Latest / DISGRACELAND / Miles Davis (Pt. 1): Blasting Bebop, Blasting Racism, and a Devastating Heroin Habit

Transcript

Miles Davis (Pt. 1): Blasting Bebop, Blasting Racism, and a Devastating Heroin Habit · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Please check the show notes for more information. Disgraceland is
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: a production of Double Elvis. Motherfucker say, motherfucker, say motherfucker,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: that motherfucker over there, and this motherfucker over here. Motherfucker.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I can't say it, can't say the word, not like
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Miles Davis. The word motherfucker was, without a doubt, Miles
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Davis's favorite word. He used it liberally in his autobiography
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and everyday conversation and nearly every quote of his from
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: stories that his friends recount and documentaries, and of course,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Miles Davis was motherfucker one of the baddest motherfuckers of
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: all time as a man, a musician, a friend, an enemy,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: a junkie, a role model, an artist, a rock star,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: straight motherfucker. To hear Miles Davis use the word motherfucker
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: is like listening to his music, a whole unique experience.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Nobody did it like Miles, but like countless others who've
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: come up in Miles's influence. I'm going to try so
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: get ready, motherfuckers, because this episode is a lot of
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: motherfucking motherfucker's sucking up the story like Motherfucker mellotron, the
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: stories about Miles Davis are insane. He did time at
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Rikers Island. He was the victim of police brutality at Birdland.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: He did enough coke to run down the entirety of
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: fifty second Street. He pimped out women to fuel a
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: devastating heroin habit, and then devastated his Lamborghini after slipping
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: himself a sleeping pill. He made himself into jazz's first
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: and only rock star. He blasted racism by blasting his bebop,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: and when his lips weren't pressed against his trumpet, that
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: were mouthing the word motherfucker to whoever was unlucky enough
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: to be passing by. Miles Davis also made some of
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the greatest jazz of all time, some of the greatest
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: music of all time. And that music I played you
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: at the top of the show. That wasn't great music.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: That was a preset loop for my melotron called Bebopa
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Wo Nelly. I played you that loop because I can't
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: afford the rights to Rock around the Clock by Bill
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Haley in his comments, and why would I play you
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: that specific slice of Tuscadero cheese could I afford it?
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: July fifteenth, nineteen fifty five, And that was the day
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: that Miles Davis first took the stage at the Newport
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Jazz Festival and introduced the country to a new, unprecedented,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: unheard of kind of cool. In this part one of
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: a special two part episode Blasting Racism, Blasting beebop, devastated Lamborghinis,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: in the Inventor of Cool, that motherfucker Miles Davis. I'm
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Jake Brennan. In this disgraceland, the woods up beyond the
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: property line of his family's East Saint Louis, Illinois farm
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: gave young teenage Miles Davis enough distance away from the
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: smell of kalmanor, away from the sight of his father's
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: filthy prized pigs, and away from the sounds of violence,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: domestic violence, the sound of his father beating on his mother,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: closed fists to the face, flying teeth, screams, more scrapping.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: It didn't happen all the time, but when it did,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: it was best at Young Miles beat on out of
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: the house and get lost. His father's anger was not
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: to be taken lightly, though he was the second wealthiest
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: man in all of Illinois at the time. This was
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: still nineteen thirty nine, and despite whatever gains Miles Davis's
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: father had made in his personal life, there was plenty
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: for him to still be angry about. Money solved a
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: lot of problems, but the sting of societal racism in
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: the early part of the twentieth century was not one
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: of them. So Miles Davis's father, the successful dentist and entrepreneur,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: his anger got the best of him, and that meant, unfortunately,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: that it got the best of Miles's mother. So when
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: the fists started flying, Miles had a little spot in
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: the woods he'd had out in he'd bring his trumpet,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: and at first he'd listen, listen for quiet, but there
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: was little, not even in the thick of the woods.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: There was life change happening all around him. Nature moves swiftly,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: and nature also moves like a snail. In each case,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: nature inspires awe. Miles was not ignorant to the incremental
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: but inspiring change in natural beauty happening all around him.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: The leaves were changing, the weather too, slowly, bending in
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: step to the will of the turning season, and of
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: course the birds. Like everything around him, growing, moving, changing,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: The birds were his teachers, the wood thrush with its
