In Love with Miles Davis’s Imagination All Over Again

It’s rare that any person can display a talent for any two art forms. Concerning art created by popular musicians, I don’t find much of it compelling – Dylan’s and Bowie’s come to mind as contextually interesting, given their creators, but solidly unremarkable in themselves (I will admit that Kurt Cobain’s art is quite cool). But standing alone in his mastery of both painting and music is Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis – perhaps the greatest Jazz musician or maybe just the greatest American musician in general. His half-century-long career is defined by experimentation: he changed the shape of music again and again, breaking ground and influencing America’s avant-garde scene in countless ways. For such a legendary musician, it makes sense that his art would be overshadowed by his 61 studio albums, collaborations with just about every jazz hero, and brilliant style. His artwork, nonetheless, does deserve recognition.

Davis’s music, upon my first listening, was challenging yet beautiful in ways that I did not, and maybe still do not, have the language to describe. Yet despite his music’s wild complexity, I found myself returning to it with an increasing sense of appreciation. Clicking through the images of Davis’s multi-layered, dynamic artwork gives me the distinct impression of falling in love with the artist’s creativity all over again.

Introduced to drawing by his father at the age of four, Davis dabbled in visual art for most of his life, yet it wasn’t until the early 70s that it would take a prominent role in his life. Recovering from a brutal car accident and a cocaine addiction, Davis didn’t play live for almost a year. With so much free time and an endlessly creative mind, he turned to painting. While he did later return to music, his deteriorating health pushed him to spend more time painting, which, for him, felt “like therapy.” It was his neighbor, Jo Gelbard, that guided him – she became his art teacher, collaborator, and, eventually, his wife, teaching him to paint with the same delicate precision that’s so prominent in his music.

Davis’s art mainly seems to echo Kandinsky and Basquiat, along with African tribal art. Works like Ezz-thetic take influence from African masks demonstrated by a fascination with faces and depiction of the human body as spindly and stretched. His figures dance, partnered with slender, colorful shapes as can be seen on the cover of Star People. It is this understanding of motion that stands out the most in his works – his figures’ movements are either nimble and graceful or frantic and chaotic, feelings that Davis captures sonically in his Jazz masterpieces Bitches Brew and In a Silent Way. His artwork feels like dance, twirling fluidly, drunkenly, angrily, or joyously in a way that only he, with his genius understanding of music, could fully grasp.

If you’re interested in seeing more of Miles Davis’s artwork, click here.

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