Miles: The Autobiography... Two Decades Later

Victor L. Schermer

Interviewer since 2000

Former trombonist who now works as a psychologist.

Recent articles (211 total)

Published: September 19, 2010

But, again paradoxically, part of Davis' creativity may stem from his ability to be both "black" and "white" at the same time. What comes through in his autobiography is that his greatness came from his ability to take the roots of truly African American and Afro-centric blues and jazz, "America's classical music," and combine it in unique and diverse ways, and taking a cue from Bird and Diz as well as Gil Evans, with European musical forms to produce a variety of new expressive styles and approaches for jazz groups. His brief and truncated experience as a student at Juilliard was always with him. The truth is that Miles was not as great a trumpet player as he comports himself to be in this book. Indeed, he admits that his friend, Kenny Dorham cut him to pieces when he sat in on one of Miles' gigs. His greatness lay in his ability to create and renew and invent the music itself. He did this not once, but many times in his career, coming in on the heels of bebop, practically defining "cool" jazz (with Gerry Mulligan and others at his side), elevating hard bop to an art form (along with Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Art Blakey, and many others), practically defining modal playing (along with Thelonious Monk, Trane, and Bill Evans), bringing rich thematic material to post-bop playing (along with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, and their peers), deeply enriching the jazz fusion movement and electronic instrumentation, and late in his career creating a series of idiosyncratic recordings incorporating diverse cultural and musical influences.

As the autobiography makes clear even today, a couple of decades after it was published, Miles Davis changed the face and voice of the music many times in his lifetime. His legacy continues to exercise a powerful influence even now. His musical originality and resilience is his redemption and his manly beauty, and it gives cause to wonder if this was the reason, in his own vernacular, for all his other "shit." In this respect, he mirrored in his life, his autobiography, and his music the essence of what the literati call "modernity." As the title of one of his albums, Live/Evil, suggests, Miles Davis may have needed to go into the darkness in order to find the light.

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