Miles Davis And Miles Armstrong's Impact On Jazz

Despite rising to significance nearly twenty years apart, Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong share a common accomplishment: single-handedly changing the musical genre of jazz forever. With his trumpet in hand, Louis Armstrong took the jazz world, and even the entire world of music by storm with his famous gravelly voice and his focus on solo performances in jazz, a change of pace from the prominent collective improv focused jazz of the time. While making these groundbreaking changes to jazz, Armstrong also charmed the public with his stage presence and charisma. Miles Davis, however made his impact on jazz over the course of many years and subgenres of jazz. Miles began his meteoric rise to fame along with Charlie Parker, as he invented Cool Jazz …show more content…
While the song was not written by Louis or his band, it did not gain notoriety until Louis recorded it in 1928, creating what would be considered the definitive version of the tune. While their respective renditions of the tune are instrumentally similar, they convey a different style as a result of their stark differences. Both versions are long, laid back songs, beautifully emphasizing every member of the band in their own ways. Miles’ version however, illustrates him and his band flowing through the song as a unit, while they do solo, it is part of the song, and each solo works in unison with the rest of the band. Louis, however, in his signature solo focused take on jazz, truly brings each member into their own, giving them their own specific spotlight in which to shine. Back-to-back, each member of the band solo, including the drummer on multiple occasions.Where Miles’ version calls for certain instruments to back off during solos, Louis’ Basin Street Blues has the other instruments stop playing altogether to allow the complete focus to be on the one soloing member. Louis Armstrong himself made jazz into soloist’s music, this tune illustrates just how he was able to do that so successfully. In this masterful song, Louis is able to maintain the song, penned by Spencer Williams, while still putting his own distinct style and influence on the song. Miles Davis in his version of the song created a non-vocal version that maintained portions of the tune but changed the mood of it drastically. Miles’ version creates a gloomy, haunting atmosphere as a sort of ballad in contrast to Louis’ upbeat and lively tune. To do so, Miles taps into more of a bluesy style as he plays his trumpet in a beautiful but somber way. This song is a great illustration of the differing personalities of the two,