Miles Davis Birthplace — Alton, Illinois

Miles Davis was born on May 26, 1926, at 1701 Kansas Street in Alton, Illinois, though his family relocated to East St. Louis when he was still an infant. East St. Louis shaped his formative years and musical education — he received his first trumpet at thirteen and studied with a local musician who instilled in him a clean, no-vibrato tone that would become one of the most distinctive sounds in 20th-century music. The Missouri–Illinois border region's deep blues and jazz heritage was Davis's first musical world.

Davis moved to New York at seventeen, nominally to study at Juilliard but really to find Charlie Parker, whom he had met on tour and hero-worshipped. Within months he was playing in Parker's quintet on 52nd Street, absorbing bebop at its source. From there he built a career of almost unmatched reinvention — cool jazz with the Birth of the Cool nonet, modal jazz with Kind of Blue, jazz-rock fusion with Bitches Brew — each phase changing the music around him.

A historical marker in East St. Louis acknowledges Davis's connection to the area. Alton, Illinois, where he was born, is a Mississippi River town north of St. Louis. Neither city has a dedicated Davis museum, but both are part of the broader Mississippi blues and jazz heritage trail.