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: syncopated scat, the round yodel of the loon, the lonesome
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: holler of the blue jay. Young Miles would sit in
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: the woods with his horn, listen for the birds to
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: call to him, and then he'd blow his trumpet and respond.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: The wood thrush would scap, Miles would scap back. The
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: loon would yodel, Miles would yodle back. The blue jay
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: would holler Myles. The birds would change their sounds depending
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: on the time of day or even the time of
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: the season, and so Miles would change his sound too.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Change was a necessity. Miles Davis would later say, if
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: anyone wants to keep creating, they have to be about change,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: among other things. He learned this from his father, whose
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: entrepreneurial instincts forced him to evolve and diversify and thus
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: survive and thrive. And he learned this from growing up
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: surrounded by nature that was forever changing in both small
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: and giant steps. And as mentioned, he learned this from
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: the birds, whose songs change depending on the time of day,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: depending on their wants, their needs, their desires, the wood, Thrush, Loon,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: and blue Jay were all functional teachers, but it would
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: be a different bird altogether who would teach Miles Davis
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: more than any other force of nature. The man they
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: called bird saxophonist Charlie Parker. Fuck you and your whole
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: fucking band, you fucking muck. Those were the last words
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: big band leader Billy Eckstein heard before he was out
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: on his ass, literally on a Saint Louis Street curb,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: outside the famed Plantation Club, because despite his best efforts,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: the only way the dapper frontman was getting through the
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: front door was by getting thrown out of it on
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: his ass. He stood quickly and started shouting back at
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: the low level mafioso who threw him out and who
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: was now heading back into the club ignoring him. Band
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: leaders like horrors came cheap, relatively speaking, and Billy Eckstein
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: and his entire big band, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Sara Vaughan among them, were out. Billy Eckstein shouted some more,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: kicked and punched the air, flailed about indiscriminately. His tight
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: processed hair and sharply manicured mustache remained perfectly in place,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: though the tails of his starch shirt escaped the backside
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: of his high waist depleated pants. It was a minor
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: inconvenience given the injustice he and his bandmates were just
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: forced to endure. They could headline the motherfucking club, but
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: the inbred pillow game mobster wouldn't let him or his
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: band walk into the front door. His name was on
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: the fucking marquis right there. Look in lights, It said
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Billy motherfucking x Stein and his big motherfucking band didn't matter.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Billy was black, light skinned, but still black, and so
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: was his band. That meant backdoor, motherfucker, so said the
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Plantation Club muscle. But Billy Eckstein took no shit off nobody.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: He was still pissed, But after about thirty seconds he
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: collected himself, remembered where he was, Saint Louis. What that
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: meant racism? Who he was, Billy motherfucking x Time, And
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: what that meant Beny was a man who got shit done,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: and right now booking a gig needed doing, or he
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: and his band weren't going to get paid. So what
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: that meant was he needed another club. Good thing. He
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: was Billy X time, A new gig at a moment's
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: notice in a jumping music town like Saint Louis for
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: a musician with his reputation was no problem. So fuck
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: the Plantation Club. It was over to the Riviera Club instead.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Billy's band was setting up in their new digs for
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: the night. Another new problem. Billy's trumpet player got sick,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: puking his guts out in the woman's bathroom. Couldn't even
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: make it to the men's room, shitting his pants too,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: they said. At the same time. Billy didn't panic. His
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: other trumpet player, Dizzy Gillespie did. Dizzy needed that balance
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: in the sound. Not really, but he thought he did.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Needed that mirror horn riding shotgun to free him up
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: to blow ballistic like Billy's temper. Dizz tore ass off
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: the bandstand in search of a local trumpet player, a
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Saint Louis solution. Before he even hit the street. In
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: through the front door, eighteen year old local trumpet Phena
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Miles Davis confidently strolled into the club. He was there
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: to check out Billy X time. Dizzy recognized the trumpet
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: case in the kid's hand, and he also recognized a
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: damn quick solution to his problem. You played trumpet, he
