Sons of Miles - Mike Zwerin

Steven A. Cerra

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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"I Played with Miles Davis and the Birth of the Cool" Mike Zwerin

Jazz Critic Mike Zwerin, Miles Davis Protege, Dies at Age 79

April 2 (Bloomberg) -- Mike Zwerin, a jazzman who got his first break jamming with Miles Davis a half-century ago, has died aged 79. Zwerin was a trombonist who became the Paris-based jazz critic for the International Herald Tribune and later for Bloomberg News. He died at 3 a.m. local time in a Paris hospital after a long illness, his family said.

He was the author of the memoirs “Close Enough for Jazz” and “The Parisian Jazz Chronicles” among others. In the books, his life story is interlaced with those of the stars he encountered: Dexter Gordon, Chet Baker, Bob Dylan, Wayne Shorter -- and Davis, the man “everything comes back to.” He was spotted by Davis playing in a club. “When I came to rehearsal, it was the band called Birth of the Cool,” Zwerin recalled in a Bloomberg interview in 2005. Davis told him “I like your sound.”

“That was the biggest compliment I ever got,” Zwerin said.

Zwerin was jazz columnist and European editor for the Village Voice between 1964 and 1971 and also wrote for Rolling Stone, Down Beat and other magazines. “It’s the cliche: You do get some peace with age,” Zwerin said in the 2005 interview. “Also, I understand stuff that I didn’t understand before. There is no reason to get depressed about stuff, because it’s just inevitable. That’s what I’ve come to realize: Dust unto dust is OK.”

Here is a selection of Mike Zwerin’s columns:
- Jazz Giants Swing on Cool DVD Collection: Review by Mike Zwerin;
- Hot Jazz Club Embroiled in Rome Political Intrigue: Mike Zwerin;
- Miles Davis Gems Resurface - In French Comic Book: Mike Zwerin;
- Dylan’s Pulitzer, Poetry, Beer Boxes, Dingy Rooms: Mike Zwerin;
- Phil Spector Mopes, Schemes, Lies, Drinks Manischewitz in Bio
Baron ‘Toots’ Thielemans, Master of Jazz Harmonica: Mike Zwerin.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=a43ekkTiOIf8