Miles Davis, Miles Smiles, and the Invention of Post Bop

Focusing on one of the legendary trumpet players in jazz, Jeremy Yudkin's book examines Miles Davis's often overlook music of the mid-1960s with a behind-the-scenes study of the evolution of a new, post bop style. It spotlights Davis during an extraordinarily creative period when the artist struggled with personal and musical reinvention and emerged the leader of a new wave in contemporary music.A major force in post-war American jazz, Miles Davis pioneered as a leader of cool jazz, hard bop, and modal jazz in a variety of small group formats. By the late 1960s, Davis led the musical revolution known as fusion-the merging of jazz and rock styles. The formation of the Second Quintet with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams was vital to the invention of the new post bop style. Yudkin illustrates and precisely defines this style with an analysis of the 1966 classic Miles Smiles.