Miles to Go: Birth of the Cool: How Jazz Great Miles Davis Found His Sound by Kathleen Cornell Berman

Mornings in East St. Louis
Miles Davis
sits close to the radio.

Blocks from home,
Miles watches riverboats
bringing musicians
up the Mississippi River,
from New Orleans.

The perfect place for a boy
who loves music.

Like iconic jazz musicians Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke before him, Miles Davis fell under the spell of jazz by that same river. Music drifted through his windows, and he felt the hot beats of the dance bands, the sad sound of blues, and the rhythmic harmonies of the gospel songs, and when his father gave him a gleaming trumpet and music lessons, his path was set.

Miles played with the school band and local bands, and he got good, good enough to be accepted by Julliard School of Music in New York, but the music "on The Street," 52nd Street, where the jazz clubs were, was changing fast.

Everybody's buzzing about
Bebop.

Bebop was hard and fast, with jumpy, unpredictable harmonies and rhythms and fast notes. But...

Bebop was about change.

Miles Davis soon gets good enough to play with the bop stars--Charlie "Bird" Parker's searching sax and Dizzy Gillespie's fast and fizzy high notes--but he has other ideas about how he wants to play.

Miles hears music differently.

He doesn't like to play a lot of notes
... only the important ones.

Miles remembers what his dad had said, "Don't be a mockingbird that copies others," and finally he finds his own band and his style, a sound that was his own, strong, but sweet, a new sound, with relaxed rhythm and pure notes, and one day he wows the crowd at the Newport with his sound--the new jazz.... and becomes one of the major musicians of the century.

In her Birth of the Cool: How Jazz Great Miles Davis Found His Sound (Page Street Kids, 2019), author Kathleen Cornell Berman follows jazz legend Miles Davis through his formative years as a jazz musician who searches himself to invent a new way to play, one true to himself and true to the art of jazz. Appropriately, Berman tells Miles' story in smooth but rhythmic free verse that tells of the inner struggle that leads to memorable music in any time, ably assisted by the art of Keith Henry Brown, who uses soft watercolor illustrations in full page and spot art style to portray for middle readers the music scene that was Miles Davis's own in the world of mid-century music. For young musicians and jazz lovers, this book should be a first purchase for middle-school and public libraries.

For serious fans, Berman adds an appendix with author's and illustrator's notes, a selected discography, and a bibliography of articles and books on the life and work of Miles Davis.

Where Y'at! Trombone Shorty by Troy Andrews and Bryan Collier

"Lots of kids have nicknames. I want to tell you how I got mine.

But before you can understand just how important music is to me, you have to know how important it is to my hometown. I grew up in a neighborhood in New Orleans called Treme'.

Any time of day or night, you could hear music floating in the air."

Floating along with the music in the air, little Troy Andrews always knew he'd follow his brother James into fronting a band. But first, he had to learn to play an instrument. Along with other kids in the neighborhood, he improvised all sorts of ways to make music, and every chance he got he marched along behind the street bands. But then his instrument found him.

"Then one day I found a broken trombone. It looked too bent up to make music.

It wasn't perfect, but with a real instrument in my hands, I was ready to play."

The trombone was twice as tall as little Troy, so brother James took to calling him "Trombone Shorty," and Trombone Shorty he was from that day on. He worked on learning to play, carrying his horn with him everywhere. He even slept with it at night.

And then one day, in the crowd watching R and B star Bo Diddley performing at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, little Troy started to play along and caught the attention of the star singer:

"Who's that playing out there?" he said.

Mom held me up. "That's my son, Trombone Shorty!"

"Well, come on up here, Trombone Shorty!" said Bo Diddley.

The crowd passed little Shorty over their heads up to the stage, and he played along with Bo Diddley's band. Trombone Shorty was on his way.

Soon, at the age of six Trombone Shorty had his own band, and the rest is, as they say, history. In his Caldecott and Coretta Scott King award-winning Trombone Shorty (Abrams Books, 2015), the now world famous trombonist tells his own story, illustrated brilliantly by Bryan Collier in his trademark mixed-media collage artwork which captures the rhythm and blended harmonies of what Trombone Shorty calls the "musical gumbo" of the town of New Orleans and of the American roots music he now shares with the world.

With an author's note that describes Trombone Shorty's Foundation and Music Academy, affiliated with Tulane University, and with charming childhood photos of the author as a trombone-toting little preschooler, this one is great for reading during January's Black History Month.

Says Booklist's review, "Sharp panels of color and image, perspective that dips and soars, and layers of mixed-media collage unite to feel like renditions of brass band music itself."

Music As Grace: Spirit Seeker: John Coltrane's Musical Journey by Gary Golio

A warm light filled the small church.

John smiled as his mother pressed the organ key, calling choir voices to soar through the air above her head. A part of him soared, too.

Suddenly the fiery voice of Reverend Blair made John sit up. Always full of questions–about God, about everything–John took in every word. His grandfather spoke about the power of the Spirit to guide and and heal–no matter what.

This was a promise John would never forget.

For the young John Coltrane his first twelve years were joyful and warm, filled with the music of his father’s singing, the sounds of the organ and choir, and the joys of family life in his grandfather’s big house with his parents and his cousin Mary’s family. But with the death of his grandfather, father, and uncle in close succession, the family lost its anchor and its music. John’s loss brought deep sadness, until another minister, recruiting young people for a church band, found him a used saxophone. John began to make his own music again.

The young Coltrane threw himself wholeheartedly into making music with that horn, practicing whenever he could, even sleeping with the precious horn near him. Listening to the radio, he heard big band jazz and found the sounds he had been missing:

One of John’s favorite musicians was Lester Young, who played tenor saxophone. Lester’s sound was bouncy, but deep, laughter sprinkled with tears.

For John, it was like an echo of Papa’s voice.

John found other musicians to follow, and soon he himself followed them into jazz, always pursuing that “deep music...laughter sprinkled with tears.” He listened to Johnny Hodges and later Charlie “Bird” Parker, hearing sounds that led him on to find that music he held inside. As a young musician he became known, playing with famous bands of the 1940s and early 1950s, touring constantly amid applause and success, but losing touch with his own center, drawn to drink and drugs to fill the void. Restless in spirit, he read about many religions and their own promise of grace.

At last, seemingly lost even amid success, he remembered his grandfather’s preaching, the words promising that “the Spirit would heal–no matter what.” He saw all his studies of religion and philosophy as one, offering cleansing and hope, if he could but find his way back, open to receive the promise.

Leaving addiction behind, John Coltrane went on to make the most of his gift, His new freedom spilled from his horn in notes that many came to hear.

As in his lauded music biographies of Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan (Jimi: Sounds Like a Rainbow: A Story of the Young Jimi Hendrix and When Bob Met Woody: The Story of the Young Bob Dylan) with his forthcoming Spirit Seeker: John Coltrane's Musical Journey (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012) in simple but lyrical text Gary Golio explores the seminal childhood experiences which shaped the music and life of another iconic American musician, another who took in the myriad musical experiences of his early days to produce something uniquely personal yet universal in his music.

“Laughter sprinkled with tears” is the essence of jazz, and Galio’s narrative paints a word picture of Coltrane’s spiritual journey to describe what he felt and expressed in his music. Golio’s story is carried along by the work of the Belpre’ Award-winning illustrator Rudy Gutierrez, whose expressionistic art swirls and floods the pages with color, flowing in and around the narrative like music floods the senses. Words are a sort of music, and Golio’s words provide a way for middle readers to find their way to the music and what lies inside it.

“Lyrically narrated, resplendently illustrated, and deeply respectful of both subject and audience,” says Kirkus Reviews.