Miles Davis’ influence on popular music is immeasurable. From pioneering new forms of jazz in the 4os and 50s, to experimenting with electronic music in the late 6os and early 70s, to Grammy-winning efforts in the 80s, his is a career that new standards for what music could be, again and again.
As Rolling Stone remember, when Davis attended a dinner at the White House in 1987, he was asked what he had done to deserve to be there. Davis responded, “Well, I’ve changed music five or six times.” Immodest? Maybe. True? Abso-fucking-lutely. So who cares.
Dive to Miles Davis’ staggeringly vast discography with this epic 65-hour playlist spanning his entire career.
If you’ve ever wanted to explore Davis’ discography but never knew quite how to do so, the playlist below is a pretty good place to start. Created by playlist-making machine Steve Henry, the mix explores the jazz hero’s discography in roughly chronological order, spanning a staggering 569 songs, totalling at 65 hours of music.
Davis technically made his professional debut as a member of saxophonist Charlie Parker’s bebop quintet in 1944. The playlist doesn’t start here, but rather with Odjenar, a track which featured on Davis’ debut album The New Sounds in 1951 (and later on a Capitol Records compilation called Conception in 1956).
From there it traces Davis’ dominance in the 1950 as the king of cool jazz, his free jazz second coming in the mid-60s, his affair with electronic music in the late 60s and early 70s, his experimentation with funk and jazz fusion in the 80s, and finally his latter years where he experimented with beats, sequencers and other elements of hip-hop, pop covers and soundtracks.
Check it out below.
