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The leaves of a Beech tree.

3D rendering of a µCT scan of a leaf piece, resolution circa 40 µm/voxel.

Lichen Dolichousnea longissima. The photosynthetic appendages on the strands are leaf-like in appearance and function but ontogenically are not leaves.

A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants.^[1][2]

Typically a leaf is a thin, flattened organ borne above ground and specialized for photosynthesis, but many types of leaves are adapted in ways almost unrecognisable in those terms: some are not flat (for example many succulent leaves and conifers), some are not above ground (such as bulb scales), and some are without major photosynthetic function (consider for example cataphylls, spines, and cotyledons).

Conversely, many structures of non-vascular plants, or even of some lichens, which are not plants at all (in the sense of being members of the kingdom Plantae), do look and function much like leaves. Furthermore, several structures found in vascular plants look like leaves but are not actually leaves; they differ from leaves in their structures and origins. Examples include phyllodes, cladodes, and phylloclades.^[2]

General nature of leaves[link]

Typically leaves are flat and thin, thereby maximising the surface area directly exposed to light and promoting photosynthetic function. Externally they commonly are arranged on the plant in such ways as to expose their surfaces to light as efficiently as possible without shading each other, but there are many exceptions and complications; for instance plants adapted to windy conditions may have pendent leaves, such as in many willows and Eucalyptus.

Likewise, the internal organisation of most kinds of leaves has evolved to maximise exposure of the photosynthetic organelles, the chloroplasts, to light and to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide. Most leaves have stomata, which open or narrow to regulate the exchange of carbon dioxide, oxygen, and water vapour with the atmosphere.

In contrast however, some leaf forms are adapted to modulate the amount of light they absorb to avoid or mitigate excessive heat, ultraviolet damage, or desiccation, or to sacrifice light-absorption efficiency in favour of protection from herbivorous enemies. Among these forms the leaves of many xerophytes are conspicuous. For such plants their major constraint is not light flux or intensity, but heat, cold, drought, wind, herbivory, and various other hazards.^[3] Typical examples among such strategies are so-called window plants such as Fenestraria species, some Haworthia species such as Haworthia tesselata and Haworthia truncata^[4] and Bulbine mesembryanthemoides.^[5]

The shape and structure of leaves vary considerably from species to species of plant, depending largely on their adaptation to climate and available light, but also to other factors such as grazing animals, available nutrients, and ecological competition from other plants. Considerable changes in leaf type occur within species too, for example as a plant matures; as a case in point Eucalyptus species commonly have isobilateral, pendent leaves when mature and dominating their neighbours; however, such trees tend to have erect or horizontal dorsiventral leaves as seedlings, when their growth is limited by the available light.^[6] Other factors include the need to balance water loss at high temperature and low humidity against the need to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide. In most plants leaves also are the primary organs responsible for transpiration and guttation.

Leaves can also store food and water, and are modified accordingly to meet these functions, for example in the leaves of succulent plants and in bulb scales. The concentration of photosynthetic structures in leaves requires that they are richer in protein, minerals, and sugars, than say, woody stem tissues. Accordingly leaves are prominent in the diet of many animals. This is true for humans, for whom leaf vegetables commonly are food staples.

A leaf shed in autumn.

Correspondingly, leaves represent heavy investment on the part of the plants bearing them, and their retention or disposition are the subject of elaborate strategies for dealing with pest pressures, seasonal conditions, and protective measures such as the growth of thorns and the production of phytoliths, lignins, tannins and poisons.

Deciduous plants in frigid or cold temperate regions typically shed their leaves in autumn, whereas in areas with a severe dry season, some plants may shed their leaves until the dry season ends. In either case the shed leaves may be expected to contribute their retained nutrients to the soil where they fall.

In contrast, many other non-seasonal plants, such as palms and conifers, retain their leaves for long periods; Welwitschia retains its two main leaves throughout a lifetime that may exceed a thousand years.

Not all plants have true leaves. Bryophytes (e.g., mosses and liverworts) are non-vascular plants, and, although they produce flattened, leaf-like structures that are rich in chlorophyll, these organs differ morphologically from the leaves of vascular plants; For one thing, they lack vascular tissue. Vascularised leaves first evolved following the Devonian period, when carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere dropped significantly. This occurred independently in two separate lineages of vascular plants: the microphylls of lycophytes and the euphylls ("true leaves") of ferns, gymnosperms, and angiosperms. Euphylls are also referred to as macrophylls or megaphylls ("large leaves").

Large-scale features (leaf morphology)[link]

A structurally complete leaf of an angiosperm consists of a petiole (leaf stalk), a lamina (leaf blade), and stipules (small structures located to either side of the base of the petiole). Not every species produces leaves with all of these structural components. In certain species, paired stipules are not obvious or are absent altogether. A petiole may be absent, or the blade may not be laminar (flattened). The tremendous variety shown in leaf structure (anatomy) from species to species is presented in detail below under morphology.

The petiole mechanically links the leaf to the plant and provides the route for transfer of water and sugars to and from the leaf. The lamina is typically the location of the majority of photosynthesis.

Anatomy[link]

This section requires expansion.

Medium scale features[link]

Leaves are normally extensively vascularised and are typically covered by a dense network of xylem, which supply water for photosynthesis, and phloem, which remove the sugars produced by photosynthesis. Many leaves are covered in trichomes (small hairs) which have a diverse range of structures and functions.

Small-scale features[link]

A leaf is a plant organ and is made up of a collection of tissues in a regular organisation. The major tissue systems present are:

1. The epidermis that covers the upper and lower surfaces
2. The mesophyll inside the leaf that is rich in chloroplasts (also called chlorenchyma)
3. The arrangement of veins (the vascular tissue)

These three tissue systems typically form a regular organisation at the cellular scale.

Major leaf tissues[link]

Epidermis[link]

SEM image of Nicotiana alata leaf's epidermis, showing trichomes (hair-like appendages) and stomata (eye-shaped slits, visible at full resolution).

The epidermis is the outer layer of cells covering the leaf. It forms the boundary separating the plant's inner cells from the external world. The epidermis serves several functions: protection against water loss by way of transpiration, regulation of gas exchange, secretion of metabolic compounds, and (in some species) absorption of water. Most leaves show dorsoventral anatomy: The upper (adaxial) and lower (abaxial) surfaces have somewhat different construction and may serve different functions.

The epidermis is usually transparent (epidermal cells lack chloroplasts) and coated on the outer side with a waxy cuticle that prevents water loss. The cuticle is in some cases thinner on the lower epidermis than on the upper epidermis, and is generally thicker on leaves from dry climates as compared with those from wet climates.

The epidermis tissue includes several differentiated cell types: epidermal cells, epidermal hair cells (trichomes) cells in the stomate complex; guard cells and subsidiary cells. The epidermal cells are the most numerous, largest, and least specialized and form the majority of the epidermis. These are typically more elongated in the leaves of monocots than in those of dicots.

The epidermis is covered with pores called stomata, part of a stoma complex consisting of a pore surrounded on each side by chloroplast-containing guard cells, and two to four subsidiary cells that lack chloroplasts. Opening and closing of the stoma complex regulates the exchange of gases and water vapor between the outside air and the interior of the leaf and plays an important role in allowing photosynthesis without letting the leaf dry out. In a typical leaf, the stomata are more numerous over the abaxial (lower) epidermis than the adaxial (upper) epidermis and more numerous in plants from cooler climates.

Mesophyll[link]

Most of the interior of the leaf between the upper and lower layers of epidermis is a parenchyma (ground tissue) or chlorenchyma tissue called the mesophyll (Greek for "middle leaf"). This assimilation tissue is the primary location of photosynthesis in the plant. The products of photosynthesis are called "assimilates".

In ferns and most flowering plants, the mesophyll is divided into two layers:

• An upper palisade layer of tightly packed, vertically elongated cells, one to two cells thick, directly beneath the adaxial epidermis. Its cells contain many more chloroplasts than the spongy layer. These long cylindrical cells are regularly arranged in one to five rows. Cylindrical cells, with the chloroplasts close to the walls of the cell, can take optimal advantage of light. The slight separation of the cells provides maximum absorption of carbon dioxide. This separation must be minimal to afford capillary action for water distribution. In order to adapt to their different environment (such as sun or shade), plants had to adapt this structure to obtain optimal result. Sun leaves have a multi-layered palisade layer, while shade leaves or older leaves closer to the soil are single-layered.
• Beneath the palisade layer is the spongy layer. The cells of the spongy layer are more rounded and not so tightly packed. There are large intercellular air spaces. These cells contain fewer chloroplasts than those of the palisade layer. The pores or stomata of the epidermis open into substomatal chambers, which are connected to the air spaces between the spongy layer cells.

These two different layers of the mesophyll are absent in many aquatic and marsh plants. Even an epidermis and a mesophyll may be lacking. Instead for their gaseous exchanges they use a homogeneous aerenchyma (thin-walled cells separated by large gas-filled spaces). Their stomata are situated at the upper surface.

