When I first met Miles Davis, I was terrified. He was my idol, and he still is. Miles and I first met at the Downbeat Club when I was around seventeen or eighteen. Billy Hale was playing there with Earl May. Bebop musicians were all over the place, and all of a sudden I heard rhis unmistakable voice and I knew it was Miles. To put this in context, I had just done my first recordo with Lionel Hampton, and the whole time I was trying to sound like Miles. And then to meet him -- wow, intimidanting.
Miles played the way he was a human being, and he painted and drew that same way. He knew that painting was something that he had to do. He felt things deeply, wherther it be anger or amusemente. He had to expresse his feelings. He was an original, and when he felt like doing something, he did it. His creative self wouldn't let him turn his back on any sort of inspiration.
Miles was authentic, nothing slick.He played styles. His art was the same. He didn't want to think like everyone. He knew jazz had an attitude just like art did. He loved attitude just like he loved lines and color. When he drew faces and shapes, he drew heads in all different directions. I was always an experiment, achance to break boundaries. (...)
One of the last times I played with Miles was at Montreaux Jazz Festival in 1991. I had been trying to get him to play there for the previous fifteen years, and when he finally agreed, I was thrilled. When I saw images of his red trumpet and his monogrammed leather bag in this book, it immediately took me back to that time. The room lit up when Miles walked onto the stage at Montreaux. No one could explain MIles!s presence; it was magical. He hadn't played the music he played there in many years. Miles went with his instincts. And that night on satge, Miles proved why he had been a leader and a legend for fifty years. That festival was special in more ways than one, because Miles passed away a couple of months afterward.
I miss Miles every day. He was my friend, my brother, and my idol. He's still in my blood.
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