The Miles Davis Reader

Music is a language, and in the jazz world, perhaps the most enigmatic voice was that of Miles Davis. He was the Cool One, the Black Prince, or the Man with a Horn. On stage, he was subdued and muted. Without his trumpet, he spoke in a raspy growl. His phlegmatic brood infuriated fans. He was terribly attuned to the energy of the moment, and his affinity for innovation was on a scale matched only by Picasso.

For an illumination on the shadowy, mythic legend, turn to The Miles Davis Reader. It's packed with over 300 pages of everything written about Miles in Downbeat Magazine — the self-ascribed "bible" of jazz, blues, and roots that began printing in 1939. From his first mention in the magazine in the 1940s, to his death in 1991, to posthumous record reviews, Downbeat was one of the most assiduous documenters of Miles' life. In those five decades, the restless seeker moved in and out of obscurity, shuffled sounds and styles, struggled with financial difficulties and illness, and succumbed to and overcame heroin addiction. With The Reader, editor Frank Alkyer has assembled an incredible chronicle of he trumpeter's career.

The book is divided into three sections — news, features, and reviews. It's organized chronologically, so at the various stages of the musician's life, we can read about the events, written as they happened. For example, in the "Miles in the News" pages, Miles has his first of many run-ins with the New York City cops outside Birdland in the late 50s. After a squad detective beat Miles over the head with a blackjack, he admonished "I don't want to work in New York anymore, especially Birdland." Of course, he stayed in New York, where trouble would rarely allude him. A decade later, Mr. Davis was shot in the leg after a gig in Brooklyn.

Miles Dewey Davis, III, was born in small town Illinois and spent his youth in East St. Louis. At 13, his father gave him a trumpet. He was no virtuoso, but he learned quickly, and took note when an early instructor told him to play "fast and light—and no vibrato!" The advice stuck, as years later, jazz fans would describe Miles' sound as soft and fragile, yet direct. Composer and long-time Miles collaborator Gil Evans said that "Miles could achieve absolute communication with the sparest of sounds." When asked how he created his trumpet's sound, Miles could be bracingly definitive:

If you can hear a note, you can play it. The note I hit that sounds high, that's the only one I can play right then, the only note I can think of to play that would fit. You don't learn to play the blues. You just play. I don't even think about harmony. It just comes. You learn to put the notes so they sound right.

Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie shaped Miles' early career. While in high school, he was invited to sit in at a gig with his two idols. The teenage Miles "couldn't read a thing on stage" next to the bop giants. Nonetheless, he was invited on tour with the band, and shortly after, he was living with Bird (Parker) in New York while attending Julliard. It was then, in 1945, when the 52nd street jazz scene was in its heyday, that Miles learned "you have to go your own way; you can't copy anybody."

Like Bob Dylan and Marlon Brando, Miles Davis lived within a carefully cultivated aura of mystery. He eschewed the limelight and was hostile to outsiders. If he granted interviews, he was often terse and profane. As Downbeat writer Gregg Hall admits, "one sentence from him can be correlated to he average paragraph from most." Despite his hostility to outsiders, the Mile Davis Reader is packed with pages of Miles in his own words.

His deadpan is most entertaining when speaking of other musicians. In three "Blindfold Tests," a one-on-one listening session, the interviewer challenges Miles to identify and comment on a selection of records. After a recording of "Stormy Weather," Miles reveals his deep appreciation for Duke Ellington: "I think all musicians should get together one certain day and get down on their knees and thank Duke." In a 1955 feature, Miles is asked for his opinion of the current jazz scene. Miles "would rather hear Dizzy play the piano than [Dave] Brubeck, because Dizzy knows how to touch the piano." On Charles Mingus, Miles quips, "[his writings] are like tired motion pictures. Some of them are depressing. And Mingus can write better than that." Less than a month later, Miles' harsh critique inspired an "Open Letter from Charles Mingus," in which the bassist and composer pleads to Miles, "just because I'm playing jazz, don't forget about me."

Despite Miles' acerbity, we sometimes get the impression that his caustic exterior protected a shy, genuine person. Responding to a question about criticism for his less-than-savory on-stage behavior, Miles admits that he's indifferent to the crowd, but incredibly loyal to his fellow musicians. "Nothing," he says, "matters except that the members of my band are satisfied with me." And, though he rarely praised John Coltane, the lone decoration in Miles' Upper East Side apartment was a photograph of the late sax player.

Like Miles, this book is full of surprises. It will be a blast for jazz fans of any level. Put on an old Miles Davis Quintet LP and follow him into the boxing gym, where "Mile Davis the boxer seemed happier than the jazz musician." See his outlandish sartorial affectations in the glossy Downbeat covers, reprinted in original form. Readers looking for an in depth analysis of his life and influence on jazz won't find it here. Instead, The Miles Davis Reader moves fast and jumps around. It's raw and stripped down to include just the essentials. In that sense, it's like the sound from Miles' trumpet.