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: asked Miles the kid, without even introducing himself. Miles just
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: looked at him as if to say, you a fucking
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: idiot or something. You see this here case in my hand,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: don't you. Dizzy didn't wait for an answer. Are the
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: trumpets sick? You want to sit in? Miles smiled. The
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: next thing he knew, he was on stage, and when
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: the dude with the high and tight dee who breathlessly
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: recruited him, began to blow his horn, Miles was knocked out.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Dizzy Gillespie could play far beyond anyone Miles had heard locally.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: But what really blew Myles Davis's mind was the saxophone player,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: the one they called Bird, Charlie Parker Billy Eckstein gave
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: him eight bars to solo, and in those eight bars,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Charlie Parker gave Miles Davis his future. If this was
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: how cats from New York City played their instruments, then
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: wherever they were from was where Miles Davis needed to be.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Fox Saint Louis, Hello, New York City was necessary. His
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: father told him he'd support him in New York City,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: But school was a necessity, so Juilliard, the famed music school,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: was the answer. Miles would study music during the day
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: become a master trumpet player, but to fully do that,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: he'd need to chase Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie around
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Times Square in Harlem at night, so he burned the
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: candle at both ends. Keeping awake in class was sometimes
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: a struggle. Some of the classes lit his hair on fire,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: others bought him to sleep. Bebop, the new music, was
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Miles's obsession. Bird and Dizzy did their time in Billy
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Eckstein's Big Band, playing pop tunes behind Secvaugh, taking it
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: on the road to entertain black and oftentimes white audiences
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: from coast to coast, but that was just for the
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: bread for themselves. Back in New York City, Bird and
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Diz played, and when they did, Miles made sure he
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: was in attendance as much as possible. The two players
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: were at the very center of the creation of the
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: new music that was knocking the socks off of jazz fans.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Bebop challenged everything. It challenged rules of music theory, rhythm, composition, harmony,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: all of it. Bebop took known pop tunes, counted them in,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: blazed through the familiar melodies up top of the head
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: in a few bars, and then proceeded to lay waste
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: to listener's preconceptions of what their favorite songs were, replacing
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: those preconceptions with unimaginable possibilities for what their favorite songs
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: could be. Bebop players like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: took those same pop standards from Billy Eckstein's big band
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: and in their new small jazz combos, played them at
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: lightning speeds with virtuoso chops. Once settled into the familiar,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: albeit fast chord progressions, bebop players tore the melodies apart
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: with vicious, imaginative soloing. They turned the tunes rhythms inside out,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: disrupted their harmonic structures into shape shifting melodies, and invented
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: new modes of phrasing and composition that had more to
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: do with the wild innovations of Russian classical composer Igor
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Stravinsky than they did with the mainstream jazz turf of
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Lewis Armstrong. Each song was a chance for bebop players
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: to take their audiences on a wild ride. The excitement
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: of the playing was as mystifying as it was thrilling,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: It was transportive, and before listeners knew it, they were
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: somehow right back where they started, and the familiar clutch
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: of the recognizable melody that swept them up in the
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: action to begin with, bebop was an entirely new bag.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Fifty second Street got all the press as the place
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: to be. The Onyx, Three Deuces, the down Beat Club,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: and Kelly's State were all there and heavily trafficked by him.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Jazz fans and critics, black and white alike. White jazz
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: critics wouldn't shut up about fifty second Street clubs, but
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: most of them couldn't be found up at Minton's Playhouse,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: not that it was any great secret might have been
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: that it was just too far north up in Harlem
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: for most white cats to feel comfortable. Hard to blame them, though,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: is not a lot of folks were comfortable at Minton's.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: As a jazz player, if your shit wasn't tight, you'd
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: get a viscerated not only by your fellow musicians Bird
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: and Dizzy at the head of the pack, but the
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: crowd would tear you apart too. It was humiliating. Miles
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: saw some guys who never recovered took their horns straight
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: to the pawn shop. Miles sat at a side table
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: at Minton's listening to Eddie Lockjohn Davis lead his band.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Miles had his trumpet with him at his feet. He
