Miles Davis questions

[Stonewall15]

When did Miles start playing almost exclusively with a muted trumpet? What caused him to do so?

[Gheorghe]

I wouldn´t say he was exclusively using the muted trumpet.

It´s true that from the midfifties on  he used the harmon mute for the ballads and the medium tempus, but would play open horn on most of the remaining faster and stronger be-bop tunes.

Take for an example one of his most typical Prestige albums "Steamin´". He plays open only on "Salt Peanuts" and "Well you needn´t ".

I´m not sure now but I think in 1951-53 he still didn´t use the mute, he started with one mute in spring 1954 but it´s a different one which sounds rather strange.

You can hear it on those tracks he made with Dave Schildkraut and others. There is plays the mute also on the fast "April" but it sound´s funny to me.

The good Miles Davis sound on harmon mute I think started around 1955 with the album "Musings of Miles".

The reason "why" he did it......? I´m sure it was stylistic reasons. He became a big fan of that light Ahmad Jamal influenced ballad style medium tempos style and that´s  from where that relaxed  "Miles Davis" sound comes from .

Anyway, from 1963 on he played much more open horn again..... even on ballads, listen to "Valentine" from 1964..... 

[JSngry]

We gotta be talking about mid-late 80s at the earliest, right?

[Gheorghe]

16 hours ago, JSngry said:

We gotta be talking about mid-late 80s at the earliest, right?

How that ? Why not about mid 50s ? That was the period when Miles´ became famous for his muted trumped ,as I have tried to describe......

If it´s about from mid 80´s on, well there still were some great moments on some tunes, but especially the stuff were he used a mute (Time after Time) became just boring. And I have some 80´s recordings also live stuff, where he plays mute but I almost can´t hear him. Sure , Miles had to build up his chops again after years of inactivity, but it´s strange that in mid 1981 on the Kix gigs he sounds much stronger than let´s say in autumn of that year at Hollywood Bowl or worse in Japan. He tries to play the mute on stuff like "My Man is Gone Now" which really sounded strong at Kix, and there you just can´t hear him.......

As I still believe, the best time for that ballad/mediumtempo sound of Miles was the 50´s.

[JSngry]

I think the mid-late 80s was when he seemed to switch over to mostly muted playing, which was the original question.

[Stonewall15]

I wonder if Miles switched to a muted trumpet to sound different from upcoming players such as Clifford Brown, Lee Morgan, Donald Byrd, etc.

[medjuck]

Funny I was listening to the Blackhawk cds the other day and noticing how often Miles  was muted.  (Though I wasn't always sure, since even unmuted his sound was often "pinched"-- I don't mean that in any derogatory sense, I just can't come up with a better word right now.) 

[JSngry]

Miles played with a cup mute on some of the Bird sides.

[JSngry]

Come to think of it, there was plenty cup mute in bebop, which leads to the question - the Harmon mute had been around for a while, but generally used with the stem in. Where do we see the first documentations (classical and jazz) of it being used with the stem out? Miles certainly popularized it, but was he the first to do it?