Milestones II: The Music and Times of Miles Davis since 1960

Dean Tudor is a journalism professor at the Ryerson Polytechnical
Institute and founding editor of the CBRA.

Milestones I, describing the early career of Miles Davis through 1959, was described and reviewed in CBRA 1983, item 2014. Chambers here continues the story through to 1981, tracing Davis’s life through the various quartets, the influence of rock music in the later 1960s (ultimately leading to amplified instruments and “fusion jazz”), his position as bossman in jazz as Muddy Waters and Bill Monroe were in blues and bluegrass, respectively, the “funk” music of the 1970s, and his physical and musical decline in the mid-1970s. For six years he made no appearances and produced little that was new in the recording studio, preferring to work over older tapes. In mid-1981 Miles Davis came back, and he has continued to perform at least adequately ever since, albeit on a far reduced level of touring.

Along the way Chambers provides a good analysis of the music, but he again suffers from not having any direct interviews with his prime subject. Still, a very readable account.