Miles Davis

by Brian Morton

Miles Davis's recordings include several of the most acclaimed jazz albums, from the relaxed style of Birth of the Cool to the orchestral Sketches of Spain and Kind of Blue. Bitches Brew, became the bestselling jazz album of all time.

Genres: Music, Biography

170 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 2004

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Brian Morton (born 1954) is a Scottish writer, journalist and broadcaster, mainly specialising in jazz and modern literature. Morton was educated at Edinburgh University and taught in the late 1970s at the University of East Anglia and the University of Tromsø in Norway.

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brian Morton's 2005 biography MILES DAVIS is a brief (150 page) overview of the life and work of the great jazz innovator. Morton's book cannot compete with Ian Carr's biography in its breadth of detail, and as Morton's book seems to already assume some knowledge of the Miles canon, it isn't the ideal introduction to the musician. Nonetheless, for fans of Davis the biography is interesting for its critical remarks. While I am not in agreement with all of Morton's points, observations such as that the SORCERER and NEFERTITI albums marked a creative low point are thought provoking. The volume also includes a great many photographs I had never seen before.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the Kindle version. It had a lot of glitches suggestive of poor proof-reading or even errors in editing or production, discontinuties suggesting missing text.
That said, a good read. I listened to Miles Davis' fusion music a lot back in the 1970s when I was a student and a pal of the author (whom I haven't had contact with since - Hey Brian, drop me an email, one email at http://cern.ch/jowett ) so this book was of special interest to me. I realise now that I should also listen more to some of the earlier music.