The late Paris-based jazz musician and International Herald Tribune writer Mike Zwerin posted a 41-week series entitled Sons of Miles to Culturekiosque Jazznet. In this series, Zwerin looks back at Miles Davis and the leading jazz musicians he influenced in a series of interviews and personal reminiscences. Here is the introductory piece to that series.
PARIS, 1 April 1998 - Miles Davis reinvented himself many times, in many shapes. His alumni include just about every influential jazz musician from his own generation on down. Davis helped deliver Bebop with Charlie Parker, gave Birth to The Cool, explored modality, was the father of jazz-rock and funk-jazz and is the principle inspiration for the young generation now marrying jazz and rap.- Mike Zwerin
The poetic sound of the name "MILES", the way he looked, his lifestyle, his trademark rasp and his marriage of quality and commericality have entered the folklore. His combination of musical, visual, sexual, and financial chops is unequaled. The ghost of MILES hovers.- Mike Zwerin
What Would You Like To Be When You Grow Up
“I am in love with music. I cannot see straight for the love of her. But if music is, as Duke Ellington put it, my mistress, then we have had a stormy relationship. I have cheated on her, lied to, neglected and beat her. On the other hand, she is too demanding. When she nagged I left her and when I neglected her she left me. I spent my time under too many hats, between too many stools. It has been a stormy affair.
High-school hipsters slouched through my living room, eyes red, leaning forward with gig-bags cradled in their arms. They wore Dizzy Gillespie goatees and berets. Those who were not junkies scratched their noses and spoke with a rasp to make believe they were. Charlie Parker was a junky and that was hip enough for them.
"Groovy, man. What a gas!" they'd say as my father looked over his New York Times in disbelief. They'd climb the stairs to my attic studio where there was a wire recorder, an upright piano and pictures of jazz giants on the wall. Earl Brew burned some piano keys but my mother did not say anything because Earl was black and she was a Socialist. She thought the burns were from cigarettes.
When we weren't playing music we were listening to or talking about it. We did not have to ask each other: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" We took professional names. Bob Milner became Bob Mills. Frank Hamburger chose Duke Frank. I was Mike Wayne. Al Goldstein picked Al Young in honor of Lester Young but everybody called him Lester Goldstein.
My attic studio overlooked the Forest Hills Tennis Club. The tennis players complained because our jamming jammed their concentration. We were the first Jewish family in Forest Hills Gardens, an exclusive enclave. My father suspected the tennis players were anti-Semitic. The tennis players accused him of operating a rehearsal studio in violation of zoning laws. Lester Goldstein loved to honk out the window during set points and Lester really knew how to honk.
I cut high school to catch noon shows at the Paramount, the Capitol, the Strand - Broadway theatres where my heroes rose hungover from pits for the first of five daily shows playing "Blues Flame," "Take The A Train," and "Let's Dance," my own "Star Spangled Banners." I was dazzled by the sparkle of spots off brass. I daydreamed of future hungover noons rising from pits. I knew big-band personnel like other kids knew big-league baseball lineups.
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