Rethinking Miles Davis - Book Launch

Book launch for Rethinking Miles Davis 
[Oxford University Press May 2026]
Edited by Roger Fagge, Nicolas Pillai and Tim Wall

This book launch celebrates the forthcoming publication of Rethinking Miles Davis in the centenary of the birth of this defining figure of jazz. We invite you to join us in exploring some of the chapters of the book, many written by researchers at Birmingham City University.

The book challenges the orthodoxy of jazz criticism, repositioning Miles Davis within a larger framework of modernism and mass culture and exploring: the ways Davis pushed jazz into new genre forms, re-envisioned jazz standards, and collaborated musically, to his role in the record companies that released his music, the persona he developed in video, film, and fashion, and how his masculinity manifested both professionally and personally.

Some of the authors will present their own chapters and there will be an opportunity to discuss the life and music of Miles Davis. Speakers so far confirmed include:

• Introduction – Tim Wall, BCU on behalf of the editors
• Miles Behind: Jazz Studies, Masculinity and #MeToo – Tony Whyton, BCU
• Locating Tutu and Miles on a Second Major – Tim Wall, BCU
• My One Miles Davis LP; a photo essay – William Ellis, independent photographer and researcher
• Encounter, Surprise, and Acceptance: Revisiting Miles Davis on and off stage in Portugal  – Pedro Cravinho, BCU
• It’s never too late: Miles Davis and modernism – Nicholas Gebhardt, BCU