![Miles Davis in 1971 (photo by Jim Marshall)
[hat tip to Fred Seibert for the photog correction]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/c329c807fbcbf02a70fecc8c6c5e473a/tumblr_mgv4g0DRdN1qzpj6zo1_500.jpg)
Miles Davis in 1971 (photo by Jim Marshall)
[hat tip to Fred Seibert for the photog correction]
Red Garland and Miles Davis during a recording session, New York City, circa 1955 (photo by Dennis Stock)
Miles Davis and his wife Francis after his release on bail from The Tombs in Manhattan. Photo by Stanley Hall, in 1959.
More photos from the same incident.
I remember one time we was coming down to The Street to play from uptown and Bird had this white bitch in the back of the taxi with us. He done already shot up a lot of heroin and now the motherfucker’s eating chicken—his favorite food—and drinking whiskey and telling the bitch to get down and suck his dick. Now, I wasn’t used to that kind of shit back then—I was hardly even drinking, I think I had just started smoking—and I definitely wasn’t into drugs yet because I was only nineteen years old and hadn’t seen no shit like that before.
Anyway, Bird noticed that I was getting kind of uptight with the woman sucking all over his dick and everything, and him sucking on her pussy. So he asked if something was wrong with me, and if his doing this was bothering me. When I told him that I felt uncomfortable with them doing what they was doing in front of me, with her licking and slapping her tongue like a dog all over his dick and him making all that moaning noise in between taking bites of chicken, I told him, “Yeah, it’s bothering me.” So you know what that motherfucker said? He told me that if it was bothering me, then I should turn my head and not pay attention. I couldn’t believe that shit, that he actually said that to me. The cab was really small and we all three were in the backseat, so where was I supposed to turn my head? What I did was to stick my head outside the taxi window, but I could still hear them motherfuckers getting down and in between, Bird smacking his lips all over that fried chicken. Like I said, he was something, all right.
“
| — | Quoted from Miles, The Autobiography |
Charlie Parker - Out of Nowhere (1947)
As with a previous post, Bird’s improvisational wizardry defies explanation or categorization. In the end, this is genius at its pinnacle. And Miles ain’t too shabby, neither.
Miles Davis - ‘Round Midnight (1961)
From Miles Davis’ autobiography:
“I also got to know Thelonious Monk better when I was working with Bean [Coleman Hawkins’ nickname]; Monk was in the band, too. Denzil Best was playing drums. I really liked Monk’s tune, “‘Round Midnight,” and I wanted to learn how to play it. So I used to ask him every night after I got through playing it, “Monk, how did I play it tonight?” And he’d say, looking all serious, “You didn’t play it right.” The next night, the same thing and the next and the next and the next. This went on for a while.
“That ain’t the way to play it,” he would say, sometimes with an evil, exasperated look on his face. Then, one night, I asked him and he said, “Yeah, that’s the way you play it.”
Man, that made me happier than a motherfucker, happier than a pig in shit. I’d gotten the sound down. It was one of the hardest. “‘Round Midnight” was very difficult because it had a complex melody and you had to hang it together. You had to play it so you could hear the chords and changes and also hear the tops; it was just one of those tunes that you had to hear. It wasn’t like a regular eight-bar melody or motif and it stopped, like in a minor key. It’s a hard tune to learn and remember. I can still play it, but I don’t like to do it too much now, except maybe when I’m practicing, alone. And what made it so hard for me to play was that I had to get all those harmonies. I had to hear the song, play it, and improvise so that Monk could hear the melody.”
Miles Davis shadow boxing in Bobby Gleason’s New York gym, 1969 (photo by Barry Wolman)
Happy birthday, Miles.
Charlie Parker - Embraceable You (1947)
For all of Bird’s legendary pace and pyrotechnical prowess, this cut’s three and a half minutes includes one of the prettiest solos you’ll hear anywhere.
Kenny G, being glared at by Miles Davis on the tour on which the former opened for the latter. (via Kenny G’s Facebook page, via Ned Raggett)
Miles: “Who is this jive-ass turkey?”
Original Caption:
26 Aug 1959, Manhattan, New York, New York: Musician Arrested. West 54th Street Station House—18th Precinct.
Photo #1: Miles Davis, 32, of 881 10th Avenue, a trumpeter now appearing in Birdland, 52nd Street and Broadway, was arrested after fighting with patrolman Gerald Kilduff, who had ordered him to move from crowded sidewalk. In the scuffle, Davis was hit on the head with a blackjack for which a St. Clare’s ambulance had to be called.
Photo #2: Jazzman Miles Davis rides in an ambulance to St. Clare’s Hospital with Patrolman Gerald Kilduff. Davis was given ten stitches in his scalp at the hospital. He was standing outside the jazz club Birdland, where he was performing, when Kilduff told him to move along. A scuffle ensued, and a passing plainclothes detective hit Davis with his blackjack, dropping him to the ground. Davis was charged with disorderly conduct and assault. His arrest was later ruled illegal and a “travesty of justice” by a three-judge panel.
