Miles Ahead of His Time – The Introduction to Our New Unit

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Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Mahatma Gandhi; all these people have something in common. Your first reaction will be to think of their achievements and their brilliance because that’s what they left behind. What is commonly overlooked however, is how they got there. What pushed them hard enough to leave such as lasting impact on this earth? It is easy to say it was their intelligence or they just had a good heart, but if it were as simple as that, why weren’t their achievements recognized sooner? The truth is, most of these people were a little bit crazy and shunned during their lives. This isn’t exactly a bad thing though, and that’s the main focus of our newest unit. Through investigation, presentation, and innovation, we will strive to find the answer to the question “Why does it take a crazy person to change the world?”

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PechaKucha Presentation

Our first task for this unit was to create a presentation on a revolutionary person who could be seen as crazy from the Apple Think Different campaign of 1997. We would be using the highly engaging presentation format of PechaKucha, which involves using only images that automatically transition every twenty seconds. This format allows for the speaker to speak without need to worry about their slides and better connect with the audience. For my presentation, I chose to talk about the jazz legend himself, Miles Davis. At the start of my research, I posed the thesis; Through his constant musical innovations and determination to achieve his goals, Miles Davis showed the world the creative possibilities of Jazz Music. Using this thesis, I was able to research and retell the story of his influence though the story below:

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Miles Davis – The Man Who Reinvented Jazz

1. When you think of jazz music today, what comes to mind? You probably imagine an open, melodic, powerful art form that can convey a variety of emotions from happy and wild to melancholy and calm. Yet jazz wasn’t always this way; there used to be strict rules on what was considered jazz music, and was thought of as more of a performance rather than an art form.

2. This all changed on May 26, 1926, when a man named Miles Davis was born. From the first time he picked up a trumpet, Miles stood out from musicians around him with his smooth and melodic style. He wasn’t perfect at the technical aspects of music, but was fiercely determined to follow his own path and began playing professionally at only 17 years old.

3. In 1944, when he was eighteen, he moved to New York To play along side his idol Charlie Parker. Charlie liked Mile’s unique style, and had him soon playing with his band in night clubs. in Harlem. They experimented with blues, and the emerging styles be bop and hard bop, which Miles noticed wasn’t played commonly at professional venues.

4. Aiming to change this, he went out on his own and formed a group known as the Miles Davis Nonet They used a unique mix of instruments that gave them a distinct orchestrated sound, and soon released of Mile’s first album, Birth of the Cool. It wasn’t a massive financial success, but it was the beginning of Mile’s influence on west coast jazz.

5. His work eventually got his group a contract with Columbia records This was when he began to gain popularity with mainstream audiences. He was offered gigs with famous musicians and bands, but ended up declining them all to keep working on his personal projects, which people thought was odd. This proved to be a smart move however as one of these ended up being his best selling album Kind of Blue.

6. Miles was constantly innovating his music and image, and although it brought him success, it also came with a price. He was commonly accused of alienating older fans with his constant changes in style. He also declined many potential financial opportunities in favour of following his own path. His new take on the medium also caused him to be dismissed by Jazz critics as they didn’t consider his style “true jazz”.

7. Now Miles could have listened to the critique and changed his direction to please the public, but he didn’t. He continued on his innovative path and pushed the limits of what jazz music could be even further. He began experimenting with rock and roll, electro, and hip hop fusion. He tuned out the world around him, disregarding any critique to his style.

8. Miles Davis strayed from everything that Jazz musician was supposed to be, and this gave him a reputation of being a little crazy. He preformed with little regard for his audience, walking around the stage and even playing with his back to the crowd. He felt that his freedom of speech mattered more than his self image, and would commonly bring up racism in the music industry in an insensitive manner

9. Many thought he was rude and egotistical, and many thought he wasn’t a real musician, but no one argued that he wasn’t a visionary. He helped keep jazz alive with mainstream audiences during a time that its popularity fell, something that allowed its it to thrive to this day. He not only opened the door to several new styles of jazz, but inspired others to develop their own.

Through his constant musical innovations and determination to achieve his goals, Miles Davis showed the world the creative possibilities of Jazz Music.

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Overall, I am happy with the results of this presentation. I feel that my story is interesting and really captures the balance between why he was crazy and how he changed the world. My teacher and classmates said however that I spoke very quickly, which I feel is contributed to the large amount of material I had to cover under four minutes. For our Seattle video project coming up, I am going to remeber this and simplify my script to only the most important details. This will help with presentation and engaging my audience.

Why Does it Take A Crazy Person to Change the World?

As you can see from the story of Miles Davis, crazy doesn’t always mean mentality ill. During our post-presentation discussion, we learned that crazy can mean different, eccentric, and creative. Crazy can mean going against the norm and believing in your own ideas no matter what. This is why I feel that my thesis still holds up well (Through his constant musical innovations and determination to achieve his goals, Miles Davis showed the world the creative possibilities of Jazz Music). He really did open up so many possibilities of what Jazz music could be, and did so because of his drive to follow his own path. Miles was seen during his life as a fool who didn’t understand what the music he was playing truly was, yet it was this break from the mainstream ideas that made him the influential figure we know him as today. He took his vision of what Jazz could be and was crazy enough to believe the world could see it too, and that’s what made him so great. As the co-founder of Apple Steve Jobs once said;