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booknook[Feel free to comment about and/or drop recommendations of biographies or autobiographies of musicians from any musical genre.]
Title: Miles: The Autobiography
Authors: Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe
Format: Audiobook, 17 hours, Narrator: Dion Graham
Format: Text, 441 pages with 32 pages of black and white photos
Genre: Autobiography
I am a home caregiver and one of my clients is a jazz musician and listening to this autobiography of Miles Davis was an excellent starting point for many interesting conversations with him. I like jazz music, but I can’t say I am very knowledgeable.
I prefer audiobook versions whenever readily available to me via my public library’s app, and when I saw that the narrator for this book had also narrated The Wager by David Grann, which I had listened to and enjoyed very much, then I immediately put it on hold in my library’s system.
The good, the bad, and the ugly.
The good.
The narration is excellent.
Miles Davis reveals that following an operation to remove a grown on his larynx in 1956, he raised his voice to make a point with a record company manager when he wasn’t supposed to be talking at all, and “After that incident, my voice had this whisper to it that has been with me ever since.” And Graham reproduces that deep baritone whisper for 17 hours to good effect. And the way the book is written, in first-person conversational style, with slang, cursing, occasional sighs and huffs, and informal sentence structure, creates the illusion that the reader is listening in on a long, long ramble by Miles himself.
For example, it’s much more effective to hear the sentence Yeah, man, B was funnier than a motherfucker. spoken in certain voice with a certain pitch and rhythm than it is to read it without those things.
The parts of the autobiography I enjoyed most were parts related to the music itself. I would say this was about 25% of the book.
My favorite part was the prologue. Miles talks about the first time he heard Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie (Bird or Yardbird) Parker play in 1944 when he (Miles) was eighteen years old. He says: Anyway, I’ve come close to matching the feeling of that night in 1944 in music, when I first heard Diz and Bird, but I’ve never quite got there. I’ve gotten close, but not all the way there. I’m always looking for it, listening and feeling for it, though, trying always to always feel it in and through the music I play every day.
It reminded me of many religious mystics experiencing union and then striving to return to that feeling.
More parts I liked were: one, learning about the early influences on his music, such as black churches/religious gatherings near his grandfather’s home in Arkansas; two, learning about his early musical education, and three, learning, through his lens, about how bebop and jazz evolved over the decades of the 1940’s and 1950’s and 1960’s and into the 1970’s when he was getting older and the culture was changing and how he responded to it. This was interesting.
There is a very detailed discography in the appendix which gives an exhaustive overview of a long and prolific career.
The bad.
Not bad. Just boring. And sad.
In talking about the many, many groups he led and played with, sometimes it sounds like Miles Davis is just reading a laundry list of musicians’ names being shuffled. Lots of places, clubs, sessions, festivals, gigs. Some of the names meant something to me, but a lot of them didn’t. Also, there were descriptions of beefs with record companies or other musicians which were not interesting. At several points in the book, it sounds like he is trying to dispel rumors or myths about arguments he had with other musicians or about specific situations for which I had no context.
There is a lot about his drug habit, and great, great deal about it, and other musicians’ drug habits, which wasn’t interesting. And about his celebrity lifestyle. Fashion, another topic which isn’t interesting to me.
There was also some about race: his abuse by police and record companies, about stereotypes which he wanted to counter, about respect in the music industry. Those parts weren’t boring, but just testament to issues black musicians (and black people) would continue to face and still face today in the US.
So, this was about 50% of the book.
The ugly.
Miles Davis’ treatment of the women in his life was not good. This is understatement. And the downside of listening to a book instead of reading it is that it is more difficult to skim over the painful parts. The most startling mention of it when he begins to talk about the death of Charlie Parker and the impact that had on the jazz world, so seemingly out of the blue he says: What made it even worse was that Irene [the mother of three of his children] had me put in jail for non-support so I was in jail on Rikers Island when I heard about Bird’s death…” And I imagine doing this [putting the father of your children in jail for non-support] in 1955 was much more difficult than it is today so the neglect must’ve been severe. And he just casually throws it in and goes back to talking about Bird.
Miles Davis abused the women in his life, physically, emotionally, and financially. Full stop. He pimped women to fund his drug habit [“At one point, I had a whole stable of bitches out on the street for me.”] In one section, he talks about what kind of women he likes. He talks about flirting. He talks about sex with multiple partners at once. He mentions often the dampening effect of heroin on his sex drive. At many points, it was difficult for me not to roll my eyes.
The photos
Even in the selection of the photos, it was a mixed bag. Some were excellent, some were appropriate, but many were not photos of him or related to him, but just celebrities and figures he liked or didn’t like. So of the photos, 75% were on point for me, and 25% had me scratching my head. For example, there was a photo of Prince, who wrote a song for an album of Miles Davis, but that song was never included or recorded.
I am glad I read it [listened to it], but I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone. For me, it served its purpose and was, at times, enlightening and enjoyable.
Title: Miles: The Autobiography
Authors: Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe
Format: Audiobook, 17 hours, Narrator: Dion Graham
Format: Text, 441 pages with 32 pages of black and white photos
Genre: Autobiography
I am a home caregiver and one of my clients is a jazz musician and listening to this autobiography of Miles Davis was an excellent starting point for many interesting conversations with him. I like jazz music, but I can’t say I am very knowledgeable.
I prefer audiobook versions whenever readily available to me via my public library’s app, and when I saw that the narrator for this book had also narrated The Wager by David Grann, which I had listened to and enjoyed very much, then I immediately put it on hold in my library’s system.
The good, the bad, and the ugly.
The good.
The narration is excellent.
Miles Davis reveals that following an operation to remove a grown on his larynx in 1956, he raised his voice to make a point with a record company manager when he wasn’t supposed to be talking at all, and “After that incident, my voice had this whisper to it that has been with me ever since.” And Graham reproduces that deep baritone whisper for 17 hours to good effect. And the way the book is written, in first-person conversational style, with slang, cursing, occasional sighs and huffs, and informal sentence structure, creates the illusion that the reader is listening in on a long, long ramble by Miles himself.
For example, it’s much more effective to hear the sentence Yeah, man, B was funnier than a motherfucker. spoken in certain voice with a certain pitch and rhythm than it is to read it without those things.
The parts of the autobiography I enjoyed most were parts related to the music itself. I would say this was about 25% of the book.
My favorite part was the prologue. Miles talks about the first time he heard Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie (Bird or Yardbird) Parker play in 1944 when he (Miles) was eighteen years old. He says: Anyway, I’ve come close to matching the feeling of that night in 1944 in music, when I first heard Diz and Bird, but I’ve never quite got there. I’ve gotten close, but not all the way there. I’m always looking for it, listening and feeling for it, though, trying always to always feel it in and through the music I play every day.
It reminded me of many religious mystics experiencing union and then striving to return to that feeling.
More parts I liked were: one, learning about the early influences on his music, such as black churches/religious gatherings near his grandfather’s home in Arkansas; two, learning about his early musical education, and three, learning, through his lens, about how bebop and jazz evolved over the decades of the 1940’s and 1950’s and 1960’s and into the 1970’s when he was getting older and the culture was changing and how he responded to it. This was interesting.
There is a very detailed discography in the appendix which gives an exhaustive overview of a long and prolific career.
The bad.
Not bad. Just boring. And sad.
In talking about the many, many groups he led and played with, sometimes it sounds like Miles Davis is just reading a laundry list of musicians’ names being shuffled. Lots of places, clubs, sessions, festivals, gigs. Some of the names meant something to me, but a lot of them didn’t. Also, there were descriptions of beefs with record companies or other musicians which were not interesting. At several points in the book, it sounds like he is trying to dispel rumors or myths about arguments he had with other musicians or about specific situations for which I had no context.
There is a lot about his drug habit, and great, great deal about it, and other musicians’ drug habits, which wasn’t interesting. And about his celebrity lifestyle. Fashion, another topic which isn’t interesting to me.
There was also some about race: his abuse by police and record companies, about stereotypes which he wanted to counter, about respect in the music industry. Those parts weren’t boring, but just testament to issues black musicians (and black people) would continue to face and still face today in the US.
So, this was about 50% of the book.
The ugly.
Miles Davis’ treatment of the women in his life was not good. This is understatement. And the downside of listening to a book instead of reading it is that it is more difficult to skim over the painful parts. The most startling mention of it when he begins to talk about the death of Charlie Parker and the impact that had on the jazz world, so seemingly out of the blue he says: What made it even worse was that Irene [the mother of three of his children] had me put in jail for non-support so I was in jail on Rikers Island when I heard about Bird’s death…” And I imagine doing this [putting the father of your children in jail for non-support] in 1955 was much more difficult than it is today so the neglect must’ve been severe. And he just casually throws it in and goes back to talking about Bird.
Miles Davis abused the women in his life, physically, emotionally, and financially. Full stop. He pimped women to fund his drug habit [“At one point, I had a whole stable of bitches out on the street for me.”] In one section, he talks about what kind of women he likes. He talks about flirting. He talks about sex with multiple partners at once. He mentions often the dampening effect of heroin on his sex drive. At many points, it was difficult for me not to roll my eyes.
The photos
Even in the selection of the photos, it was a mixed bag. Some were excellent, some were appropriate, but many were not photos of him or related to him, but just celebrities and figures he liked or didn’t like. So of the photos, 75% were on point for me, and 25% had me scratching my head. For example, there was a photo of Prince, who wrote a song for an album of Miles Davis, but that song was never included or recorded.
I am glad I read it [listened to it], but I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone. For me, it served its purpose and was, at times, enlightening and enjoyable.
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Date: 2025-10-25 12:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-26 01:57 am (UTC)