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: was waiting, watching, hoping to be called upon to sit in.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: He was ready. Tonight was going to be a special night,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: he could feeling. But then out of nowhere now style
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: note chops, geek off the street with a horn jumped
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: onto the bandstand ahead of Miles. The dude was all
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: about his women sitting at his table, winking at them
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: and largely ignoring Lockjaw before kicking into the number Lockjaw
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I had called out. The geek not only failed to
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: impress his ladies with his subpar horn playing, but he
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: insulted the audience as well. The booze came quick, Miles smiled,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: and then before the first solo even hit, Miles saw
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: a fellow audience member, not a musician, just the local
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: resident there to spend his hard earned money. And here's
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: some hard blown bebop. The real shit. This dude jumped
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: on stage, grabbed the geek by his shirt, collar and
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: belt and launched him off of the stage. The geek
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: rolled the dude left down to the dance floor began
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: kicking the geek, who was struggling to get to his feet.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: The dude kicked some more. The geek crab crawled back
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: toward the exit. The dude landed kick after kick, forcing
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: the geek out of the club onto the sidewalk on
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: his back. Once outside, the dude pounced and went to
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: his fists. He pummeled the geek, bloodied his face, his clothes,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: and set the warning the geeks all over one hundred
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: and eighteenth Street in Harlem, and the warning was this,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: don't waste our fucking time with no half assed playing
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: at Minton's. Minton's was no joke. Miles saw it as
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: a bebop laboratory where musical scientists went to invent, to create,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: to change the past into something new. Fifty second Street
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: was cool, but the music wasn't as hot as it
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: was at Minton's because Minton's was where it first came alive,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: and nothing was more enthralling than that first time. Kind
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: of like dope Heroin. Bebop players, especially Charlie Parker, were
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: compelled by Heroin. It was the ultimate embrace, the perfect
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: snug antidote to the adrenaline surge of a blistering set.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: The lost low note found just in time to anchor
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: the dizzying hive of improvisation. Heroin for Bebop players brought
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: them down to earth, and then some submerged them underground
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: until it was time to climb back up on stage
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: and blast off into the stratosphere via their virtuosity and imaginations.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: But despite Heroine's repetitive call, its response was never the
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: same as it was that first time. Like the thrill
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: of beebop, you could chase that first high, but unlike Beebop,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: you'd never find it again. It would be a few
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: years before Miles Davis would adopt the habit of his mentor,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Charlie Parker, who was by nineteen forty five a full
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: blown junkie. For the time being, Heroin could wait. Bebop
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: was more than enough for Miles. Once Miles Davis picked
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: up Bebop, he couldn't put it down, Not in those
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: early days anyway, not in the mid forties. He chased
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: that feeling, and he chased Bird and Dizzy all over Manhattan,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: completely swept up and they're playing, especially in Birds. He
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: was special. Everyone knew it, everyone except Miles's teachers at Juilliard.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Miles took what he could from Juilliard, though, unlike most
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: of his fellow students who were also caught up in
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: the excitement of bebop, Miles didn't askew music theory. He
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: didn't buy into the myth that focusing on theory prevented
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: you from understanding feel He saw theory for what it
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: was another tool, a tool to further dissect the existing
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: jazz standards he was interpreting through his own trumpet playing,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: as well as a tool to apply to his own
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: solos and compositions. Along with his wild, improvised solos, Miles
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: had begun playing his own compositions on New York City
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: stages alongside his heroes Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, who'd
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: quickly after he'd arrived in New York City welcomed Miles
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Davis into their small combos. In nineteen forty five, Miles
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: replaced Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet in Charlie Parker's band. There
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: was no bad blood, though Miles took up with Dizzy offstage,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: becoming tight friends with the older musician. Miles could play
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: no doubt about it. He understood what Bird and Diz
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: were trying to do and was bringing his own style
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: to the fast emerging genre. He had feel, and he
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: was studied, but that didn't mean he fell in for
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: everything his teachers were laying down At Julliard. He sunk
