How Miles Davis would use metaphor to make music: “A master teacher”
Every artist works in different ways, fueled by a different fire, but Miles Davis took that individuality to entirely new levels over the course of his extensive, revolutionary career as a beacon of jazz innovation.
From his time with Charlie Parker’s outfit back in the 1940s, through to the ‘Birth of Cool’, the revolutionary nature of his Prestige-era recordings, and the vast psychedelic innovation of later albums like Bitches Brew, Davis went through numerous distinct periods over the course of his long and illustrious career in music. Throughout it all, though, the fire inside the trumpeter remained constant.
Fueled both by the widespread racism, oppression and injustice which surrounded him in the United States for virtually all his life, along with an unending desire for artistic innovation and development, Davis was a true visionary. However, no revolution is undertaken alone, and the trumpeter went to great lengths to surround himself with musicians who were not only skilled but driven by the same fire that kept him going for all his years.
Somewhere around the mid-50s, Davis kicked off his first quintet – nothing too flashy at first, but then it started filling up with names that’d later be plastered all over jazz history: John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Cannonball Adderley, the lot. Players drifted in and out, like it was a revolving door for legends. Fast-forward a decade, and Davis still wasn’t sitting still. That itch to push forward led him to form a whole new lineup – and right at the centre of it was Herbie Hancock, the crown jewel of the bunch.
For a young artist like Hancock, working under Davis gave him an unparalleled look at the inner workings of one of America’s defining artists. The two fostered a close relationship, in addition to creating some of the 1960s’ most beloved jazz records, which came in handy when Hancock started on his own genre-defying jazz experimentations in the following decades. Specifically, one aspect of the process that stands tall for the pianist is Davis’ directing of the other musicians in his quintet.
“When we were working on a record, if there was some idea that he wanted to transfer to us, he wouldn’t tell us what to play; he would find some metaphor,” Hancock once told American Songwriter, “which really is the heart of what he wanted. ‘Cause with a metaphor, then you, the musician, has to translate it into your own terms, and figure out how to describe that metaphor in musical terms.”
This metaphor approach gave the musicians in Davis’ clan free rein to interpret and experiment, rather than the bandleader dictating every note, resulting in a far more expansive and original listening experience. “He wanted each of us to create our own parts and create our own avenue, or our own character, within the performance,” Hancock affirmed, before musing, “[…] See, that’s what a master teacher does: he doesn’t give you the answers; he tells you a way to find the answers for yourself.”
Not only did Davis’ free-spirited approach to the work of his quintet lead to the creation of some enduring jazz classics, which remain awe-inspiring in their own right, but it also helped to craft the likes of Herbie Hancock into the expansive, beloved artists that they soon became. Without the influence of Davis, there is no Head Hunters, for instance.
