By Nick Catalano
A decade after his death Miles Davis continues to stir controversy whenever his music is played or discussed. His trumpet acumen and questionable stylistic wanderings always provoke lively commentary among jazz writers and fans.
At the opening of the 2001-2002 season, Jazz at Lincoln Center presented "Miles Davis on Film" to an SRO audience eager to encounter the "Miles mystique" in its latest incarnation. Fans who relentlessly hero worship Davis were re-energized by host/biographer Quincy Troupe who opened the evening revealing his unabashed idolatry for Davis - his collaborator on the 1990 book, "Miles: The Autobiography." A series of seven film sessions providing a retrospective of Davis' career, Troupe interspersed the clips with readings from memoirs recorded during his association with the trumpeter. His commentary was steadfastly hagiographic and his technical knowledge limited so that he was unable to shed new light on the aforementioned problems. But the film material was quite helpful. In one clip Davis refers to the struggle he had playing alongside Charlie Parker and other early bop immortals. "I used to wanna quit every night," says Davis alluding to the difficulty he had keeping up with Parker's speed and wizardry during the halcyon of 52nd Street days of the early 1950's. Another clip reveals Gils Evans discussing his work on the legendary album "Birth of the Cool," - a recording event which considerably advanced Davis career at the expense of Evans's enormous contribution. A television clip of a performance of "So What" focuses exclusively on Davis playing while most of the band (including some trombonists who weren't on the original recording) stand around. Cannonball Adderley (the best improviser of the group) isn't even on the show. Miles Davis was constantly lured by the specter of fame and this clip reveals it. Still another clip focuses on Keith Jarrett forced to comp with unbelievable superficiality behind Davis during the "Bitches Brew" era. This trendy music was unequivocally constructed to advance Miles Davis as a celebrity as well as profit from the popularity of acid sounds. As a result, Jarrett's remarkable musicianship is hopelessly buried.
Troupe alluded to Davis' cocaine madness during the late 1970's and somehow tried to make even this behavior sound like a necessitarian quality for immortality. Throughout the evening Troupe's remarks sounded as if the Miles Davis celebrity publicity machine was still busy at work trying to expand the image of its darling for the tabloids - ten years after his death.
The value of the Jazz at Lincoln Center film program lies in the authenticity of its archives. Despite Troupe's rhetorical waywardness the audience was able to perceive the quintessential Davis by looking and listening. All they had to do was listen to Miles sustain his glorious muted whole notes and watch him lead an unmatched collection of legendary jazz bands to realize that his reputation atop the jazz world will always be secure.
It is time to cease the treatment of the Davis legacy with tabloid rhetoric and initiate a period of sound criticism and meaningful scholarship.
