Miles Davis and John Coletrane Miles, The Autobiography, this book, written by Miles Davis, is the autobiography that he wrote a few years before he died. In this book one finds how Miles Davis first became interested in jazz. It also explains how he became one of the best jazz players of all time. Miles was born in Alton, Illinois in 1926 and grew up in eastern St. Louis. He learned how to play trumpet while in high school on the trumpet that his father gave to him for his 13th birth