Leaves are normally green in color, which comes from chlorophyll found in plastids in the chlorenchyma cells. Plants that lack chlorophyll cannot photosynthesize.

Veins[link]

The veins of a bramble leaf.

The veins are the vascular tissue of the leaf and are located in the spongy layer of the mesophyll. They are typical examples of pattern formation through ramification. The pattern of the veins is called venation.

The veins are made up of:

• Xylem: tubes that bring water and minerals from the roots into the leaf.
• Phloem: tubes that usually move sap, with dissolved sucrose, produced by photosynthesis in the leaf, out of the leaf.

The xylem typically lies on the adaxial side of the vascular bundle and the phloem typically lies on the abaxial side. Both are embedded in a dense parenchyma tissue, called the pith or sheath, which usually includes some structural collenchyma tissue.

Seasonal leaf loss[link]

Leaves shifting color in fall

Leaves in temperate, boreal, and seasonally dry zones may be seasonally deciduous (falling off or dying for the inclement season). This mechanism to shed leaves is called abscission. After the leaf is shed, a leaf scar develops on the twig. In cold autumns, they sometimes change color, and turn yellow, bright-orange, or red, as various accessory pigments (carotenoids and xanthophylls) are revealed when the tree responds to cold and reduced sunlight by curtailing chlorophyll production. Red anthocyanin pigments are now thought to be produced in the leaf as it dies, possibly to mask the yellow hue left when the chlorophyll is lost - yellow leaves appear to attract herbivores such as aphids.^[7]

Morphology[link]

The Citrus leaf is identified by the pores and pigments, as well as the margins.

External leaf characteristics (such as shape, margin, hairs, etc.) are important for identifying plant species, and botanists have developed a rich terminology for describing leaf characteristics. These structures are a part of what makes leaves determinant; they grow and achieve a specific pattern and shape, then stop. Other plant parts like stems or roots are non-determinant, and will usually continue to grow as long as they have the resources to do so.

Classification of leaves can occur through many different designative schema, and the type of leaf is usually characteristic of a species, although some species produce more than one type of leaf. The longest type of leaf is a leaf from palm trees, measuring at nine feet long. The terminology associated with the description of leaf morphology is presented, in illustrated form, at Wikibooks.

Basic types[link]

Leaves of the White Spruce (Picea glauca) are needle-shaped and their arrangement is spiral

• Ferns have fronds
• Conifer leaves are typically needle-, awl-, or scale-shaped
• Angiosperm (flowering plant) leaves: the standard form includes stipules, a petiole, and a lamina
• Lycophytes have microphyll leaves.
• Sheath leaves (type found in most grasses)
• Other specialized leaves (such as those of Nepenthes)

Arrangement on the stem[link]

Different terms are usually used to describe leaf placement (phyllotaxis):

The leaves on this plant are arranged in pairs opposite one another, with successive pairs at right angles to each other ("decussate") along the red stem. Note the developing buds in the axils of these leaves.

• Alternate – leaf attachments are singular at nodes, and leaves alternate direction, to a greater or lesser degree, along the stem.
• Opposite – Two structures, one on each opposite side of the stem, typically leaves, branches, or flower parts. Leaf attachments are paired at each node; decussate if, as typical, each successive pair is rotated 90° progressing along the stem; or distichous if not rotated, but two-ranked (in the same geometric flat-plane).
• Whorled – three or more leaves attach at each point or node on the stem. As with opposite leaves, successive whorls may or may not be decussate, rotated by half the angle between the leaves in the whorl (i.e., successive whorls of three rotated 60°, whorls of four rotated 45°, etc.). Opposite leaves may appear whorled near the tip of the stem.
• Rosulate – leaves form a rosette

As a stem grows, leaves tend to appear arranged around the stem in a way that optimizes yield of light. In essence, leaves form a helix pattern centered around the stem, either clockwise or counterclockwise, with (depending upon the species) the same angle of divergence. There is a regularity in these angles and they follow the numbers in a Fibonacci sequence: 1/2, 2/3, 3/5, 5/8, 8/13, 13/21, 21/34, 34/55, 55/89. This series tends to a limit close to 360° x 34/89 = 137.52 or 137° 30', an angle known in mathematics as the golden angle. In the series, the numerator indicates the number of complete turns or "gyres" until a leaf arrives at the initial position. The denominator indicates the number of leaves in the arrangement. This can be demonstrated by the following:

• alternate leaves have an angle of 180° (or 1/2)
• 120° (or 1/3) : three leaves in one circle
• 144° (or 2/5) : five leaves in two gyres
• 135° (or 3/8) : eight leaves in three gyres.

Divisions of the blade[link]

A leaf with laminar structure and pinnate venation

Two basic forms of leaves can be described considering the way the blade (lamina) is divided. A simple leaf has an undivided blade. However, the leaf shape may be formed of lobes, but the gaps between lobes do not reach to the main vein. A compound leaf has a fully subdivided blade, each leaflet of the blade separated along a main or secondary vein. Because each leaflet can appear to be a simple leaf, it is important to recognize where the petiole occurs to identify a compound leaf. Compound leaves are a characteristic of some families of higher plants, such as the Fabaceae. The middle vein of a compound leaf or a frond, when it is present, is called a rachis.

• Palmately compound leaves have the leaflets radiating from the end of the petiole, like fingers off the palm of a hand, e.g. Cannabis (hemp) and Aesculus (buckeyes).
• Pinnately compound leaves have the leaflets arranged along the main or mid-vein.
  • odd pinnate: with a terminal leaflet, e.g. Fraxinus (ash).
  • even pinnate: lacking a terminal leaflet, e.g. Swietenia (mahogany).
• Bipinnately compound leaves are twice divided: the leaflets are arranged along a secondary vein that is one of several branching off the rachis. Each leaflet is called a "pinnule". The pinnules on one secondary vein are called "pinna"; e.g. Albizia (silk tree).
• trifoliate (or trifoliolate): a pinnate leaf with just three leaflets, e.g. Trifolium (clover), Laburnum (laburnum).
• pinnatifid: pinnately dissected to the central vein, but with the leaflets not entirely separate, e.g. Polypodium, some Sorbus (whitebeams). In pinnately veined leaves the central vein in known as the midrib.

Characteristics of the petiole[link]

The overgrown petioles of Rhubarb (Rheum rhabarbarum) are edible.

Petiolated leaves have a petiole (leaf stem). Sessile leaves do not: The blade attaches directly to the stem. In clasping or decurrent leaves, the blade partially or wholly surrounds the stem, often giving the impression that the shoot grows through the leaf. When this is the case, the leaves are called "perfoliate", such as in Claytonia perfoliata. In peltate leaves, the petiole attaches to the blade inside from the blade margin.

In some Acacia species, such as the Koa Tree (Acacia koa), the petioles are expanded or broadened and function like leaf blades; these are called phyllodes. There may or may not be normal pinnate leaves at the tip of the phyllode.

A stipule, present on the leaves of many dicotyledons, is an appendage on each side at the base of the petiole resembling a small leaf. Stipules may be lasting and not be shed (a stipulate leaf, such as in roses and beans), or be shed as the leaf expands, leaving a stipule scar on the twig (an exstipulate leaf).

• The situation, arrangement, and structure of the stipules is called the "stipulation".
  • free
  • adnate : fused to the petiole base
  • ochreate : provided with ochrea, or sheath-formed stipules, e.g. rhubarb,
  • encircling the petiole base
  • interpetiolar : between the petioles of two opposite leaves.
  • intrapetiolar : between the petiole and the subtending stem

Venation[link]

Branching veins on underside of taro leaf

The venation within the bract of a Lime tree.

The lower epidermis of Tilia × europaea

Palmate-veined leaf

There are two subtypes of venation, namely, craspedodromous, where the major veins stretch up to the margin of the leaf, and camptodromous, when major veins extend close to the margin, but bend before they intersect with the margin.

• Feather-veined, reticulate (also called pinnate-netted, penniribbed, penninerved, or penniveined) – the veins arise pinnately from a single mid-vein and subdivide into veinlets. These, in turn, form a complicated network. This type of venation is typical for (but by no means limited to) dicotyledons.
• Three main veins branch at the base of the lamina and run essentially parallel subsequently, as in Ceanothus. A similar pattern (with 3-7 veins) is especially conspicuous in Melastomataceae.
• Palmate-netted, palmate-veined, fan-veined; several main veins diverge from near the leaf base where the petiole attaches, and radiate toward the edge of the leaf, e.g. most Acer (maples).
• Parallel-veined, parallel-ribbed, parallel-nerved, penniparallel – veins run parallel for the length of the leaf, from the base to the apex. Commissural veins (small veins) connect the major parallel veins. Typical for most monocotyledons, such as grasses.
• Dichotomous – There are no dominant bundles, with the veins forking regularly by pairs; found in Ginkgo and some pteridophytes.

