Miles & Me

by Quincy Troupe

  Yes, I did, and although I disagreed with him, I understood perfectly well why they didn’t serve his needs. He wanted—needed—someone younger, someone who hadn’t been a leader, who would play his music without question and whose voice spoke to and blended with his. One day a few months later, I went by his place and he told me his new saxophonist was Kenny Garrett. This fabulously gifted young player stayed with his band until Miles’ death. Today he is one of the rising stars on alto saxophone in the world of jazz.

  I remember another incident with Miles that involved my musical taste. It happened when I went to his Malibu home in August of 1986. It was another one of those fabulously beautiful days Miles and I always seemed to be spending together. Blue sky. Cool ocean breezes tonguing in. The mountains on the other side of Highway 101 across from his house loomed high and reminded me of Haiti. We were sitting out on the terrace and the sun was extinguishing its fiery self in an orange grave of liquid flames way out to the west. It was a wondrous sight and Miles and I were sitting there silent, just watching. He was chewing gum furiously, as he often did. (Once when I asked him why he chewed so much gum, he said, “Gotta keep my breath sweet for kissin’ fine ladies. Gotta be ready if and when the opportunity presents itself.”) The Pacific’s waves were crashing on the beach just below the terrace. As usual, Miles was wearing black denims, a black silk T-shirt, a black jeans jacket, and wraparound sunglasses. I remember thinking when I looked at him from the side that I could see a lot of Native American Indian in his profile.

  This was about three months after I had begun working on the book with him. We were closer. I could feel the friendship growing every time I was with him. But I was still wary of his unpredictable wrath and I didn’t want to go through another verbal dressing down. So on that August evening, when we were both silently staring out at the breathtaking sunset, I was carefully choosing the words that I would say to him, running them back and forth through my mind and reviewing them the way a film editor looks at frames.

  I remember the darkness swelling up as suddenly as yeast in baking bread. Miles was gulping down great quantities of his beloved Evian water straight from the bottle. He had turned on the terrace lights and was drawing on his drawing pad as on the day of our first interview. All of a sudden he stopped drawing, took off his glasses, and turned those eyes of his on me. They were glittering devilishly. He bit down on the earpiece of his sunglasses, and the corners of his lips twitched playfully as, out of the blue, he asked, “Quincy, what do you think of McCoy Tyner as a piano player? You said you liked Trane. So what do you think of McCoy, brother?”

  I sensed a set-up, so I proceeded cautiously. “I like the group sound Trane had when McCoy was in the group,” I began.

  “Answer the question, motherfucka,” he broke in with his rasping, low voice without missing a beat. His eyes were alternately flashing mischief and menace. “Answer the motherfuckin’ question! Do you like him or don’t chu?”

  “I like him, Miles,” I said, a little taken aback by his sudden attack erupting after such a long stretch of silence.

  “Why?” he asked, after a long, pregnant pause. “Why do you like McCoy as a pianist, Quincy?” He said this sarcastically, with a touch of playfulness giggling around the corners of his words.

  “Because I think he plays well,” I said, on the lookout now for a verbal sucker punch.

  “Oh, ‘he plays the piano well,’ you say,” Miles said, really warming up to the game he had set in motion, really enjoying having me cornered like a mouse.

  “Well, are you sure he plays well?” he continued, trying to keep a smile from cracking his face. “And how the fuck would you know he’s playin’ well? You a trained pianist or something?”

  “Naw, I ain’t no trained pianist. I’m talkin’ about what I like to hear in a piano player,” I said, by then more than a little hurt and offended by Miles’ attitude and the dilemma I found myself in.

  I was especially hurt by all of this because Miles had recently told me, “All musicians aren’t great, creative people. Some of them are just technicians and can’t hear shit. Now take somebody like you, Quincy; you got great ears and can hear your ass off. If you played an instrument you’d be a ‘bad’ motherfucka, a really great musician.” I had taken that as a measure of his respect for my knowledge and feeling for music. Now, here he was treating me like a bum, like someone who didn’t know the first thing about music, and I was really hurt by it.

