Why Miles? Because...

Why Miles?

Miles, because:

• All those people play the trumpet, and there's a few instantly recognisable players, but no-one that's so instantly recognisable.

• He never took a backward step, from teens to sixties, until death, not a single treading water moment. Remorselessly and resolutely, his music moved on.

• The music moved through phases, through bands, through band members, Miles' bands are a who's who of jazz.

• The music moved on within, as well as between, those phases.

• There's any number of moments of sublime beauty.

• There was never any question of pandering to an audience. None of that BBC dumbing down, that ever decreasing artistic merit, ever increasing lowest common denominator didn't apply.

• For one of the best live shows I've ever seen, at the Wembley Conference Centre, leading a great band, hardly playing more than a few bursts on the trumpet. He didn't need to.

• For everyone's favourite jazz album of all time: Kind of Blue.

• For my favourite jazz album of all time: In a Silent Way.

• There's always something new to uncover with every repeat listening. Something unexpected, despite the familiarity.

• In a Silent Way is that Sunday morning album, that perfect music for coffee, the sports sections of the online newspapers, beautiful, modal jazz.

• Miles Runs the Voodoo Down, which was a real eye-opener, included on that Atlantic (I think) sampler with the garish colours and the bodybuilder on the cover.

• No Miles (just as no James Brown, no Steve Reich) and you don't get any of the great stuff being produced today. Pioneering. Risk taking. Commercially successful without ever considering commercial success a goal worth the pursuit.

• For those magnificent albums with Gil Evans: Porgy and Bess, Miles Ahead, and my favourite, Sketches of Spain.

• For Wayne Shorter.

• For those live albums.

• For Bitches Brew, one of the albums I've listened to the most.

• I just know if he had a gun, bullets, and Simon Cowell in his sights, he'd not hesitate.

• For always pushing the boundaries from the first to the last.