Note that, although it is the more complex pattern, branching veins appear to be plesiomorphic and in some form were present in ancient seed plants as long as 250 million years ago. A pseudo-reticulate venation that is actually a highly modified penniparallel one is an autapomorphy of some Melanthiaceae, which are monocots, e.g. Paris quadrifolia (True-lover's Knot).

Morphology changes within a single plant[link]

• Homoblasty - Characteristic in which a plant has small changes in leaf size, shape, and growth habit between juvenile and adult stages.
• Heteroblasty - Characteristic in which a plant has marked changes in leaf size, shape, and growth habit between juvenile and adult stages.

Terminology[link]

Chart illustrating some leaf morphology terms

A portion of a coriander leaf

Shape[link]

Edge (margin)[link]

• ciliate: fringed with hairs
• crenate: wavy-toothed; dentate with rounded teeth, such as Fagus (beech)
• crenulate finely or shallowly crenate
• dentate: toothed, such as Castanea (chestnut)
  • coarse-toothed: with large teeth
  • glandular toothed: with teeth that bear glands.
• denticulate: finely toothed
• doubly toothed: each tooth bearing smaller teeth, such as Ulmus (elm)
• entire: even; with a smooth margin; without toothing
• lobate: indented, with the indentations not reaching to the center, such as many Quercus (oaks)
  • palmately lobed: indented with the indentations reaching to the center, such as Humulus (hop).
• serrate: saw-toothed with asymmetrical teeth pointing forward, such as Urtica (nettle)
• serrulate: finely serrate
• sinuate: with deep, wave-like indentations; coarsely crenate, such as many Rumex (docks)
• spiny or pungent: with stiff, sharp points, such as some Ilex (hollies) and Cirsium (thistles).

Tip[link]

Leaves showing various morphologies. Clockwise from upper left: tripartite lobation, elliptic with serrulate margin, peltate with palmate venation, acuminate odd-pinnate (center), pinnatisect, lobed, elliptic with entire margin

• acuminate: long-pointed, prolonged into a narrow, tapering point in a concave manner.
• acute: ending in a sharp, but not prolonged point
• cuspidate: with a sharp, elongated, rigid tip; tipped with a cusp.
• emarginate: indented, with a shallow notch at the tip.
• mucronate: abruptly tipped with a small short point, as a continuation of the midrib; tipped with a mucro.
• mucronulate: mucronate, but with a smaller spine.
• obcordate: inversely heart-shaped, deeply notched at the top.
• obtuse: rounded or blunt
• truncate: ending abruptly with a flat end, that looks cut off.

Base[link]

• acuminate: coming to a sharp, narrow, prolonged point.
• acute: coming to a sharp, but not prolonged point.
• auriculate: ear-shaped.
• cordate: heart-shaped with the notch towards the stalk.
• cuneate: wedge-shaped.
• hastate: shaped like an halberd and with the basal lobes pointing outward.
• oblique: slanting.
• reniform: kidney-shaped but rounder and broader than long.
• rounded: curving shape.
• sagittate: shaped like an arrowhead and with the acute basal lobes pointing downward.
• truncate: ending abruptly with a flat end, that looks cut off.

Surface[link]

• farinose: bearing farina; mealy, covered with a waxy, whitish powder.
• glabrous: smooth, not hairy.
• glaucous: with a whitish bloom; covered with a very fine, bluish-white powder.
• glutinous: sticky, viscid.
• papillate, or papillose: bearing papillae (minute, nipple-shaped protuberances).
• pubescent: covered with erect hairs (especially soft and short ones).
• punctate: marked with dots; dotted with depressions or with translucent glands or colored dots.
• rugose: deeply wrinkled; with veins clearly visible.
• scurfy: covered with tiny, broad scalelike particles.
• tuberculate: covered with tubercles; covered with warty prominences.
• verrucose: warted, with warty outgrowths.
• viscid, or viscous: covered with thick, sticky secretions.

The leaf surface is also host to a large variety of microorganisms; in this context it is referred to as the phyllosphere.

Hairiness[link]

Common Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) leaves are covered in dense, stellate trichomes.

Scanning electron microscope image of trichomes on the lower surface of a Coleus blumei (coleus) leaf.

"Hairs" on plants are properly called trichomes. Leaves can show several degrees of hairiness. The meaning of several of the following terms can overlap.

• arachnoid, or arachnose: with many fine, entangled hairs giving a cobwebby appearance.
• barbellate: with finely barbed hairs (barbellae).
• bearded: with long, stiff hairs.
• bristly: with stiff hair-like prickles.
• canescent: hoary with dense grayish-white pubescence.
• ciliate: marginally fringed with short hairs (cilia).
• ciliolate: minutely ciliate.
• floccose: with flocks of soft, woolly hairs, which tend to rub off.
• glabrescent: losing hairs with age.
• glabrous: no hairs of any kind present.
• glandular: with a gland at the tip of the hair.
• hirsute: with rather rough or stiff hairs.
• hispid: with rigid, bristly hairs.
• hispidulous: minutely hispid.
• hoary: with a fine, close grayish-white pubescence.
• lanate, or lanose: with woolly hairs.
• pilose: with soft, clearly separated hairs.
• puberulent, or puberulous: with fine, minute hairs.
• pubescent: with soft, short and erect hairs.
• scabrous, or scabrid: rough to the touch.
• sericeous: silky appearance through fine, straight and appressed (lying close and flat) hairs.
• silky: with adpressed, soft and straight pubescence.
• stellate, or stelliform: with star-shaped hairs.
• strigose: with appressed, sharp, straight and stiff hairs.
• tomentose: densely pubescent with matted, soft white woolly hairs.
  • cano-tomentose: between canescent and tomentose.
  • felted-tomentose: woolly and matted with curly hairs.
• tomentulose: minutely or only slightly tomentose.
• villous: with long and soft hairs, usually curved.
• woolly:' with long, soft and tortuous or matted hairs.

Adaptations[link]

The embedded lists in this article may contain items that are not encyclopedic. Please help out by removing such elements and incorporating appropriate items into the main body of the article. (February 2008)

Poinsettia bracts are leaves which have evolved red pigmentation in order to attract insects and birds to the central flowers, an adaptive function normally served by petals (which are themselves leaves highly modified by evolution).

In the course of evolution, leaves have adapted to different environments in the following ways:

• A certain surface structure avoids moistening by rain and contamination (See Lotus effect).
• Sliced leaves reduce wind resistance.
• Hairs on the leaf surface trap humidity in dry climates and create a boundary layer reducing water loss.
• Waxy leaf surfaces reduce water loss.
• Large surface area provides large area for sunlight and shade for plant to minimize heating and reduce water loss.
• In more or less opaque or buried in the soil leaves, translucent windows filter the light before the photosynthesis takes place at the inner leaf surfaces (e.g. Fenestraria).
• Succulent leaves store water and organic acids for use in CAM photosynthesis.
• Aromatic oils, poisons or pheromones produced by leaf borne glands deter herbivores (e.g. eucalypts).
• Inclusions of crystalline minerals deter herbivores (e.g. silica phytoliths in grasses, raphides in Araceae).
• Petals attracts pollinators.
• Spines protect the plants (e.g. cacti).
• Insect traps feed the plants directly (see carnivorous plants).
• Bulbs store food and water (e.g. onions).
• Tendrils allow the plant to climb (e.g. peas).
• Bracts and pseudanthia (false flowers) replace normal flower structures when the true flowers are greatly reduced (e.g. Spurges).

Interactions with other organisms[link]

Some insects mimic leaves (Kallima inachus shown)

A girl playing with leaves

Leaf after being eaten by Caterpillar

Dew on a leaf

Although not as nutritious as other organs such as fruit, leaves provide a food source for many organisms. Animals which eat leaves are known as folivores. The leaf is one of the most vital parts of the plant, and plants have evolved protection against folivores such as tannins, chemicals which hinder the digestion of proteins and have an unpleasant taste.

Some animals have cryptic adaptations to avoid their own predators. For example, some caterpillars will create a small home in the leaf by folding it over themselves, while other herbivores and their prey mimic the appearance of the leaf. Some insects, such as the katydid, take this even further, moving from side to side much like a leaf does in the wind.

Bibliography[link]

• Leaves: The formation, charactistics and uses of hundred of leaves in all parts of the world by Ghillean Tolmie Prance. 324 photographic plates in black and white, and colour by Kjell B Sandved 256 pages^[8]

Footnotes[link]

See also[link]

• Abscission – loss of leaves
• Cladode - a flattened photsynthetic stem, if very leaf-like then it is called a Phylloclade
• Cladophyll – a stem-like leaf part (synonym: phyllode)
• Evolution of leaves
• Guttation – beads of fluid forming at leaf margins
• Leaf area index
• Leaf protein concentrate
• Leaf Sensor – a device that measures the moisture level in plant leaves
• Vernation – sprouting of leaves, also the arrangement of leaves in the bud

External links[link]

• Media related to Leaves at Wikimedia Commons
• The Wiktionary entry for leaf
• VASCULAR PLANT SYSTEMATICS Section B. General Characters and Character States: Position and Arrangement
• Science aid: Leaf Leaf structure and transpiration resource for teens.