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: into his chair behind his desk, his eyes heavy with
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: bags under them. Jazz gigs went all night and classes
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: started early, and most times it wasn't bad. But this morning,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Miles wasn't about suffering this particular professor's bullshit, white, entitled, guilty, patronizing.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Miles had seen her type a lot since arriving in Manhattan.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: At least the racist niece Saint Louis were obvious about it.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Here in New York, it was more subtle, almost accidental,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: but gross nonetheless and enraging. The professor was laying down
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: a musical history lesson. At the time, the lesson was
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: somewhat new, but it has survived to this day. Even
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: it's a narrative that academics have perpetuated, and for whatever reason,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: this narrative, despite its sweeping, simple minded generalization, has last
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: despite the fact that young Miles Davis called bullshit on it. Immediately,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: the white professor told Miles and his Juilliard classmates that
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: black people played blues music because they were poor and
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: because they had to, quote, pick cotton. Miles punched his
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: hand into the air. The professor called on him. Miles
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: was quick to his point, saying, quote, I'm from East
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Saint Louis and my father is rich. He's a dentist,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: and I played the blues. My father didn't never pick
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: no cotton, and I didn't wake up this morning and
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: start playing the blues. There's more to it than that.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Miles Davis wasn't playing along. He was playing a new tune,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: his tune, and quickly putting into practice what he innately
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: knew that if he wanted to survive as a musician,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: challenging norms wasn't enough. He needed to change the way
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: things were done, even if that meant applying change to
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the game changing genre of bebop. We'll be right back
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: after this.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: We're were were.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Miles Davis took all he could from bebop and applied
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: it to a new and unique approach that was wholly
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: his own. After a stint in Charlie Parker's band. Miles
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: headed to Paris to perform in Tad Dameran's Quintet, but
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: the romance of the city absorbed him. He fell in
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: with the intellectuals, artists and actresses, Jean Paul Satra, Pablo Picasso,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: and Juliet Greco among them. The city celebrated him as
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: the great artist. He had become a first class jazz man,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: capable of transforming a room with his interpretation of any composition,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: and increasingly with his good looks and new, cool, clean
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: style of dress as well. The color of his skin
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: was not a consideration at all. In Paris. You were
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: who you were, and that was that. When Miles returned
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: to America in nineteen forty nine, it was clear that
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: that was still very much not the case, and it
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: fueled Miles Davis's anger, which in turn fueled his creative drive.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Being another great bebop player, which he was, was one thing,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: but he would never be the greatest bebop player, and
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: who knew if the style would even survive. Miles needed
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: his own back, his own thing, so he did what
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: he always did. Changed when it came time to record music.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Miles Davis shifted away from bebop's virtuosity and leaned into
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: the romance of Paris and the cool image he'd begun
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: to cultivate for himself. Bebop burned, Miles wasn't interested in burning.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: He was interested in smoldering and slowing things down. Along
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: with a racially integrated group of collaborators a arranger and
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: pianist Gil Evans and drummer Max Roache chief among them,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: that would become known as the Miles Davis no Net.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Miles set about to create something new, a Maverick take
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: on jazz improvisation that focused on voice or the horns.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Set about to drive the melodies with the intimacy of
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: a romantic vocalists such as Frank Sinatra, or with the
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: originality of actor Orson Wells. Miles mind both of their
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: phrasing and style for his new approach. These recordings would
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: later be collected and released as an album entitled Birth
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: of the Cool, which was exactly what this music was. Cool,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: a refined evolution of bebop and pop. Miles's new style
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: immediately impacted the world of jazz, contributing to the advent
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: of West Coast or cool jazz. Out in California and
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: directly influencing the approach of its greatest contributors to that scene,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Chet Baker down in Los Angeles and Dave Brubeck further
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: up the coast. The birth of the Cool Recordings had
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Miles Davis flying high. But then an old familiar foil
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: to the jazz scene brought Miles Davis crashing down to earth.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Heroin Ebony magazine. Shit right there in print Ebany with
