We created Pandora to put the Music Genome Project directly in
your hands It’s a new kind of radio – stations that play only
music you like Davis was the son of a dental surgeon, Dr. Miles
Dewey Davis, Jr., and a music teacher, Cleota Mae (Henry) Davis,
and thus grew up in the black middle class of east St. Louis
after the family moved there shortly after his birth. He became
interested in music during his childhood and by the age of 12
began taking trumpet lessons. While still in high school, he
started to get jobs playing in local bars and at 16 was playing
gigs out of town on weekends. At 17, he joined Eddie Randle's
Blue Devils, a territory band based in St. Louis. He enjoyed a
personal apotheosis in 1944, just after graduating from high
school, when he saw and was allowed to sit in with Billy
Eckstine's big band, who was playing in St. Louis. The band
featured trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and saxophonist Charlie
Parker, the architects of the emerging bebop style of jazz,
which was characterized by fast, inv