  “Oh, is that what it is? “he said, almost laughing at me then. “You like what you’re hearin’? Well, do you know what you’re listenin’ to? Do you know if his playin’ is in context to what everyone else is playin’?”

  “Well, Trane must have liked it,” I shot back, going on the offensive. “If he was good enough for Trane, then he’s good enough for me.”

  “Aw, Quincy, don’t tell me no simpleminded bullshit like that,” he said, his eyes completely on fire now. “I’m not askin’ you what Trane liked—I know what he liked and why! I’m askin’ you what you like and if you can’t tell me that from deep down inside some kind of conviction, then don’t say a motherfuckin’ thing, you know what I mean, motherfucka?”

  I started to tell him, “I just told you what I liked about McCoy, Miles,” but I didn’t say it because I realized that I hadn’t told him why I liked McCoy. I stopped and thought for a moment while Miles’ eyes burned into mine, waiting for an answer. I had to ask myself, Did I really like McCoy as a pianist by himself, or did I just like him within the context of Trane’s group?

  One thing I did know was that I hadn’t bought but a couple of records by McCoy since he left Trane’s group. So what did that mean? I didn’t really know.

  “Well,” Miles said, quietly, “do you like him, or what? What is it, brother?”

  He was really being sarcastic by then, a little smile playing openly around his lips. He was enjoying being the cat and me being the mouse.

  “I really don’t know, Miles,” I said after a while. “Plus, I really don’t really give a fuck!”

  “Oh yeah,” he said in a raspy, playful voice that told me he knew I was as mad as hell. “Is it that you don’t know, or is it that you know but are afraid to tell the truth because you think I might get mad at you?”

  He was laughing out loud, certain he’d got my ass exposed, hanging over a barrel. Whatever the name of the game he was playing, he was right and both of us knew it. I was truly mad then, almost to the point of wanting to exchange blows. But I knew he wasn’t going to lighten up, so I just played the game out, unwilling to come to blows over an emotional conversation like this, because in the end I had too much to lose.

  “Naw, Miles, that ain’t it.” I sank back in my chair, exasperated to the core, which he knew. “Anyway, fuck you, man,” I said, badly needing to try and rescue some of my self-respect. “You just playin’ head games with me.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, “you think I’m just playin’ a game with you? Well, you still haven’t answered the motherfuckin’ question. So what it be, brother, what is the answer, motherfucka? Answer the motherfuckin’ question, brother.”

  He spat out the word “brother” and turned back to the figure he was drawing.

  “Well, Miles, I think he can play,” I said halfheartedly, not even believing my own words now that he’d beaten me down so bad.

  “Naw, Quincy,” he said without looking up. “McCoy can’t play shit. All he do is bang around the piano. Just bang around. Never played shit and never will. He’s a very nice person, but he can’t play no piano to my way of listening. I told Trane that, too. But Trane liked him, liked what he was doin’, and kept him on. But for me McCoy couldn’t play if his life depended on it. Then, again, a lot of people didn’t like Trane’s playin’ in my band. But I did, and that’s all that counts.”

  Then he smiled his sideways smile that meant he was about to let me off the hook, and said, looking directly at me now, his eyes gone soft but still sparkling with mischief, “Qui
ncy, I’m surprised at someone who can hear music as well as you liking someone as bad as McCoy Tyner. Now I’m gonna have to reevaluate what I said about your ears, that you could hear so good and all. Yeah, brother,” he said, bringing the discussion to a close and giving me a sly look, “I’m gonna have to think about what I said about your ears. You know what I mean, brother? Yeah, I’m gonna have to rethink all of that.”

  This conversation taught me a lot about Miles Davis and about myself as well. What it taught me about Miles was that he loved to confront people to see if they really believed what they said they believed. Arguing with Miles was like fighting with a great swordsman: he was always thrusting for weakness, both in your character and in your argument. He always kept the pressure on, in his arguments and in his playing as well. If you couldn’t stand up to him, he had no respect for you. Sometimes he might play the devil’s advocate just to see where you stood, just to see if you would stand up for what you believed. If he found you weak, he would just plunge his sword straight through your heart and keep on steppin’ without looking back, because he was a man who didn’t seem, outwardly at least, to suffer from guilt.

  He taught by example, by the way he conducted himself, by the way he did things, and by the way he created and played his music. He taught his band in the same way he taught me. If you were strong you could stay around; if you weren’t you had to go.

  What I learned about myself on that August evening back in 1986 was that I had to speak out what I believed and be willing to fight for it. After all, Miles was right: If I liked McCoy so much, why hadn’t I played the music he’d made since leaving Trane? Until I met Miles, I had stood up for what I believed in with everyone else, even with my heroes. I had always held my ground. After this scene, I vowed that from then on I would stand up to him, too. And I did, from that point on until his death; and our friendship constantly deepened and his respect for me continued to grow.

  homage from the stars

  In 1986 Miles and his working band played the Amnesty International concert right outside of New York at the Meadowlands Stadium in New Jersey. It had rained all day and the grounds were wet, but the stadium was jammed to the rafters to hear the likes of such rock ’n’ roll stars as U2, Sting, and Peter Gabriel and a whole host of others. I was there, and I remember how famous rock and pop stars like Madonna, Sting, Bono from U2, Peter Gabriel, and Ruben Blades all seemed too afraid to say anything to Miles, who sat backstage as if he had drawn a circle around himself and the chair he was seated in, like the one drawn around the General in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s masterpiece, One Hundred Years of Solitude. It was as if that imaginary circle had a sign posted that read, “Do not enter unless invited.” So these famous stars hovered somewhere outside of this magic circle enclosing Miles and his chair. Waiting. Waiting for Miles to notice or acknowledge them. And when he would notice them with a tiny, almost imperceptible nod of his head, they would enter the circle, one by one, and squat or get down on one knee to speak with the master, until with another tiny, almost imperceptible nod of his head, Miles would let them know that the audience was over, and it was time for them to leave, which they did immediately. It was something else to watch the respect with which these celebrities approached Miles and to see the great honor and esteem they held him in. They were starstruck by him and were grateful to be in his presence.

  Despite all the rain, and the media madness of cameras and bright lights, Miles and his band played very well that day at Meadowlands. The concert was broadcast live all over the world. Carlos Santana, the rock guitarist from Mexico and longtime friend of Miles, played with Miles that day, and they just tore the house down. They left the crowd screaming for more. It was fabulous just to be there, to hear Miles play so well and to watch him being treated as musical royalty by so many of the biggest names in music.

  Which reminds me about the time Miles told Andy Warhol to pick up his cape at a fashion show they were both modeling for the Japanese fashion designer Kohshin Satoh at the Tunnel discotheque in downtown Manhattan in 1987. Miles and Warhol had been modeling clothes all evening and it was time for the finale. I had gone backstage into the dressing room after the last models walked down the aisle. I knew the finale was coming up and I wanted to see Miles’ last outfit up close. When I’d arrived, Miles had just tried on a magnificent gold lamé outfit with a flowing cape. He was supposed to walk out alone on the stage for this number. He was smiling and enjoying himself and so was Warhol. I remember Andy saying, “Miles, you look so divine!” Miles thanked him graciously and then it was time to make his entrance. As he started walking out of the dressing room, however, he realized his cape was dragging on the floor. So he turned around and fixed Warhol with one of his fierce, withering looks and said, “Andy, pick up my motherfuckin’ cape!”

  It was a command. There’s no other way to put it. But Andy just smiled and said softly, “OK, Miles,” and he walked over and picked up the cape’s hem, and they both walked out onto the runway. The audience exploded with screams and cheers. I remember noticing that Andy’s handlers were appalled to hear their boss addressed that way. But Andy loved it. He had a big smile on his face as he walked behind Miles keeping his cape off the floor. He loved Miles and his music and I could see that he loved being with him like that. For Andy, as with so many others, Miles Davis was royalty. A few weeks later Andy was dead as a result of a botched gall bladder operation.

  two “fine” women

  By 1986, the much-ballyhooed marriage between Cicely Tyson and Miles Davis was just about over. I knew this from seeing and hearing about all their problems from Miles. It wasn’t about any other woman. Miles told me he had never loved Cicely in the physical sense but had felt that she was more like a great friend, or a sister. She was the one who had wanted to get married, and he married because she had, in fact, saved his life. That’s what he told me.

  He also said they weren’t getting along because they had different values. He thought that she wanted to be too controlling. She wanted to screen the friends and people he saw—including me—and he rebelled. Basically, that’s what their separation came down to. Plus the fact that, although Miles was from an upper-class family, he had never had the middle-class values or aspirations Cicely Tyson had. At least that’s my read on their differences, based on my conversations with Miles on the subject. In any event, by early 1987, they were living separate lives.

  But make no mistake about it, Cicely Tyson did Miles a world of good. He had already had his first stroke in 1981 and his health was critical. When he got together with Cicely, he was a longtime serious diabetic who needed to shoot insulin regularly. His health was at the point where it was “Stop using everything or die.” After he met her, he completely stopped drinking and using all drugs. Cicely introduced him to health foods and fresh juices. She helped him to kick all of his habits, including cigarette smoking, by turning him on to a Chinese acupuncturist, Dr. Chin, who treated Miles until his death.

  (When we were working on the book, Miles talked me into going to Dr. Chin with him for treatments. I wasn’t sick or anything like that; Miles just enjoyed my company, and when I told him that I had never had acupuncture, he convinced me to go. I thought it was weird, all those little needles vibrating in my body. I can’t say I felt any different after Dr. Chin’s treatment, but today I do go to an acupuncturist for my back and I know that the treatment helps me now.)

  Cicely also helped him rebound after the deaths of Charlie Mingus and Bill Evans in 1980. Their deaths had really saddened Miles, and he was ready to quit everything: he just needed someone to support him and Cicely gave him that support. She helped him get off everything that was killing him and got him to live a healthier lifestyle. She saved his life, and he stayed clean until he died.

  After breaking up with Cicely, Miles started seeing a Jewish woman, Jo Gelbard, who was a sculptor, painter, and jeweler. I got to know Jo pretty well and I thought she was a dynamite lady—strong, pretty, spiritual, and sweet, an a
rtist in every aspect of her life. When they met, Miles had already begun doodling and drawing—to keep his hands occupied, he liked to say, so they wouldn’t have to pick up a drink or hold a cigarette. It was Jo who encouraged him to stop doodling and start painting seriously every day. It was also Jo who helped deepen his budding interest in art by taking him to museums, galleries, and art openings.

  By the end of his life, Miles was taking his painting as seriously as he took his music. During the years I knew him, when he wasn’t touring and playing and was staying in his New York apartment, he had this daily routine: He would swim in the morning and then come back and paint for hours into the early afternoon, each and every day. After he was done painting, he would practice his horn and later compose fragments of music that he later built into entire compositions. I watched him go through this routine day after day. Miles Davis was a creature of habit in his everyday life, very focused, very disciplined, and I think that this accounted for his phenomenal success in large measure, along with his great creativity.

  spirit talk and premonitions

  When Gil Evans died in 1987, his death was a great loss for Miles. Gil Evans was Miles’ best friend, bar none. Miles loved him and respected his judgment on many things in addition to music, and Gil loved and respected Miles in return, naming his son after him. When I first started going to Miles’ house, he displayed only two photos. He carried them with him each time he moved from New York to Malibu and back again. They were pictures of John Coltrane and Gil Evans. Besides some paintings, mostly by Europeans and Haitians (none of his own), a sculpture piece by Melvin Edwards, and, eventually, a painting of his mother and father, those two pictures were the only images he kept around. That was it.