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Miles Davis
Photo of Davis in 1955 taken by Tom Palumbo
Background information
Birth name	Miles Dewey Davis III
Born	(1926-05-26)May 26, 1926 Alton, Illinois, United States
Died	September 28, 1991(1991-09-28) (aged 65) Santa Monica, California, United States
Genres	Jazz, hard bop, bebop, cool jazz, modal, fusion, third stream, jazz-funk, jazz rap[1][2]
Occupations	Bandleader, composer, trumpeter, artist
Instruments	Trumpet, flugelhorn, piano, organ
Years active	1944–1975, 1980–1991
Labels	Capitol Jazz/EMI, Columbia/CBS, Warner Bros.
Associated acts	Billy Eckstine, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis Quintet, Gil Evans
Website	www.milesdavis.com

Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century,^[3] Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz, and jazz fusion.

Biography[link]

Early life (1926–44)[link]

Miles Dewey Davis was born on May 26, 1926, to an affluent African American family in Alton, Illinois. His father, Dr. Miles Henry Davis, was a dentist. In 1927 the family moved to East St. Louis, Illinois. They also owned a substantial ranch in northern Arkansas, where Davis learned to ride horses as a boy.

Davis' mother, Cleota Mae (Henry) Davis, wanted her son to learn the piano; she was a capable blues pianist but kept this fact hidden from her son. His musical studies began at 13, when his father gave him a trumpet and arranged lessons with local musician Elwood Buchanan. Davis later suggested that his father's instrument choice was made largely to irk his wife, who disliked the trumpet's sound. Against the fashion of the time, Buchanan stressed the importance of playing without vibrato; he was reported to have slapped Davis' knuckles every time he started using heavy vibrato.^[4] Davis would carry his clear signature tone throughout his career. He once remarked on its importance to him, saying, "I prefer a round sound with no attitude in it, like a round voice with not too much tremolo and not too much bass. Just right in the middle. If I can’t get that sound I can’t play anything."^[5] Clark Terry was another important early influence.^{[citation needed]}

By age 16, Davis was a member of the music society and playing professionally when not at school. At 17, he spent a year playing in Eddie Randle's band, the Blue Devils. During this time, Sonny Stitt tried to persuade him to join the Tiny Bradshaw band, then passing through town, but Davis' mother insisted that he finish his final year of high school. He graduated from East St. Louis Lincoln High School in 1944.

In 1944, the Billy Eckstine band visited East St. Louis. Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker were members of the band, and Davis was brought in on third trumpet for a couple of weeks because the regular player, Buddy Anderson, was out sick. Even after this experience, once Eckstine's band left town, Davis' parents were still keen for him to continue formal academic studies.

New York and the bebop years begin (1944–48)[link]

Charlie Parker, Tommy Potter, Miles Davis, Duke Jordan, Max Roach, August 1947

In the fall of 1944, following graduation from high school, Davis moved to New York City to study at the Juilliard School of Music.

Upon arriving in New York, he spent most of his first weeks in town trying to get in contact with Charlie Parker, despite being advised against doing so by several people he met during his quest, including saxophonist Coleman Hawkins.^[4]

Finally locating his idol, Davis became one of the cadre of musicians who held nightly jam sessions at two of Harlem's nightclubs, Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's. The group included many of the future leaders of the bebop revolution: young players such as Fats Navarro, Freddie Webster, and J. J. Johnson. Established musicians including Thelonious Monk and Kenny Clarke were also regular participants.

Davis dropped out of Juilliard, after asking permission from his father. In his autobiography, Davis criticized the Juilliard classes for centering too much on the classical European and "white" repertoire. However, he also acknowledged that, while greatly improving his trumpet playing technique, Juilliard helped give him a grounding in music theory that would prove valuable in later years.

Davis began playing professionally, performing in several 52nd Street clubs with Coleman Hawkins and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. In 1945, he entered a recording studio for the first time, as a member of Herbie Fields's group. This was the first of many recordings to which Davis contributed in this period, mostly as a sideman. He finally got the chance to record as a leader in 1946, with an occasional group called the Miles Davis Sextet plus Earl Coleman and Ann Hathaway—one of the rare occasions when Davis, by then a member of the groundbreaking Charlie Parker Quintet, can be heard accompanying singers.^[6] In these early years, recording sessions where Davis was the leader were the exception rather than the rule; his next date as leader would not come until 1947.

Around 1945, Dizzy Gillespie parted ways with Parker, and Davis was hired as Gillespie's replacement in his quintet, which also featured Max Roach on drums, Al Haig (replaced later by Sir Charles Thompson and Duke Jordan) on piano, and Curley Russell (later replaced by Tommy Potter and Leonard Gaskin) on bass.

Coleman Hawkins and Miles Davis, ca. September 1947

With Parker's quintet, Davis went into the studio several times, already showing hints of the style for which he would become known. On an oft-quoted take of Parker's signature song, "Now's the Time", Davis takes a melodic solo, whose unbop-like quality anticipates the "cool jazz" period that would follow. The Parker quintet also toured widely. During a stop in Los Angeles, Parker had a nervous breakdown that landed him in the Camarillo State Mental Hospital for several months, and Davis found himself stranded. He roomed and collaborated for some time with bassist Charles Mingus, before getting a job on Billy Eckstine's California tour, which eventually brought him back to New York.^[7] In 1948, Parker returned to New York, and Davis rejoined his group.

Miles Davis on piano with Howard McGhee and Brick Fleagle, September 1947

The relationships within the quintet, however, were growing tense. Parker's erratic behavior (attributable to his well-known drug addiction) and artistic choices (both Davis and Roach objected to having Duke Jordan as a pianist^[4] and would have preferred Bud Powell) became sources of friction. In December 1948, disputes over money (Davis claims he was not being paid) began to strain their relationship even further. Davis finally left the group following a confrontation with Parker at the Royal Roost.

For Davis, his departure from Parker's group marked the beginning of a period in which he worked mainly as a freelancer and as a sideman in some of the most important combos on the New York jazz scene.

Birth of the Cool (1948–49)[link]

In 1948 Davis grew close to the Canadian composer and arranger Gil Evans. Evans' basement apartment had become the meeting place for several young musicians and composers such as Davis, Roach, pianist John Lewis, and baritone sax player Gerry Mulligan who were unhappy with the increasingly virtuoso instrumental techniques that dominated the bebop scene. Evans had been the arranger for the Claude Thornhill orchestra, and it was the sound of this group, as well as Duke Ellington's example, that suggested the creation of an unusual line-up: a nonet including a French horn and a tuba (this accounts for the "tuba band" moniker that was to be associated with the combo).

Davis took an active role in the project,^[8] so much so that it soon became "his project". The objective was to achieve a sound similar to the human voice, through carefully arranged compositions and by emphasizing a relaxed, melodic approach to the improvisations.

The nonet debuted in the summer of 1948, with a two-week engagement at the Royal Roost. The sign announcing the performance gave a surprising prominence to the role of the arrangers: "Miles Davis Nonet. Arrangements by Gil Evans, John Lewis and Gerry Mulligan". It was, in fact, so unusual that Davis had to persuade the Roost's manager, Ralph Watkins, to allow the sign to be worded in this way; he prevailed only with the help of Monte Kay, the club's artistic director.

The nonet was active until the end of 1949, along the way undergoing several changes in personnel: Roach and Davis were constantly featured, along with Mulligan, tuba player Bill Barber, and alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, who had been preferred to Sonny Stitt (whose playing was considered too bop-oriented). Over the months, John Lewis alternated with Al Haig on piano, Mike Zwerin with Kai Winding on trombone (Johnson was touring at the time), Junior Collins with Sandy Siegelstein and Gunther Schuller on French horn, and Al McKibbon with Joe Shulman on bass. Singer Kenny Hagood was added for one track during the recording

The presence of white musicians in the group angered some black jazz players, many of whom were unemployed at the time, but Davis rebuffed their criticisms.^[9]

A contract with Capitol Records granted the nonet several recording sessions between January 1949 and April 1950. The material they recorded was released in 1956 on an album whose title, Birth of the Cool, gave its name to the "cool jazz" movement that developed at the same time and partly shared the musical direction begun by Davis' group.

For his part, Davis was fully aware of the importance of the project, which he pursued to the point of turning down a job with Duke Ellington's orchestra.^[4]

The importance of the nonet experience would become clear to critics and the larger public only in later years, but, at least commercially, the nonet was not a success. The liner notes of the first recordings of the Davis Quintet for Columbia Records call it one of the most spectacular failures of the jazz club scene. This was bitterly noted by Davis, who claimed the invention of the cool style and resented the success that was later enjoyed—in large part because of the media's attention—by white "cool jazz" musicians (Mulligan and Dave Brubeck in particular).

This experience also marked the beginning of the lifelong friendship between Davis and Gil Evans, an alliance that would bear important results in the years to follow.

