Recovering Miles Davis and Rethinking Aura: From 'All of Me' to 'All of You'

• In Event: Contributed Papers in Performance Studies

Abstract

On February 12, 1964, Miles Davis recorded a live concert at Lincoln Center in New York City. As a trumpet player, I look for contextual clues about the music I listen to and play, and in this essay, I argue for a rethinking of Benjamin’s concept of aura as an attributed quality of this recording. The performance of Davis comes to life for me in the gaps surrounding the various contextual clues I find.

Author

• Chris McRae, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale