Miles Davis

Miles Davis grew up comfortable – his father was a dentist, the family had money – which is worth knowing, because almost nothing else about him was comfortable. He arrived in New York at 18 supposedly to study at Juilliard, and spent his nights tracking down Charlie Parker instead. The classroom couldn't compete.

What made Miles different wasn't speed or flash. Plenty of trumpet players could outrun him. What he had was taste – a sense of what to leave out. He played fewer notes than the men around him and made each one count. When everyone else was filling every gap, Miles let the silence do some of the work.

Then he kept changing. Most great musicians find their sound and ride it. Miles found a sound, mastered it, and walked away – over and over. Cool jazz in the late '40s. The hard-driving quintet of the '50s. The hushed modal beauty of "Kind of Blue." Then electric, plugged-in, funk-soaked records in the '70s that horrified the purists and pulled in a whole new audience. He treated his own legend like something to escape.

He could be cruel, and he wasn't interested in pretending otherwise. He played with his back to the crowd. He spoke in a wrecked whisper, the result of a throat operation he ignored long enough to ruin his voice. None of it was an act exactly – it was just Miles refusing to perform likability. The music was the only place he let his guard down, and even there he kept moving so you couldn't pin him.