Early Life and Musical Beginnings Born: Alton, United States of America (1926) Died: 1991 Miles Dewey Davis III was born into an upper-middle-class family in Alton, Illinois, and raised in East St. Louis. He began playing the trumpet in his early teens, influenced by local musicians and recordings of Duke Ellington and Art Tatum. Davis briefly attended Juilliard in New York City before pursuing a professional musi…