Hard bop and the "Blue Period" (1950–54)[link]

The first half of the 1950s was, for Davis, a period of great personal difficulty. At the end of 1949, he went on tour in Paris with a group including Tadd Dameron, Kenny Clarke (who remained in Europe after the tour), and James Moody. Davis was fascinated by Paris and its cultural environment, where black jazz musicians, and African Americans in general, often felt better respected than they did in their homeland. While in Paris, Davis began a relationship with French actress and singer Juliette Gréco.

Many of his new and old friends (Davis, in his autobiography, mentions Clarke) tried to persuade him to stay in France, but Davis decided to return to New York. Back in the States, he began to feel deeply depressed. The depression was due in part to his separation from Gréco, in part to his feeling underappreciated by the critics (who were hailing Davis' former collaborators as leaders of the cool jazz movement), and in part to the unraveling of his liaison with a former St. Louis schoolmate who was living with him in New York and with whom he had two children.

These are the factors to which Davis traces a heroin habit that deeply affected him for the next four years. Though Davis denies it in his autobiography, it is also likely that the environment in which he was living played a role. Most of Davis' associates at the time, some of them perhaps in imitation of Charlie Parker, had drug addictions of their own (among them, sax players Sonny Rollins and Dexter Gordon, trumpeters Fats Navarro and Freddie Webster, and drummer Art Blakey). For the next four years, Davis supported his habit partly with his music and partly by living the life of a hustler.^[10] By 1953, his drug addiction was beginning to impair his ability to perform. Heroin had killed some of his friends (Navarro and Freddie Webster). He himself had been arrested for drug possession while on tour in Los Angeles, and his drug habit had been made public in a devastating interview that Cab Calloway gave to Down Beat.^[11]

Realizing his precarious condition, Davis tried several times to end his drug addiction, finally succeeding in 1954 after returning to his father's home in St. Louis for several months and literally locking himself in a room until he had gone through a painful withdrawal. During this period he avoided New York and played mostly in Detroit and other midwestern towns, where drugs were then harder to come by. A widely-related story, attributed to Richard (Prophet) Jennings^[12][13] was that Davis, while in Detroit playing at the Blue Bird club as a guest soloist in Billy Mitchell's house band along with Tommy Flanagan, Elvin Jones, Betty Carter, Yusef Lateef, Barry Harris, Thad Jones, Curtis Fuller and Donald Byrd stumbled into Baker's Keyboard Lounge out of the rain, soaking wet and carrying his trumpet in a paper bag under his coat, walked to the bandstand and interrupted Max Roach and Clifford Brown in the midst of performing Sweet Georgia Brown by beginning to play My Funny Valentine, and then, after finishing the song, stumbled back into the rainy night. Davis was supposedly embarrassed into getting clean by this incident. In his autobiography, Davis disputed this account, stating that Roach had requested that Davis play with him that night, and that the details of the incident, such as carrying his horn in a paper bag and interrupting Roach and Brown, were fictional and that his decision to quit heroin was unrelated to the incident.^[14]

Despite all the personal turmoil, the 1950–54 period was actually quite fruitful for Davis artistically. He made quite a number of recordings and had several collaborations with other important musicians. He got to know the music of Chicago pianist Ahmad Jamal, whose elegant approach and use of space influenced him deeply. He also definitively severed his stylistic ties with bebop.^[15]

In 1951, Davis met Bob Weinstock, the owner of Prestige Records, and signed a contract with the label. Between 1951 and 1954, he released many records on Prestige, with several different combos. While the personnel of the recordings varied, the lineup often featured Sonny Rollins and Art Blakey. Davis was particularly fond of Rollins and tried several times, in the years that preceded his meeting with John Coltrane, to recruit him for a regular group. He never succeeded, however, mostly because Rollins was prone to make himself unavailable for months at a time. In spite of the casual occasions that generated these recordings, their quality is almost always quite high, and they document the evolution of Davis' style and sound. During this time he began using the Harmon mute, held close to the microphone, in a way that grew to be his signature, and his phrasing, especially in ballads, became spacious, melodic, and relaxed. This sound was to become so characteristic that the use of the Harmon mute by any jazz trumpet player since immediately conjures up Miles Davis.

The most important Prestige recordings of this period (Dig, Blue Haze, Bags' Groove, Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants, and Walkin') originated mostly from recording sessions in 1951 and 1954, after Davis' recovery from his addiction. Also of importance are his five Blue Note recordings, collected in the Miles Davis Volume 1 album.

With these recordings, Davis assumed a central position in what is known as hard bop. In contrast with bebop, hard bop used slower tempos and a less radical approach to harmony and melody, often adopting popular tunes and standards from the American songbook as starting points for improvisation. Hard bop also distanced itself from cool jazz by virtue of a harder beat and by its constant reference to the blues, both in its traditional form and in the form made popular by rhythm and blues.^[16] A few critics^[5] go as far as to call Walkin' the album that created hard bop, but the point is debatable, given the number of musicians who were working along similar lines at the same time (and of course many of them recorded or played with Davis).

Also in this period Davis gained a reputation for being distant, cold, and withdrawn and for having a quick temper. Among the several factors that contributed to this reputation were his contempt for the critics and specialized press and some well-publicized confrontations with the public and with fellow musicians. (One occasion, in which he had a near fight with Thelonious Monk during the recording of Bags' Groove, received wide exposure in the specialized press.)^[17]

The "nocturnal" quality of Davis' playing and his somber reputation, along with his whispering voice,^[18] earned him the lasting moniker of "prince of darkness", adding a patina of mystery to his public persona.^[19]

First great quintet and sextet (1955–58)[link]

Back in New York and in better health, in 1955 Davis attended the Newport Jazz Festival, where his performance (and especially his solo on "'Round Midnight") was greatly admired and prompted the critics to hail the "return of Miles Davis". At the same time, Davis recruited the players for a formation that became known as his "first great quintet": John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums.

None of these musicians, with the exception of Davis, had received a great deal of exposure before that time; Chambers, in particular, was very young (19 at the time), a Detroit player who had been on the New York scene for only about a year, working with the bands of Bennie Green, Paul Quinichette, George Wallington, J. J. Johnson, and Kai Winding. Coltrane was little known at the time, in spite of earlier collaborations with Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Bostic, and Johnny Hodges. Davis hired Coltrane as a replacement for Sonny Rollins, after unsuccessfully trying to recruit alto saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley.

The repertoire included many bebop mainstays, standards from the Great American Songbook and the pre-bop era, and some traditional tunes.^[20] The prevailing style of the group was a development of the Davis experience in the previous years—Davis playing long, legato, and essentially melodic lines, while Coltrane, who during these years emerged as a leading figure on the musical scene, contrasted by playing high-energy solos.

With the new formation also came a new recording contract. In Newport, Davis had met Columbia Records producer George Avakian, who persuaded him to sign with his label. The quintet made its debut on record with the extremely well received 'Round About Midnight. Before leaving Prestige, however, Davis had to fulfill his obligations during two days of recording sessions in 1956. Prestige released these recordings in the following years as four albums: Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet, Steamin' with the Miles Davis Quintet, Workin' with the Miles Davis Quintet, and Cookin' with the Miles Davis Quintet. While the recording took place in a studio, each record of this series has the structure and feel of a live performance, with several first takes on each album. The records became almost instant classics and were instrumental in establishing Davis' quintet as one of the best on the jazz scene.

The quintet was disbanded for the first time in 1957, following a series of personal problems that Davis blames on the drug addiction of the other musicians.^[21] Davis played some gigs at the Cafe Bohemia with a short-lived formation that included Sonny Rollins and drummer Art Taylor, and then traveled to France, where he recorded the score to Louis Malle's film Ascenseur pour l'échafaud. With the aid of French session musicians Barney Wilen, Pierre Michelot, and René Urtreger, and American drummer Kenny Clarke, he recorded the entire soundtrack with an innovative procedure, without relying on written material: starting from sparse indication of the harmony and a general feel of a given piece, the group played by watching the movie on a screen in front of them and improvising.

Returning to New York in 1958, Davis successfully recruited Cannonball Adderley for his standing group. Coltrane, who in the meantime had freed himself from his drug habits, was available after a highly fruitful experience with Thelonious Monk and was hired back, as was Philly Joe Jones. With the quintet re-formed as a sextet, Davis recorded Milestones, an album anticipating the new directions he was preparing to give to his music.

Almost immediately after the recording of Milestones, Davis fired Garland and, shortly afterward, Jones, again for behavioral problems; he replaced them with Bill Evans——a young white pianist with a strong classical background——and drummer Jimmy Cobb. With this revamped formation, Davis began a year during which the sextet performed and toured extensively and produced a record (1958 Miles, also known as 58 Sessions). Evans had a unique, impressionistic approach to the piano, and his musical ideas had a strong influence on Davis. But after only eight months on the road with the group, he was burned out and left. He was soon replaced by Wynton Kelly, a player who brought to the sextet a swinging, bluesy approach that contrasted with Evans' more delicate playing.

