All language subtitles for Miles.Davis.Birth.of.the.Cool.2019.1080p.BluRay.REMUX.AVC.DTS-HD.MA.5.1-EPSiLON

Music has always been
like a curse with me.

I've always felt driven to play it.

It's the first thing in my life,

go to bed thinking about it
and wake up thinking about it.

It's always there.

It comes before everything.

Living is an adventure and a challenge.

It wasn't about standing still
and becoming safe.

But I've always been the way I am.
Been like this all my life.

If anybody wants to keep creating,
they have to be about change.

I was born in Alton, Illinois,

a little river town
up on the Mississippi River.

My father moved the family
to East St. Louis.

East St. Louis and St. Louis were
country towns full of country people...

especially the white people
from around there,

really country... and racist to the bone.

Miles grew up
in a wealthy situation.

His father was a dentist.

He also had a farm and raised cattle
and hogs and all of this.

They were the cream
of the crop in the city.

He was the second richest guy
in the state of Illinois.

Black man.

But during the period that he grew up in,
it's still Jim Crow America.

And, so, his wealth, his father's wealth
would not have protected him

from segregation and racism
in a place like East St. Louis.

On my 13th birthday,
my father bought me a new trumpet.

My mother wanted me to have a violin,
but my father overruled her.

This caused a big argument between them.

They had been at each other's throats
since I was a little kid.

He would hear his mother
and father talking and fussing

and so I guess that's
what got in his mind as a young boy.

Miles absorbed that.
He absorbed all of that...

the anger,
that kind of attitude toward women.

I remember my mother
picking up things

and throwing them at my father.

He got so mad with her he punched her.

He knocked a couple of teeth
right out of her mouth.

It had to affect us somehow...

although I don't really know how.

Miles was considered a genius...

but he was also considered,
I guess, weird.

Miles would go into the woods,

listening to the animals
or listening to the birds,

and play what he was hearing.

He always had his own way of doing things.

Miles started very early
as a member of the trumpet section,

in Eddie Randle's Blue Devils.

Miles is young and small

and can barely fill the suit
that he had to wear for these gigs.

While the other guys in Eddie Randle's
band were working their day jobs,

this teenager Miles Davis quickly becomes
the musical director

for this popular dance band.

So, the real pivot point
for Miles is when,

during his summer after high school,

he is invited to sit in
with the Billy Eckstine band.

Both Charlie Parker
and Dizzy Gillespie are in that band.

I mean, you've got the laboratory,

the future of modern jazz
right there in this big band.

The greatest feeling I ever had
in my life, with my clothes on,

was when I first met Diz and Bird.

I was 18 years old.

I decided right then and there
I had to be in New York,

on 52nd Street, where the action was.

Walter Cronkite reporting. War years
always bring on new fads and tastes

and the strangest taste around

is the excitement generated by
the musical noise called jazz.

This strange music has been accused
of everything,

including the bad weather
and the present decay in morality.

52nd Street was a mecca of jazz clubs.

They had jazz clubs
on both sides of the street.

I had never heard no shit
like they was playing on 52nd Street.

We would go down there
and listen in amazement.

That shit was so good it was scary.

Each little place had a speaker outside

where you could hear
what was going on inside.

You could stand outside and hear the music
until a doorman...

the clubs had doormen,
they would chase you away.

Miles enrolled at Juilliard
'cause he wanted to learn music

and because his mother wanted him
to be a trained musician and all that.

He is serious about Juilliard.
He's seriously committed to it

and he values
what Juilliard might have to offer.

A lot of the old guys
thought that if you went to school,

it would make you play like
you were white.

If you learned something from theory,

you would lose
the feeling in your playing.

I would go to the library
and borrow scores

by all those great composers.

I wanted to see
what was going on in all of music.

And yet he knows
that there's something else going on.

It's not happening at Juilliard.

So, he was to go
at Juilliard in the daytime

and at night, he'd be on 52nd Street.

I spent my first week in New York
looking for Bird and Dizzy.

