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What connected all of these phases seems to be a deep impatience with repetition and a reluctance on Davis’s behalf to be pinned down as just one thing. He was famously difficult to work with, a tough combination of dictatorial and laconic, expecting the musicians he worked with to read his subtle expressions and keep pace.
Many of the greats cut their teeth in his bands, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, John McLaughlin and Keith Jarrett among them. He famously pulled influence from cultural markers far beyond music and encouraged his peers to do the same; fashion, architecture, the brutal paintings of Francis Bacon all influenced his ever-evolving sound.
Leeds-born trumpet player, producer and multi-instrumentalist Emma-Jean Thackray is a Mercury Prize nominee whose 2023 album Weirdo marked one of the most distinctive artistic statements in recent British music. She has spent much of early 2026 performing Dear Miles: A Love Letter, her live tribute to Davis, at sold-out shows at Ronnie Scott’s in London.
“Miles helped me to understand the kind of artist I wanted to be,” she tells me. “I came across his music by accident at 13 or so and I already knew I wanted to be an artist, I knew from a toddler, but I didn’t know exactly how.
“I knew about different pop and rock music, I knew classical, but those spaces didn’t feel exactly right for me. Hearing Sketches of Spain at 13 blew my mind wide open and I realised there was a different musical direction I could go.”
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Thackray’s show takes Davis’s electric period in the early 1970s as its primary source material. “That’s the era that speaks to me the most,” she says.
“They’re the records I pull out and listen to the most at home, and where I still find new things in every single listen. The way they’re improvising as a group is truly magical. It’s so groove-based yet free.”
Other centenary celebrations have included Grammy-nominated trumpeter Theo Croker’s Miles Davis Mixtape at the Southbank Centre, while across the Atlantic, Montreux Jazz Festival Miami dedicated its opening night to Davis in February, featuring the Miles Electric Band led by his nephew and former drummer Vince Wilburn Jr.
The Miles Davis Estate is planning a series of archival releases and a forthcoming feature film, Miles & Juliette, starring Damson Idris as Davis and directed by Bill Pohlad. US drummer Gregory Hutchinson, known for his work with Joe Henderson, Betty Carter and Roy Hargrove leads a tribute album, Kind of Now: The Pulse of Miles Davis, released this month.
Thackray’s Dear Miles continues to tour through the spring, with dates at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival in May before heading to Japan. On the question of his broader legacy, Thackray is unambiguous.
“He was at the forefront of American music for most of the 20th century. He never stood still and as soon as he got a sound that he wanted he changed everything and that’s what I love about my biggest inspirations.
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“People like Björk, Madlib, Prince, Miles, Jackson Pollock. They ripped up their own rulebooks and were never satisfied.”
It seems fitting that she and the other artists celebrating 100 years of Miles Davis continue to propel his sound into the future.
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