Recordings with Gil Evans (1957–63)[link]

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Davis recorded a series of albums with Gil Evans, often playing flugelhorn as well as trumpet. The first, Miles Ahead (1957), showcased his playing with a jazz big band and a horn section arranged by Evans. Songs included Dave Brubeck's "The Duke," as well as Léo Delibes's "The Maids of Cadiz," the first piece of European classical music Davis had recorded. Another distinctive feature of the album was the orchestral passages that Evans had devised as transitions between the different tracks, which were joined together with the innovative use of editing in the post-production phase, turning each side of the album into a seamless piece of music.^[22]

In 1958, Davis and Evans were back in the studio to record Porgy and Bess, an arrangement of pieces from George Gershwin's opera of the same name. The lineup included three members of the sextet: Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones, and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley. Davis called the album one of his favorites.^{[citation needed]}

Sketches of Spain (1959–1960) featured songs by contemporary Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo and also Manuel de Falla, as well as Gil Evans originals with a Spanish flavor. Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall (1961) includes Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, along with other compositions recorded in concert with an orchestra under Evans' direction.

Sessions with Davis and Evans in 1962 resulted in the album Quiet Nights, a short collection of bossa novas that was released against the wishes of both artists: Evans stated it was only half an album, and blamed the record company; Davis blamed producer Teo Macero, whom he didn't speak to for more than two years.^[23] This was the last time Evans and Davis made a full album together; despite the professional separation, however, Davis noted later that "my best friend is Gil Evans."^[24]

[edit] Kind of Blue (1959–64)

In March and April 1959, Davis re-entered the studio with his working sextet to record what is widely considered his magnum opus, Kind of Blue. He called back Bill Evans, months away from forming what would become his own seminal trio, for the album sessions, as the music had been planned around Evans' piano style.^[25] Both Davis and Evans were personally acquainted with the ideas of pianist George Russell regarding modal jazz, Davis from discussions with Russell and others before the Birth of the Cool sessions, and Evans from study with Russell in 1956.^[26] Davis, however, had neglected to inform current pianist Kelly of Evans' role in the recordings; Kelly subsequently played only on the track "Freddie Freeloader" and was not present at the April dates for the album.^[27] "So What" and "All Blues" had been played by the sextet at performances prior to the recording sessions, but for the other three compositions, Davis and Evans prepared skeletal harmonic frameworks that the other musicians saw for the first time on the day of recording, to allow a fresher approach to their improvisations. The resulting album has proven to be both highly popular and enormously influential. According to the RIAA, Kind of Blue is the best-selling jazz album of all time, having been certified as quadruple platinum (4 million copies sold). .^[28]In December 2009, the US House of Representatives voted 409–0 to pass a resolution honoring the album as a national treasure.^[29][30]

The trumpet Davis used on the recording is currently displayed in the music building on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. It was donated to the school by Arthur "Buddy" Gist, who met Davis in 1949 and became a close friend. The gift was the reason why the jazz program at UNCG is named the "Miles Davis Jazz Studies Program."^[31]

In 1959, the Miles Davis Quintet was appearing at the famous Birdland nightclub in New York City. After finishing a 27 minute recording for the armed services, Davis took a break outside the club. As he was escorting an attractive blonde woman across the sidewalk to a taxi, Davis was told by Patrolman Gerald Kilduff to "move on."^[32] Davis explained that he worked at the nightclub and refused to move.^[33] The officer said that he would arrest Davis and grabbed him as Davis protected himself.^[32] Witnesses said that Kilduff punched Davis in the stomach with his nightstick without provocation.^[32] Two nearby detectives held the crowd back as a third detective, Don Rolker, approached Davis from behind and beat him about the head. Davis was then arrested and taken to jail where he was charged with feloniously assaulting an officer. He was then taken to St. Clary Hospital where he received five stitches for a wound on his head.^[32] Davis attempted to pursue the case in the courts, before eventually dropping the proceedings in a plea bargain in order to recover his suspended Cabaret Card, enabling him to return to work in New York clubs.

Davis persuaded Coltrane to play with the group on one final European tour in the spring of 1960. Coltrane then departed to form his classic quartet, although he returned for some of the tracks on Davis' 1961 album Someday My Prince Will Come. After Coltrane, Davis tried various saxophonists, including Jimmy Heath, Sonny Stitt, and Hank Mobley. The quintet with Hank Mobley was recorded in the studio and on several live engagements at Carnegie Hall and the Black Hawk jazz club in San Francisco. Stitt's playing with the group is found on a recording made in Olympia, Paris (where Davis and Coltrane had played a few months before) and the Live in Stockholm album.

In 1963, Davis' longtime rhythm section of Kelly, Chambers, and Cobb departed. He quickly got to work putting together a new group, including tenor saxophonist George Coleman and bassist Ron Carter. Davis, Coleman, Carter and a few other musicians recorded half the tracks for an album in the spring of 1963. A few weeks later, seventeen-year-old drummer Tony Williams and pianist Herbie Hancock joined the group, and soon afterward Davis, Coleman, and the new rhythm section recorded the rest of Seven Steps to Heaven.

The rhythm players melded together quickly as a section and with the horns. The group's rapid evolution can be traced through the Seven Steps to Heaven album, In Europe (July 1963), My Funny Valentine (February 1964), and Four and More (also February 1964). The quintet played essentially the same repertoire of bebop tunes and standards that earlier Davis bands had played, but they tackled them with increasing structural and rhythmic freedom and, in the case of the up-tempo material, breakneck speed.

Coleman left in the spring of 1964, to be replaced by avant-garde saxophonist Sam Rivers, on the suggestion of Tony Williams. Rivers remained in the group only briefly, but was recorded live with the quintet in Japan; this configuration can be heard on Miles in Tokyo! (July 1964).

By the end of the summer, Davis had persuaded Wayne Shorter to leave Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and join the quintet. Shorter became the group's principal composer, and some of his compositions of this era (including "Footprints" and "Nefertiti") have become standards. While on tour in Europe, the group quickly made their first official recording, Miles in Berlin (September 1964). On returning to the United States later that year, ever the musical entrepreneur, Davis (at Jackie DeShannon's urging) was instrumental in getting The Byrds signed to Columbia Records.^{[citation needed]}

Second great quintet (1964–68)[link]

"Petits Machins (Little Stuff)" noicon Issued on his 1968 album Filles de Kilimanjaro, the composition exemplfies Davis's transition from the post-bop style to fusion sounds and textures.[34] Problems listening to this file? See media help.

By the time of E.S.P. (1965), Davis's lineup consisted of Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass), and Tony Williams (drums). The last of his acoustic bands, this group is often referred to as the second great quintet.

A two-night Chicago performance in late 1965 is captured on The Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel 1965, released in 1995. Unlike their studio albums, the live engagement shows the group still playing primarily standards and bebop tunes. It is reasonable to point out, though, that while some of the titles remain the same as the tunes employed by the 1950s quintet, the speed and distance of departure from the framework of the standards bears no comparison. It could even be said that the listening experience to these standards as live performances is as much of a radical take on the jazz of the time as the new compositions of the studio albums listed below.

The recording of Live at the Plugged Nickel was not issued anywhere in the 1960s, first appearing as a Japan-only partial issue in the late 1970s, then as a double-LP in the USA and Europe in 1982. It was followed by a series of studio recordings: Miles Smiles (1966), Sorcerer (1967), Nefertiti (1967), Miles in the Sky (1968), and Filles de Kilimanjaro (1968). The quintet's approach to improvisation came to be known as "time no changes" or "freebop," because they abandoned the more conventional chord-change-based approach of bebop for a modal approach. Through Nefertiti, the studio recordings consisted primarily of originals composed by Shorter, with occasional compositions by the other sidemen. In 1967, the group began to play their live concerts in continuous sets, each tune flowing into the next, with only the melody indicating any sort of demarcation. Davis's bands would continue to perform in this way until his retirement in 1975.

Miles in the Sky and Filles de Kilimanjaro, on which electric bass, electric piano, and electric guitar were tentatively introduced on some tracks, pointed the way to the subsequent fusion phase of Davis's career. Davis also began experimenting with more rock-oriented rhythms on these records. By the time the second half of Filles de Kilimanjaro had been recorded, bassist Dave Holland and pianist Chick Corea had replaced Carter and Hancock in the working band, though both Carter and Hancock would occasionally contribute to future recording sessions. Davis soon began to take over the compositional duties of his sidemen.

Electric Miles (1968–75)[link]

Davis's influences included 1960s acid rock and funk artists such as Sly and the Family Stone, James Brown, and Jimi Hendrix,^[36] many of whom he met through Betty Mabry (later Betty Davis), a young model and songwriter Davis married in September 1968 and divorced a year later. The musical transition required that Davis and his band adapt to electric instruments in both live performances and the studio. By the time In a Silent Way had been recorded in February 1969, Davis had augmented his quintet with additional players. At various times Hancock or Joe Zawinul was brought in to join Corea on electric keyboards, and guitarist John McLaughlin made the first of his many appearances with Davis. By this point, Shorter was also doubling on soprano saxophone. After recording this album, Williams left to form his group Lifetime and was replaced by Jack DeJohnette.

