(1926 – 1991) Jazz musician Miles Davis cut his musical chops on be-bop and nurtured his musicality in the New York City jazz lifestyle colored by American race relations. As a trumpet player, Miles was not known for a conventional virtuosity but rather for the ways in which he used the trumpet with his raspy muted sound (not unlike his own voice) to add color and nuance to his music. Davis’ music was often the precursor of change and the avant-garde in jazz music. His recording, Kind of Blue (1959), remains one of the best examples of his unique musicianship. Davis politicized jazz music along racial lines and encouraged an ambivalent relationship with his audiences, particularly his white audience.