He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musical directions in a roughly five-decade career that kept him at the forefront of many major stylistic developments in jazz.
Born into an upper-middle-class [ 2 ] family in Alton, Illinois , and raised in East St. Louis , Davis started on the trumpet in his early teens.
He left to study at Juilliard in New York City, before dropping out and making his professional debut as a member of saxophonist Charlie Parker 's bebop quintet from to Shortly after, he recorded the Birth of the Cool sessions for Capitol Records , which were instrumental to the development of cool jazz.
In the early s, while addicted to heroin, Davis recorded some of the earliest hard bop music under Prestige Records. After a widely acclaimed comeback performance at the Newport Jazz Festival , he signed a long-term contract with Columbia Records , and recorded the album 'Round About Midnight in During this period, he alternated between orchestral jazz collaborations with arranger Gil Evans , such as the Spanish music -influenced Sketches of Spain , and band recordings, such as Milestones and Kind of Blue During the s, he experimented with rock, funk, African rhythms , emerging electronic music technology , and an ever-changing lineup of musicians, including keyboardist Joe Zawinul , drummer Al Foster , bassist Michael Henderson , and guitarist John McLaughlin.
After a five-year retirement due to poor health, Davis resumed his career in the s, employing younger musicians and pop sounds on albums such as The Man with the Horn , You're Under Arrest and Tutu Critics were often unreceptive but the decade garnered Davis his highest level of commercial recognition. He performed sold-out concerts worldwide, while branching out into visual arts, film, and television work, before his death in from the combined effects of a stroke, pneumonia and respiratory failure.