Six months later an even larger group of musicians, including Jack DeJohnette, Airto Moreira, and Bennie Maupin, recorded the double LP Bitches Brew, which became a huge seller, reaching gold status by 1976. This album and In a Silent Way were among the first fusions of jazz and rock that were commercially successful, building on the groundwork laid by Charles Lloyd, Larry Coryell, and others who pioneered a genre that would become known as jazz-rock fusion. During this period, Davis toured with Shorter, Corea, Holland, and DeJohnette. The group's repertoire included material from Bitches Brew, In a Silent Way, and the 1960s quintet albums, along with an occasional standard.^{[citation needed]}

In 1972, Davis was introduced to the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen by Paul Buckmaster, leading to a period of new creative exploration. Biographer J. K. Chambers wrote that "the effect of Davis' study of Stockhausen could not be repressed for long... Davis' own 'space music' shows Stockhausen's influence compositionally."^[37] His recordings and performances during this period were described as "space music" by fans, by music critic Leonard Feather, and by Buckmaster, who described it as "a lot of mood changes—heavy, dark, intense—definitely space music."^[38][39] Both Bitches Brew and In a Silent Way feature "extended" (more than 20 minutes each) compositions that were never actually "played straight through" by the musicians in the studio.^{[citation needed]} Instead, Davis and producer Teo Macero selected musical motifs of various lengths from recorded extended improvisations and edited them together into a musical whole that exists only in the recorded version. Bitches Brew made use of such electronic effects as multi-tracking, tape loops, and other editing techniques.^[40] Both records, especially Bitches Brew, proved to be big sellers. Starting with Bitches Brew, Davis's albums began to often feature cover art much more in line with psychedelic art or black power movements than that of his earlier albums. He took significant cuts in his usual performing fees in order to open for rock groups like the Steve Miller Band, Grateful Dead, Neil Young, and Santana^{[citation needed]}. Several live albums were recorded during the early 1970s at these performances: Live at the Fillmore East, March 7, 1970: It's About That Time (March 1970), Black Beauty (April 1970), and Miles Davis at Fillmore: Live at the Fillmore East (June 1970).^[36]

By the time of Live-Evil in December 1970, Davis's ensemble had transformed into a much more funk-oriented group. Davis began experimenting with wah-wah effects on his horn. The ensemble with Gary Bartz, Keith Jarrett, and Michael Henderson, often referred to as the "Cellar Door band" (the live portions of Live-Evil were recorded at a Washington, DC, club by that name), never recorded in the studio, but is documented in the six-CD box set The Cellar Door Sessions, which was recorded over four nights in December 1970.^{[citation needed]} In 1970, Davis contributed extensively to the soundtrack of a documentary about the African-American boxer heavyweight champion Jack Johnson. Himself a devotee of boxing, Davis drew parallels between Johnson, whose career had been defined by the fruitless search for a Great White Hope to dethrone him, and Davis's own career, in which he felt the musical establishment of the time had prevented him from receiving the acclaim and rewards that were due him.^{[citation needed]} The resulting album, 1971's A Tribute to Jack Johnson, contained two long pieces that featured musicians (some of whom were not credited on the record) including guitarists John McLaughlin and Sonny Sharrock, Herbie Hancock on a Farfisa organ, and drummer Billy Cobham. McLaughlin and Cobham went on to become founding members of the Mahavishnu Orchestra in 1971.

As Davis stated in his autobiography, he wanted to make music for the young African-American audience. On the Corner (1972) blended funk elements with the traditional jazz styles he had played his entire career. The album was highlighted by the appearance of saxophonist Carlos Garnett. Critics were not kind to the album; in his autobiography, Davis stated that critics could not figure out how to categorize it, and he complained that the album was not promoted by the "traditional" jazz radio stations.^{[citation needed]} After recording On the Corner, Davis put together a new group, with only Michael Henderson, Carlos Garnett, and percussionist Mtume returning from the previous band. It included guitarist Reggie Lucas, tabla player Badal Roy, sitarist Khalil Balakrishna, and drummer Al Foster. It was unusual in that none of the sidemen were major jazz instrumentalists; as a result, the music emphasized rhythmic density and shifting textures instead of individual solos. This group, which recorded in Philharmonic Hall for the album In Concert (1972), was unsatisfactory to Davis. Through the first half of 1973, he dropped the tabla and sitar, took over keyboard duties, and added guitarist Pete Cosey. The Davis/Cosey/Lucas/Henderson/Mtume/Foster ensemble would remain virtually intact over the next two years. Initially, Dave Liebman played saxophones and flute with the band; in 1974, he was replaced by Sonny Fortune.

"Go Ahead John" noicon Pieced together in post-production for Big Fun from individual takes, the recording has a strong groove with blues and funk guitar by John McLaughlin.[41][42] Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Big Fun (1974) was a double album containing four long improvisations, recorded between 1969 and 1972. Similarly, Get Up With It (1974) collected recordings from the previous five years. Get Up With It included "He Loved Him Madly", a tribute to Duke Ellington, as well as one of Davis's most lauded pieces from this era, "Calypso Frelimo". It was his last studio album of the 1970s. In 1974 and 1975, Columbia recorded three double-LP live Davis albums: Dark Magus, Agharta, and Pangaea. Dark Magus captures a 1974 New York concert; the latter two are recordings of consecutive concerts from the same February 1975 day in Osaka. At the time, only Agharta was available in the US; Pangaea and Dark Magus were initially released only by CBS/Sony Japan. All three feature at least two electric guitarists (Reggie Lucas and Pete Cosey, deploying an array of Hendrix-inspired electronic distortion devices; Dominique Gaumont is a third guitarist on Dark Magus), electric bass, drums, reeds, and Davis on electric trumpet and organ. These albums were the last he was to record for five years. Davis was troubled by osteoarthritis (which led to a hip replacement operation in 1976, the first of several), sickle-cell anemia, depression, bursitis, ulcers, and a renewed dependence on alcohol and drugs (primarily cocaine), and his performances were routinely panned by critics throughout late 1974 and early 1975. By the time the group reached Japan in February 1975, Davis was nearing a physical breakdown and required copious amounts of alcohol and narcotics to make it through his engagements. Nonetheless, as noted by Richard Cook and Brian Morton, during these concerts his trumpet playing "is of the highest and most adventurous order."^{[citation needed]}

After a Newport Jazz Festival performance at Avery Fisher Hall in New York on July 1, 1975, Davis withdrew almost completely from the public eye for six years. As Gil Evans said, "His organism is tired. And after all the music he's contributed for 35 years, he needs a rest."^{[citation needed]} In his memoirs, Davis is characteristically candid about his wayward mental state during this period, describing himself as a hermit, his house as a wreck, and detailing his drug and sex addictions.^[4] In 1976, Rolling Stone reported rumors of his imminent demise. Although he stopped practicing trumpet on a regular basis, Davis continued to compose intermittently and made three attempts at recording during his exile from performing; these sessions (one with the assistance of Paul Buckmaster and Gil Evans, who left after not receiving promised compensation) bore little fruit and remain unreleased. In 1979, he placed in the yearly top-ten trumpeter poll of Down Beat. Columbia continued to issue compilation albums and records of unreleased vault material to fulfill contractual obligations. During his period of inactivity, Davis saw the fusion music that he had spearheaded over the past decade enter into the mainstream. When he emerged from retirement, Davis's musical descendants would be in the realm of New Wave rock, and in particular the styling of Prince.

Last decade (1981–91)[link]

Miles Davis at the Nice Jazz Festival in July 1989

By 1979, Davis had rekindled his relationship with actress Cicely Tyson. With Tyson, Davis would overcome his cocaine addiction and regain his enthusiasm for music. As he had not played trumpet for the better part of three years, regaining his famed embouchure proved to be particularly arduous. While recording The Man with the Horn (sessions were spread sporadically over 1979–1981), Davis played mostly wahwah with a younger, larger band.

The initial large band was eventually abandoned in favor of a smaller combo featuring saxophonist Bill Evans and bass player Marcus Miller, both of whom would be among Davis's most regular collaborators throughout the decade. He married Tyson in 1981; they would divorce in 1988. The Man with the Horn was finally released in 1981 and received a poor critical reception despite selling fairly well. In May, the new band played two dates as part of the Newport Jazz Festival. The concerts, as well as the live recording We Want Miles from the ensuing tour, received positive reviews.

