Miles Davis was one of the most influential and innovative musicians of the twentieth century. Davis was a jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Davis was at the forefront of almost every major development of jazz after the Second World War. He played on some of the important early bebop records, the first cool jazz records were recorded under his name, he was largely responsible for the development of modal jazz, and jazz fusion arose from Davis's bands of the late sixties and early seventies and the musicians who worked with him. Davis was in a line of jazz trumpeters that started with Buddy Bolden and ran through Joe "King" Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, and Dizzy Gillespie. Many of the major figures in postwar jazz played in one of Davis's groups at some point in their career. Some authorities consider Davis to have been the first person really to understand the difference between live and recorded music.

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1066: Norman Conquest: William the Conqueror and his fleet of around 600 ships reached England and landed at Pevensey, Sussex. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Conquest)

1542: Portuguese explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, the first European to travel along the California coast, landed on what is now the U.S. city of San Diego. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Rodr%C3%ADguez_Cabrillo)

1972: Paul Henderson scored the game-winning goal against Vladislav Tretiak, securing a Canadian victory in the Summit Series over the Soviet ice hockey team. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summit_Series)

1994: The ferry M/S Estonia sank while commuting between Tallinn, Estonia, and Stockholm, Sweden, claiming 852 lives in one of the worst maritime accidents in the Baltic Sea. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%2FS_Estonia)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

In the season of white wild roses We two went hand in hand: But now in the ruddy autumn Together already we stand. -- Francis Turner Palgrave -- (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Francis_Turner_Palgrave)