Spent all my money and didn't find them.

Then, one night, I heard this voice
from behind me say:

"Hey, Miles,
I heard you been looking for me."

I turned around and there was Bird.

Bebop musicians
were rocket scientists.

You can compare bebop
to the Manhattan Project.

And it was developed
by some serious sound physicists...

blowing their brains out
to push this music as far as they could.

So, Miles stepped into kind of a hotbed
of musical research and development.

Bebop was a black music.

It was a music by black musicians,

who wanted to get away
from any kind of hint of minstrelsy.

No smiling and laughing
and grinning and dancing and shit.

No entertaining, man.

They wanted to be an artist
just like Stravinsky...

just like Stravinsky
who was just a pure artist.

Miles saw
these very elegantly-dressed characters.

The dignity that came with that
and the nobility that came with that

and the swagger.

Very soon after Miles starts
his Juilliard studies...

Irene arrives, his high school sweetheart,

with their child
and with another baby on the way.

All of a sudden, there she was,
knocking on my motherfucking door.

My mother had told her to come.

I mean,
it seems almost impossible,

what he would have been trying
to do at that age.

There's the domestic situation
with children.

There's the kind of time
required of anyone

who's a serious student at Juilliard,

but there's also the kind of time
and commitment that this music will take.

And, at some point, something has to give.

Music was everything.

It was everything.

It was sexual, sensuous.

Everything, power. Everything, humor.

And then... he could not share that.

And, so, somebody had to play
second fiddle to that.

One day, the teacher said:

"The blues grew out of the downtrodden
suffering of the slaves, of slavery,

and the crying and wailing and all that,

this became the blues
of the people in chains."

Miles was in the back in the room
somewhere.

He raises his hand while she's talking.

And she says: "Yes?"

He said:

"You're a goddamn liar."

And walked out of the room.

Miles, within months,
is hanging with Bird.

He's recording with Bird.

He really arrives, like, right away.

Every night,
he'd get on the stand with Bird.

Bird would play the head of the tune
and just leave him on stage by himself.

He said he threw up every night...

'cause he was just so stressed out
and humiliated.

I mean, those cats could wear him out
on the horn any night.

But he figured something else out.

He comes up with a style
that is truly reflective of who he is,

straight tone, lyricism.

It is him.
It is uniquely, organically him.

Miles meets Gil Evans
and there's this level of mutual respect

and mutual dedication
to the music that will last a lifetime.

I liked the way Gil wrote music
and he liked the way I played.

We heard sound in the same way.

By the end of the '40s
they're working on a project together.

It's called Birth of the Cool, a nonet,

that would create a kind of melding
of modern classical ideas with jazz.

Right now, ladies and gentlemen,

we bring you something new
in modern music.

"Impressions in Modern Music"

with the great Miles Davis
and his wonderful new organization.

I think the intention was to create
a listening music, concert music,

that very deliberately,
did not have the drive...

and the funk of 52nd Street on it.

Well, it's mainly about trying
to create new colors,

in a way,
where you widen the palette of jazz.

And I think he was conscious of the fact
that to move the music forward,

you've got to go some place
it hasn't gone before.

The heart of European
civilization is beating strong again.

Paris is free.

This is the end of four years
of Nazi rule in Paris.

Once more, it is The City of Light.

It was a very unique time
in France's life. Very.

Because there was this euphoria,
this post-war euphoria,

There were two bombs,
the atomic bomb and the Liberation.

After the war, France was different,
Europe was different

and they needed a new sound to that era.

And that was jazz.

You're now listening to the Tadd Dameron
and Miles Davis Quintet.

Here's Miles Davis.

This was my first trip
out of the country.

I loved being in Paris
and loved the way I was treated.

He said that the food
even tasted better in France.

The smell in the air
was even more beautiful in Paris.

That moment, for him,
was something that was galvanizing.

Music had been my total life.

I was always so into the music.

I never had time for any kind of romance
until I met Juliette Gréco.

The first concert I saw Miles in,
I saw him from the side.

