Miles: The Autobiography
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For more than forty years Miles Davis has been in the front rank of American music. Universally acclaimed as a musical genius, Miles is one of the most important and influential musicians in the world. The subject of several biographies, now Miles speaks out himself about his extraordinary life.Miles: The Autobiography, like Miles himself, holds nothing back. For the first time Miles talks about his five-year silence. He speaks frankly and openly about his drug problem and how he overcame it. He condemns the racism he has encountered in the music business and in American society generally. And he discusses the women in his life. But above all, Miles talks about music and musicians, including the legends he has played with over the years: Bird, Dizzy, Monk, Trane, Mingus, and many others.The man who has given us some of the most exciting music of the past few decades has now given us a compelling and fascinating autobiography, featuring a concise discography and thirty-two pages of photographs. Publishers Weekly Writing with Troupe (editor of James Baldwin: The Legacy ), the brilliant bad man of jazz trumpetry unburdens himself of his hate and anger as well as of his good feelings about life, friendship, sex, drugs, women and cars. Unconstrained by conventional attitudes toward the publication of four- and 12-letter words, Davis delivers opinions about people in general, both white and black, music and musicians. Devoted to the creative work of Bird and Diz, he tells us that he learned phrasing by listening to Frank Sinatra and Orson Welles. Gil Evans, his best friend, was ``one of the only ones who could pick up on what I was thinking musically.'' Separation from Juliette Greco ``sent me falling down the pit and into heroin.'' Later, addicted to alcohol, tobacco and cocaine, he stopped playing for five years--but is now performing again to great acclaim. A student of boxing, Davis regards Sugar Ray Robinson as ``the most important thing in my life besides music.'' On almost any score, this is a remarkable book. Photos not seen by PW. First serial to Vanity Fair. (Oct.)