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: none other than that motherfucking Cab Calloway talking shit about
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: a habit. Others too, but they put your motherfucking picture
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: in the pages. The sub headline above your mug noted
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: musicians involved in dope cases. As if that left any doubt.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: The caption underneath your mug, Miles Davis, top trumpet player,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: was picked up by Los Angeles police recently charged with
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: having dope.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: God damn it, we were fall Miles Davis immediately realized
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: he and drummer Art Blakey had been tailed to the
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: Los Angeles Heroin Connects apartment to score, and before we
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: could do anything, the cops swarmed him.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: The fuck The cops pulled no punches. Black junkie jazz
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: men were a scourge. They shoved Miles up against the wall,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: ripped his shirt sleeves up to his elbows, spied the
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: track marks perforating his dark skin, and that was enough,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: and they hauled him and art In kicked their asses
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: straight into jail, where the real bullshit began. Miles caught
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: the vibe quick out there on the street. To these cops,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: you weren't human, you were black, but in here somehow
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: even less than that. In their eyes, you were a
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: fucking cockroach. They'd stop you out for the slightest infraction,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: or for nothing at all, just to fucking do it,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: just because they could. Miles were treated to the corner
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: of his cell and made low. His old man would
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: come through, and so he did. Within a short amount
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: of time, Miles's father had called upon a prominent Los
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Angeles dentist to get Miles released. Miles bounced art Blaky too.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Miles headed back to New York City, where the bad
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: press awaited him. Not just ebony, Downbeat magazine as well
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: in this article, was practically worse than jail. In fact,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: it was its own type of jail. Club owners read Downbeat,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: and club owners didn't want it known that they hired junkies.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: So despite whatever shine the Miles Davis name had on
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: it in nineteen fifty, that article took it right off.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Club owners stopped hiring them, and on the off chance
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: they found themselves in a booking bind and did put
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Miles on stage, then they'd have to contend with the
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: cops who were now making a habit of soft rating
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: jazz clubs and literally pulling jazz musicians off stage mid
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: set and checking them for track marks. Was fucking humiliating.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Miles sunk deeper into his habit scoring consumed him. Harlem
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: was a concrete pharmacy soundtracked by the howl of addiction,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: short blast of euphoria and groaning desperation. Miles chased down
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: his new muse. With gigs few and far between, Miles
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: took up new employment as a pimp. Pimping didn't come easy.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Pimping required drive, which Miles had little of at the time.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Putting together a couple girls to run out for a
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: trick or two brought in some cash, but Miles wasn't
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: particularly good at it. In the end, he ended up
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: relying on what he'd referred to as his bitches more
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: than they would rely on him, but still it was
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: a means to an end, and that end was Heroin.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Miles ran it down night and day through the streets
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: of New York. From Stillman's Gym, where he caught from
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: the boxers he'd watch spar up to Bell's Bar on
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Broadway in Harlem, to the Edgecomb apartment of a friend
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: and fellow jazz musician and junkie Sonny Rawlins, with that
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: junkie view, up to the Bronx, all the way to
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Yankee Stadium, and then down to the pool on Bradhurst,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: the Square at Saint Nick's, to Pienis Bud Powell's place
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: to get stoned and listen to him groove, and finally
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: to Small's Paradise or over to Sugar Rays where it
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: was always bumping and you could always score. Scoring was
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: all that mattered now, not music, not even his family.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty one, if you didn't have money, Miles
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Davis had no interest in you, and that included his girlfriend,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Irene and their two children together. They were of no
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: mind to Miles at that moment. Paying child's support was
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: the least of his concerns, but it was of concern
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: for Irene, who had Miles arrested for non support and
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: throne in Jailer Boller hallerwer Riker's Island Correctional Facility, nineteen
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: fifty five. The Miles felt the withdrawals coming like quick
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: blasts from an out of tune horn. Some geek off
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: the street on his bandstand, fucking him up, blowing hard
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: and wrong. It grated, it itched, it scratched, it ached,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: It was endless. The screws left him alone to sweat
