Wish I'd Seen 'Em #1 - Miles Davis

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Wish I'd Seen 'Em. It's a musical series about musicians that I wish I'd seen in concert, because they are now deceased and I totally missed out. We are at #1: the legendary Miles Davis (1926-1991.) Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, always forward-thinking, is credited with changing jazz music five times. Although I already knew most of it, I recently read Davis' autobiography, Miles. Miles was very fond of the word "Mothertrucker" (I'll leave it up to you to decipher the word Davis actually used.) Sometimes, Miles used the word when referring to someone that he didn't care much for, but usually, it was a compliment, as in "That guy was a mothertrucker on the saxophone." Some of the mothertrucker's that played in Miles' band over the decades are legend: John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, and on and on. And simply being a mothertrucker wasn't enough. You also had to be capable of playing what Miles was hearing in his head, and play it the way that he wanted it played. When Miles Davis was touring in the 1980's and early 1990's, those big names were long gone, either dead, or they'd moved on to successful solo careers. However, you could rest assured that, while you might not have known the names of some of the guys in Miles' band, you knew that you were going to see some mothertrucker's in action. Unfortunately, I never got to see Miles in concert. I don't know if the Denver appearances weren't well promoted or what, but I always seemed to find out about them after the fact. The owner of Denver's greatest record store is also a photographer, and he's got a photo he took of Miles hanging on the wall, and I once had a great music conversation with a girl that I met in a bar, and she had seen Miles at Fiddlers Green Amphitheater here in Denver, but other than You Tube videos, that's the closest I ever came to seeing him. And knowing that I'll never get to sit in an audience and listen to every sweet note come out of that horn, well, it makes me a little sad. (Info verified by Wikipedia)