Short answers, pulled from the story.
Miles Davis was central to several defining albums across different eras: Birth of the Cool (sessions recorded 1949, compiled 1957), Kind of Blue (1959), Bitches Brew (1970) and In a Silent Way (1969) are among the most documented. Kind of Blue achieved 5x platinum certification in the U.S. for more than five million copies sold and was honored by the U.S. House of Representatives as a national treasure in 2009.
Miles Dewey Davis III was born on the 26th of May 1926 in Alton, Illinois, 18 miles north of St. Louis. His family moved to East St. Louis, Illinois, in 1927, where he was raised. His family also owned a 200-acre estate near Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
Davis ended his heroin addiction in early 1954 after spending months at his father's home in St. Louis and then living in Detroit for roughly six months. By February 1954 he returned to New York, joined a gym, and resumed recording. He later said he felt good "for the first time in a long time."
Gil Evans and Davis collaborated on five albums from 1957 to 1962: Miles Ahead (1957), Porgy and Bess (1959), Sketches of Spain (1960), Quiet Nights (1963), and the album Aura (recorded 1985 but released later). The boxed set Miles Davis and Gil Evans: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings (1996) won Grammy Awards for Best Historical Album and Best Album Notes in 1997.
Davis was married three times: to Frances Taylor in December 1959 in Toledo, Ohio; to Betty Mabry in September 1968; and to Cicely Tyson in November 1981, with Tyson filing for divorce in 1988. He also had a long relationship with sculptor Jo Gelbard in his final years. Davis acknowledged physically abusing Frances Taylor in his autobiography.
Davis died on the 28th of September 1991 at St. John's Hospital near his home in Santa Monica, California. His death was attributed to the combined effects of a stroke, pneumonia and respiratory failure. He was 65 years old. He was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City, with one of his trumpets, near the grave of Duke Ellington.