Miles Davis at North Sea Jazz Festival in 1987

By late 1982, Davis's band included French percussionist Mino Cinelu and guitarist John Scofield, with whom he worked closely on the album Star People. In mid-1983, while working on the tracks for Decoy, an album mixing soul music and electronica that was released in 1984, Davis brought in producer, composer and keyboardist Robert Irving III, who had earlier collaborated with him on The Man with the Horn. With a seven-piece band, including Scofield, Evans, keyboardist and music director Irving, drummer Al Foster and bassist Darryl Jones (later of The Rolling Stones), Davis played a series of European gigs to positive receptions. While in Europe, he took part in the recording of Aura, an orchestral tribute to Davis composed by Danish trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg.

You're Under Arrest, Davis's next album, was released in 1985 and included another brief stylistic detour. Included on the album were his interpretations of Cyndi Lauper's ballad "Time After Time", and "Human Nature" from Michael Jackson. Davis considered releasing an entire album of pop songs and recorded dozens of them, but the idea was scrapped. Davis noted that many of today's accepted jazz standards were in fact pop songs from Broadway theater, and that he was simply updating the "standards" repertoire with new material. 1985 also saw Davis guest-star on the TV show Miami Vice as pimp and minor criminal Ivory Jones in the episode titled "Junk Love" (first aired November 8, 1985).^[43]

Davis in New York, 1985.

You're Under Arrest also proved to be Davis's final album for Columbia. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis publicly dismissed Davis's more recent fusion recordings as not being "'true' jazz", comments Davis initially shrugged off, calling Marsalis "a nice young man, only confused". This changed after Marsalis appeared, unannounced, onstage in the midst of Davis's performance at the inaugural Vancouver International Jazz Festival in 1986. Marsalis whispered into Davis's ear that "someone" had told him to do so; Davis responded by ordering him off the stage.^[44]

Davis grew irritated at Columbia's delay releasing Aura. The breaking point in the label-artist relationship appears to have come when a Columbia jazz producer requested Davis place a goodwill birthday call to Marsalis. Davis signed with Warner Bros. Records shortly thereafter.

Davis collaborated with a number of figures from the British new wave movement during this period, including Scritti Politti.^[45] At the invitation of producer Bill Laswell, Davis recorded some trumpet parts during sessions for Public Image Ltd.'s Album, according to Public Image's John Lydon in the liner notes of their Plastic Box box set. In Lydon's words, however, "strangely enough, we didn't use (his contributions)." (Also according to Lydon in the Plastic Box notes, Davis favorably compared Lydon's singing voice to his trumpet sound.)^[46]

Having first taken part in the Artists United Against Apartheid recording, Davis signed with Warner Brothers records and reunited with Marcus Miller. The resulting record, Tutu (1986), would be his first to use modern studio tools—programmed synthesizers, samples and drum loops—to create an entirely new setting for his playing. Ecstatically reviewed on its release, the album would frequently be described as the modern counterpart of Sketches of Spain and won a Grammy in 1987.

The grave of Miles Davis in Woodlawn Cemetery

He followed Tutu with Amandla, another collaboration with Miller and George Duke, plus the soundtracks to four movies: Street Smart, Siesta, The Hot Spot (with bluesman John Lee Hooker), and Dingo. He continued to tour with a band of constantly rotating personnel and a critical stock at a level higher than it had been for 15 years. His last recordings, both released posthumously, were the hip hop-influenced studio album Doo-Bop and Miles & Quincy Live at Montreux, a collaboration with Quincy Jones for the 1991 Montreux Jazz Festival in which Davis performed the repertoire from his 1940s and 1950s recordings for the first time in decades.

In 1988 he had a small part as a street musician in the film Scrooged, starring Bill Murray. In 1989, Davis was interviewed on 60 Minutes by Harry Reasoner. Davis received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990.

In early 1991, he appeared in the Rolf de Heer film Dingo as a jazz musician. In the film's opening sequence, Davis and his band unexpectedly land on a remote airstrip in the Australian outback and proceed to perform for the stunned locals. The performance was one of Davis's last on film.

Miles Davis died on September 28, 1991 from the combined effects of a stroke, pneumonia and respiratory failure in Santa Monica, California at the age of 65.^[36] He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx.^[47]

Legacy and influence[link]

Statue in Kielce, Poland

Miles Davis is regarded as one of the most innovative, influential and respected figures in the history of music. He has been described as “one of the great innovators in jazz”.^[48] The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll noted "Miles Davis played a crucial and inevitably controversial role in every major development in jazz since the mid-'40s, and no other jazz musician has had so profound an effect on rock. Miles Davis was the most widely recognized jazz musician of his era, an outspoken social critic and an arbiter of style—in attitude and fashion—as well as music".^[49] His album Kind of Blue is the best-selling album in the history of jazz music. On November 5, 2009, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan sponsored a measure in the United States House of Representatives to recognize and commemorate the album on its 50th anniversary. The measure also affirms jazz as a national treasure and "encourages the United States government to preserve and advance the art form of jazz music."^[50] It passed, unanimously, with a vote of 409–0 on December 15, 2009.^[51]

Many well-known musicians rose to prominence as members of Davis's ensembles, including saxophonists Gerry Mulligan, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, George Coleman, Wayne Shorter, Dave Liebman, Branford Marsalis and Kenny Garrett; trombonist J. J. Johnson; pianists Horace Silver, Red Garland, Wynton Kelly, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett and Kei Akagi; guitarists John McLaughlin, Pete Cosey, John Scofield and Mike Stern; bassists Paul Chambers, Ron Carter, Dave Holland, Marcus Miller and Darryl Jones; and drummers Elvin Jones, Philly Joe Jones, Jimmy Cobb, Tony Williams, Billy Cobham, Jack DeJohnette, and Al Foster.^{[citation needed]}

As an innovative bandleader and composer, Miles Davis has influenced many notable musicians and bands from diverse genres. These include Wayne Shorter,^[52] Cannonball Adderley,^[53] Herbie Hancock,^[54] Cassandra Wilson,^[55] Lalo Schifrin,^[56] Tangerine Dream,^[57] Brand X, Mtume, Benny Bailey, Joe Bonner, Don Cherry, Urszula Dudziak, Sugizo, Bill Evans, Bill Hardman, The Lounge Lizards, Hugh Masekela, John McLaughlin, King Crimson, Steely Dan, Frank Zappa, Nile Rodgers, Duane Allman, Pink Floyd, Neil Young, Radiohead, The Flaming Lips, Lydia Lunch, Talk Talk, Michael Franks, Sting,^[58] Lonnie Liston Smith, Jiří Stivín, Tim Hagans, Julie Christensen, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Vassar Clements, Snooky Young, Prince, and Christian Scott.

Miles' influence on the people who played with him has been described by music writer and author Christopher Smith as follows:

Miles Davis' artistic interest was in the creation and manipulation of ritual space, in which gestures could be endowed with symbolic power sufficient to form a functional communicative, and hence musical, vocabulary. [...] Miles' performance tradition emphasized orality and the transmission of information and artistic insight from individual to individual. His position in that tradition, and his personality, talents, and artistic interests, impelled him to pursue a uniquely individual solution to the problems and the experiential possibilities of improvised performance.

His approach, owing largely to the African American performance tradition that focused on individual expression, emphatic interaction, and creative response to shifting contents, had a profound impact on generations of jazz musicians.^[59]

In 1986, the New England Conservatory awarded Miles Davis an Honorary Doctorate for his extraordinary contributions to music.^[60] Since 1960 the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) has honored him with eight Grammy Awards, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and three Grammy Hall of Fame Awards. In 2010, Moldejazz premiered a play called Driving Miles, which focused on a landmark concert Davis performed in Molde, Norway, in 1984.

Awards[link]

• Winner; Down Beat Reader's Poll Best Trumpet Player 1955
• Winner; Down Beat Reader's Poll Best Trumpet Player 1957
• Winner; Down Beat Reader's Poll Best Trumpet Player 1961
• Grammy Award for Best Jazz Composition Of More Than Five Minutes Duration for Sketches of Spain (1960)
• Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance, Large Group Or Soloist With Large Group for Bitches Brew (1970)
• Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist for We Want Miles (1982)
• Sonning Award for Lifetime Achievement In Music (1984; Copenhagen, Denmark)
• Doctor of Music, honoris causa (1986; New England Conservatory)
• Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist for Tutu (1986)
• Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist for Aura (1989)
• Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band for Aura (1989)
• Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (1990)
• Australian Film Institute Award for Best Original Music Score for Dingo, shared with Michel Legrand (1991)
• Knighted into the Legion of Honor (July 16, 1991; Paris)
• Grammy Award for Best R&B Instrumental Performance for Doo-Bop (1992)
• Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance for Miles & Quincy Live at Montreux (1993)
• Hollywood Walk of Fame Star (February 19, 1998)
• Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction (March 13, 2006)
• Hollywood's Rockwalk Induction (September 28, 2006)
• RIAA Quadruple Platinum for Kind of Blue
• St. Louis Walk of Fame

Discography[link]

Miles Davis portal

Filmography[link]

^a Only one song is composed by Miles Davis in cooperation with Marcus Miller ("Theme For Augustine").
^b Soundtrack is composed by Miles Davis in cooperation with Michel Legrand.

References[link]