Check out this page:
http://www.basssick.com/xtra/rote.html
I think we've stumbled across a contentious issue.
Gil Evans seemed to think it was a Davis tune, as he asked his permission to use it for a big band arrangement for the Claude Thornhill Orchestra.
I'm currently reading "So What", a Miles biography by John Szwed (I recommend it, it's very interesting) and he writes something about this:
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"Donna Lee" ... was by Davis, his first recorded composition. ... Miles later claimed the tune and said the record company had made a mistake ... But questions have since been raised about the composition's origins. ... "Donna Lee" is largely based in the harmonic structure and melodic contours of ... "Back Home Again in Indiana." ... [The] melody also alludes to ... "On the Banks of the Wabash". ... The melody of "Donna Lee" also sounded very similar to a solo recorded by Fats Navarro on a record called "Ice Freezes Red". And others said that they had heard lines similar to the melody of "Donna Lee" improvised many times by Charlie Parker when he played "Indiana".
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Szwed also raises this intersting point:
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The various takes of the tune show that Miles had problems playing it that day in the studio, and he never recorded it again.
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