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Daily Bread for Whitewater, Wisconsin: 5-25-10 (Miles Davis Edition)

Good morning,

The forecast for Whitewater calls for a chance of thunderstorms with a high of eighty-six degrees.

I know of no public, municipal meetings of the City of Whitewater today. The coast is clear for private endeavors and accomplishments.

On this day in 1926, Miles Davis was born. Sixty-five years later, upon his death, the New York Times wrote of Davis’s many accomplishments:

Mr. Davis’s unmistakable, voicelike, nearly vibratoless tone — at times distant and melancholy, at others assertive yet luminous — has been imitated around the world.

His solos, whether ruminating on a whispered ballad melody or jabbing against a beat, have been models for generations of jazz musicians. Other trumpeters play faster and higher, but more than in any technical feats Mr. Davis’s influence lay in his phrasing and sense of space. “I always listen to what I can leave out,” he would say.

Equally important, Mr. Davis never settled into one style; every few years he created a new lineup and format for his groups. Each phase brought denunciations from critics; each, except for the most recent one, has set off repercussions throughout modern jazz. “I have to change,” he once said. “It’s like a curse.”

Here’s a tribute to one of Davis’s most popular works, Kind of Blue:

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBpLKm8vw4M

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