Episode's summary
Clarke Peters concludes the series exploring Miles Davis's final decade. After nearly five years of reclusive silence, Miles emerges from his New York brownstone, determined to channel a new generation of musicians to spark his final reinvention of jazz. Miles is back! News of the comeback ignites the media, and packed audiences, from rock royalty to his old jazz associates, flock to his early gigs, left reeling as Miles boldly pushes the genre squarely into the electronic age. Through albums like The Man with the Horn and the Grammy-winning Tutu, Miles and his visionary key collaborator, Marcus Miller, stubbornly defy the critics to forge a triumphant new legacy. Along the way, he crosses paths with Prince, while his late-career sonic experiments deeply inspire a burgeoning generation of hip-hop artists. But It wasn't just the music that was rejuvenated. With the fierce support of his wife, actress Cicely Tyson, Miles battles back from the severe physical pain and exhausting excesses of the 1970s to clean…
Clarke Peters concludes the series exploring Miles Davis's final decade. After nearly five years of reclusive silence, Miles emerges from his New York brownstone, determined to channel a new generation of musicians to spark his final reinvention of jazz. Miles is back! News of the comeback ignites the media, and packed audiences, from rock royalty to his old jazz associates, flock to his early gigs, left reeling as Miles boldly pushes the genre squarely into the electronic age. Through albums like The Man with the Horn and the Grammy-winning Tutu, Miles and his visionary key collaborator, Marcus Miller, stubbornly defy the critics to forge a triumphant new legacy. Along the way, he crosses paths with Prince, while his late-career sonic experiments deeply inspire a burgeoning generation of hip-hop artists. But It wasn't just the music that was rejuvenated. With the fierce support of his wife, actress Cicely Tyson, Miles battles back from the severe physical pain and exhausting excesses of the 1970s to clean…
Episodes
The Miles Davis Story: 5. Lost and Found
ListenedClarke Peters concludes the series exploring Miles Davis's final decade. After nearly five years of reclusive silence, Miles emerges from his New York brownstone, determined to channel a new generation of musicians to spark his final reinvention of jazz. Miles is back! News of the comeback ignites the media, and packed audiences, from rock royalty to his old jazz associates, flock to his early gigs, left reeling as Miles boldly pushes the genre squarely into the electronic age. Through albums like The Man with the Horn and the Grammy-winning Tutu, Miles and his visionary key collaborator, Marcus Miller, stubbornly defy the critics to forge a triumphant new legacy. Along the way, he crosses paths with Prince, while his late-career sonic experiments deeply inspire a burgeoning generation of hip-hop artists. But It wasn't just the music that was rejuvenated. With the fierce support of his wife, actress Cicely Tyson, Miles battles back from the severe physical pain and exhausting excesses of the 1970s to clean…
The Miles Davis Story: 4. Burning Down the House
ListenedClarke Peters explores a period of radical disruption as Miles Davis, the King of Cool, sets his legacy on fire. By the late 1960s, the jazz world had become too safe, and Miles felt the heat of his "blue flame" inviting him toward the unknown once again. Inspired by the raw energy of Jimi Hendrix and the psychedelic funk of Sly Stone, Miles plugged in his horn, traded his Italian suits for leather trousers, and entered his most controversial era - the "Prince of Darkness". Clarke investigates the high-stakes gamble behind the 1970 masterpiece Bitches Brew, an album that jazz purists initially dismissed as a "cacophonic mess" that would kill his career . Yet, while the establishment recoiled, Miles was busy inventing the future - laying the DNA for everything from rock to hip-hop. This was a time of extreme creative hunger and personal chaos, marked by a mysterious shooting in Brooklyn and a reckless life in the fast lane that eventually took a heavy physical toll. From the studio to the massive stage at the…
The Miles Davis Story: 3. Miles in Blue
ListenedClarke Peters explores what many consider the apex of Miles Davis’s career: 1959, the year of Kind of Blue. It was a time of tailored suits, fast cars, and a radical new sound that redefined the 20th-century idea of cool. Clarke takes us inside the legendary Columbia studio to witness the birth of the best-selling jazz album of all time - a recording session where Miles’ scrawled notes transformed the genre forever. But beneath the surface of this "sublime" era, Miles’ life didn't always run as smooth as his music. Clarke explores the uncomfortable collision of professional triumph and personal volatility, as his relationship with his soon to be wife, dancer Frances Taylor, was tested by the same uncompromising drive that fuelled his art. The episode reaches a pivotal climax just days after the album’s release. Despite his global stardom, a brutal encounter with the police outside a New York club served as a savage reminder that, for a Black man in 1959 America, the "cool" was never a shield from social…
The Miles Davis Story: 2. Back off the Ropes
ListenedClarke Peters explores a period when Miles Davis, the "King of Cool," was nearly knocked out for good. By the early 1950s, Miles had hit rock bottom - scraped off a Manhattan gutter by a friend and forced to pawn his trumpet to fund a heroin habit that had swallowed his career and his reputation. Clarke follows Miles on a desperate, 20-hour bus ride back to his father’s farm, where he would face his greatest demon in a brutal, solitary fight for his life. We discover how Miles used the grit and physical discipline of his boxing idols, Jack Johnson and Sugar Ray Robinson, to survive a "cold turkey" recovery and find a radical new way to play. Using a Harmon mute to create a dark, aching, and intensely intimate sound that would become his signature, Miles began a high-stakes hustle to reclaim his throne. From the shame of a prison cell to a last-chance appearance at a major jazz festival, this is the story of a legendary artist fighting his way back from the brink to see if the world was still listening.…
The Miles Davis Story: 1. Don't Call Me Legend
ListenedClarke Peters explores the life and legacy of a visionary artist whose relentless pursuit of the "new" often scorched his own life and the lives of those around him. In September 1944, an 18-year-old Miles Davis arrives in New York with a trumpet in his hand and a secret mission. He may have first arrived in New York to take up a place at the prestigious Juilliard School, but in reality Miles was actually patrolling the smoke-filled jazz clubs of 52nd Street, chasing the high-speed sounds of his bebop heroes, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Across the series, Clarke charts Miles’s ever-evolving artform, starting with this first great transformation of a legend - when the young Miles chose to step into the unknown, seize control of his own creative destiny, and begin his journey as a leader. Narrator, acclaimed actor and longtime fan, Clarke Peters (The Wire, Treme, Da 5 Bloods) reveals the restless genius and radical evolution of Miles Davis. Growing up in a New York household where his father’s jazz…