Artists Pick Miles Davis Songs for His 100th Birthday on May 26
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · May 21
Artists Pick Miles Davis Songs for His 100th Birthday on May 26
6 articles · Updated · The New York Times · May 21
Ahead of Miles Davis’s centennial on May 26, artists including Erykah Badu, Damson Idris, Esperanza Spalding and Yohji Yamamoto named the Davis tracks they most cherish.
Their selections stretched across his catalog—from “So What” and “Someday My Prince Will Come” to deeper cuts like “Theme for Augustine” and “Nefertiti (Session Reel)”—underscoring the range of his influence.
Several contributors tied their picks to Davis’s restless experimentation, with Spalding praising the freedom of his 1965 Plugged Nickel band and Nicholas Payton highlighting Columbia’s 1966 session reels as a window into his creative process.
The tribute arrives 35 years after Davis’s death, framing his 100th birthday as a celebration not just of jazz canon classics such as “Kind of Blue” and “Bitches Brew,” but of an enduring model of artistic reinvention.
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Is the centennial a tribute to art or a masterclass in commercializing a music icon's legacy?