How Miles Davis’ Jazz Taught Me To Write More Simple Potent Sentences

The Jazz Giant’s Unintended Lessons in Literary Brevity

If Miles Davis’s midcentury trumpet solos can be described by a single phrase, it might be “doing more with less.” Despite his renown, Davis wasn’t a flashy or highly technical player during the late 1950s and early ’60s. He was melodic and economical, and his approach can teach prose…