The jazz trumpeter had been sidetracked by heroin, but sealed his return with an inventive set that showed how much he could wring out of a single piece of musicRead all of the pieces in the 20 iconic festival sets seriesBy March, the year 1955 looked to be going down in the jazz chronicles as one of the darkest in the music’s short history. Saxophonist Charlie Parker, whose wild imagination had transformed the syntax of jazz with the 1940s bebop movement, was dead at only 34, defeated by years of mental turmoil,
music biz exploitation, self-neglect and heroin use.
But four months later, a young trumpeter whose career had already been sidelined by a similar lifestyle, to the minds of many, made a sensational comeback on a short set at the Newport Jazz festival. It kickstarted Miles Davis’s faltering career, and announced the arrival of a restless genius who would shape and reshape jazz for the next 30 years.