Artist · chart history · #24 in indie & aaa artist polls
Miles Davis
Solo artist Alton United States jazz trumpeter, bandleader, songwriter
Miles Davis is an artist from Alton. Miles Davis has 32 chart appearances on 13 radio countdowns from 7 stations on RockLists, spanning 2001–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “So What”, which appears on 11 lists with a best position of #48. The station that charted Miles Davis most often is WXPN (Philadelphia, PA), with 13 appearances.
Miles Davis was born in Alton, Illinois, in 1926, raised in East St. Louis, and by 1959 he had already remade jazz more than once. He came to New York to study at Juilliard, dropped out, and from 1944 to 1948 blew trumpet in Charlie Parker's bebop quintet. The Birth of the Cool sessions for Capitol set cool jazz in motion; the Prestige records of the early '50s helped invent hard bop; and after a triumphant comeback at the Newport Jazz Festival he signed with Columbia and cut 'Round About Midnight with John Coltrane and Paul Chambers.
Then came Kind of Blue in 1959, cool and blue as smoke drifting across a darkened club, "So What", "All Blues", "Blue in Green", "Freddie Freeloader" and "Flamenco Sketches" floating along in unhurried, modal calm. It ranks with the best-loved jazz records ever made, and it has sold more than 5 million copies in America alone. Gil Evans's orchestral Sketches of Spain came next.
He never stood still. A new quintet with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams pushed into post-bop, and then In a Silent Way in 1969 and the million-selling Bitches Brew in 1970 plugged jazz into rock and funk and electronics, alienating purists and opening the door to fusion. After a 5-year retirement for his health he came back in the '80s with The Man with the Horn and Tutu. He died in 1991, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted him in 2006.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Miles Davis on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | So What | 11 | #48 | – | – | |
| 2 | All Blues | 3 | #99 | – | – | |
| 3 | Bitches Brew | 1 | #251 | – | – | |
| 4 | Jack Johnson | 1 | #479 | – | – | |
| 5 | Tutu | 1 | #594 | – | – | |
| 6 | Solea | 1 | #603 | – | – | |
| 7 | Shhh/Peaceful | 1 | #655 | – | – | |
| 8 | Miles Runs The Voodoo Down | 3 | #801 | – | – | |
| 9 | New Rhumba | 1 | #849 | – | – | |
| 10 | Pharaoh's Dance | 1 | #1027 | – | – | |
| 11 | Four | 1 | #1187 | – | – | |
| 12 | Boplicity | 1 | #1231 | – | – | |
| 13 | Flamenco Sketches | 1 | #1266 | – | – | |
| 14 | Freddie Freeloader | 2 | #770 | – | – | |
| 15 | Blue in Green | 2 | #861 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
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