try something unfamiliar when you feel curious. Jazz has room for the casual listener, the devoted collector and the person who has put on a record simply because the trumpet sounded beautiful.

A life beyond the sleeve

Miles Davis was born in 1926 and grew up in East St. Louis, Illinois. As a young musician he went to New York and entered the world of players including Charlie Parker. The records that followed were not the work of someone who arrived fully formed. They grew out of study, collaboration, ambition and repeated changes of direction.

His presence away from the trumpet mattered too. Davis's clothes could be sharp, colourful and exacting, with a confidence that changed along with the music. Tailoring, a striking shirt or an unexpected combination could feel like part of the same refusal to remain fixed. The result was not a dress code for jazz musicians; it was one person's way of presenting himself.

His life also included addiction, difficult relationships and periods of personal and professional upheaval. Those realities deserve acknowledgement without treating suffering as the source of artistic value, or allowing beautiful records to excuse harmful behaviour. He could be challenging, and his later music can be challenging too. Some listeners will find a particular period abrasive or distant; others will hear its freedom. There is no need to smooth out those differences to appreciate his influence.