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: it out. They'd seen this step before, junkie musician drying
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: out in the huskow. The wrong man blew his wrong horn,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: and the more he did, the more Miles sweat out
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: the groove. He slept in short intervals on the floor
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: on his cot on a old sweat trip that some
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: screw rattled his cage, roused him a visitor, his attorney
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: on the other side of the glass. Words, no horse,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: just words. Miles listened. He heard the birds, the wood thrush,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: the loon, the blue jay. He heard them sing back
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: into his consciousness, and then he heard what his lawyer
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: was saying. He was dead, not him, him, the other bird, bird,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: the bird. Charlie Parker low bar pneumonia worsened by a
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: bleeding ulcer and a liver ravaged by advanced cirrhosis. Myles
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: shuffled back to his cell, added grief to his cold
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Turkey quartet, and sunk deeper into withdrawal. Three days later,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: his lawyer got him out. Bird was buried and Miles
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: was clean. His lawyer got him a gig. There was
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: a new jazz festival about to launch in Newport, Rhode Island,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: founded by socialites Blane and Louis Lorillard, and programmed by
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: George Ween, a white cat from Boston who, when it
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: came to jazz, knew as shit. The bill filled quickly
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: with Count Bassie, Louis Armstrong, Woody Herman, and Dave Brubeck.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: These headliners were rounded out with a heavy hitting undercart
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: of all stars Jerry Mulligan, Felonious Monks, Zut Sims, Percy Heath,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Connie Kay and finally Miles Davis. When Miles joined the
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: all Stars on stage to pay tribute to Bird with
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: the song Now's the Time, the jazz world and attendance
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: took notice. But when he leaned into the solo for
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Monks Round Midnight, he changed jazz on the spot. Forever.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Miles added his harm and mute to the solo he
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: blew from his trumpet and mesmerized the audience. Was purer
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: romance in the phrases for Miles Davis's trumpet. The Newpoort
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: crowd vibed on the banks of the Seine and within
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: the walls of the Louver. They felt the existential neverland
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: of Satra, sent the avon imagination of Picasso, and were
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: juiced by the sparkle of Juliet Greco's eyes. They were
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: sent to swoon by Sinatra, reassured by the gravitas of
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Orson Wells, and they saw quite literally before them the
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: birth of the cool. Miles still dapper, clean, dark, handsome, moody.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: In a word, badass, another word, mother fucker. This was
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five. This type of cool did not exist.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Rock and roll was teeny bopper bullshit, and the movies
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: were still, for the most part, fickle and cornball studio numbers.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: James Dean's Rebel Without a Cause wouldn't hit until later
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: that year in October, and Elvis Presley wouldn't fully capture
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: America's imagination until nineteen fifty six. Miles Davis was cool
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: before both of them. He defined and personified the term cool,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: a new kind of cool, a perfect meld of style,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: tremendous feel, and innovative technique, the likes of which the
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: mainstream jazz fans and attendance at the first Newport Jazz
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Festival had never heard before. In effect, Miles Davis took
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: black jazz music. It made it relatable for white audiences.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: When he got off stage, numerous record label men were
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: at his feet, offering him deals on the spot. Miles,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: as well as the other performers, were feted that evening
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: at the Newport mansion of Elaine Lrilard. When Elaine saw Miles,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: she brought some friends over to meet the young musician
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: who stole the show she just paid for. She got
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: right to it, saying to her friends, to Miles, and
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: to anyone in the grand room who would listen, Oh,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: this is the boy who played so beautifully. What's your name?
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Miles just stared at her. The mere seconds of silence
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: made the tension in the room unbearable. Miles held a stare.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Elaine was on the verge of embarrassment. Miles blinked first
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: and unloaded, Fuck you, I ain't no fucking boy. My
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: name is Miles Davis, and you better remember that you
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: ever want to talk to me with that. Miles Davis
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: left Newport from New York. I'm Jake Brennan in this
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: episode of Disgraceland is to be continued.
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: found on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com.
• 33:29
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• 33:32
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• 33:35
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• 33:37
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• 33:39
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• 33:41
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• 33:53
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• 33:58
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• 34:12
  Speaker 1: He's a bad don man.