And it was extraordinary.

It was really beautiful,
aesthetically beautiful. He was beautiful.

My English was bad. It still is, but
at this time, it was really, really bad.

But we managed to understand each other.

It was a miracle.

It was what you call a miracle of love.

Juliette and I used to walk down
by the Seine River together,

holding hands and kissing,

looking into each other's eyes
and kissing some more.

I cared a lot for Irene,

but I had never felt like this
before in my life.

She brings him into a circle

of other artists, of intellectuals,
of philosophers,

of, you know,
the sort of greatest minds of that time.

Jazz was really seen as
the height of artistry at that time

inside of French intellectual
and creative circles.

He meets Pablo Picasso,
Jean-Paul Sartre.

He's treated as an equal by some
of the most creative giants of the day.

Paris for Miles is kind of
opening up of possibility and potential,

the sense that one can be fully oneself

beyond the boundaries of race.

That it isn't something to hold you back.

And, in fact, it might be something that
contributes to your ability to ascend.

Paris was where I understood
that all white people weren't the same...

that some weren't prejudiced
and others were.

It had only been a couple of weeks...

but I was living in
an illusion of possibility.

Maybe a miracle had happened.

Sartre asked Miles:
"Why don't you marry Gréco?"

And Miles answered: "Because I'm in love
with her. I love her."

I was so depressed coming back
to this country on the airplane

that I couldn't say nothing
all the way back.

I didn't know that shit
was going to hit me like that.

Every African-American artist
who has spent time abroad

talks about the profound disappointment
in coming back to the United States.

You see your country as you knew
it but in an even starker light

because you've experienced
something different.

It was hard for me to come back

to the bullshit white people put
a black person through in this country.

I lost my sense of discipline,

lost my sense of control over my life
and started to drift.

Before I knew it, I had a heroin habit...

which meant getting and shooting heroin
all the time, all day and all night.

That's all I lived for.

His career is spiraling out of control.

There's no expectation
that Miles is going to survive,

let alone is he really going to be
a successful musician again.

I had a little club in...
I think it was Hartford.

I booked the Symphony Sid All Stars.

And Symphony Sid said:
"Don't give Miles any money."

So, Miles came up to me
the first night and says:

"George, give me five dollars."

I said: "Miles, come on, man."

"George, give me two dollars."

And I... "Come on, Miles."

"George, give me 50 cents."

And I: "Hey, man, you know..."

"George, give me a penny."

That's my first meeting with Miles.

We were playing
at a club in New York...

and his father came from East St. Louis.

And came to the club
and took him off the stage.

He left his horn and everything.

He said: "Come on.
You're going back home with me."

I felt like a little boy
going with his daddy.

I had never felt like that before
and probably haven't felt like that since.

On the way home, I told him
I was going to give up dope

and that all I needed was a little rest.

Before I knew it, I was shooting up again,

borrowing money from my father
to support my habit.

You could see him
moving through the night.

You'd run into him somewhere,
didn't even know it was Miles.

He might even have on clothes...

that looked like...
made him look like he was homeless.

We wanted him to be Superman...

and it just doesn't work that way.

I really hated to see him
go down like that.

But I... I don't want to talk about it.

I went out
to my father's farm in Millstadt.

I was sick.

If someone could've guaranteed
that I would die in two seconds,

then I would've taken it.

This went on for about
seven or eight days.

I couldn't eat.

Then, one day, it was over,
just like that.

Over.

I felt better, good, pure.

This young white guy had started
a new jazz label called Prestige

and he was looking for me
to make a record for him.

I figured there was nowhere
for me to go but up.

I was already on the bottom.

We, the Negro citizens,
had it not to rise...

- Miss America Contest.
- Dodgers go wild.

Emmett Till was taken by...

Amazing new Motoramic Chevrolet...

This afternoon, Disneyland,
the world's most fabulous kingdom...

I was in a club in New York
and Miles is at the back of the club.

And Miles stopped me
coming out of the club.

He said: "Are you going to have
a jazz festival up at Newport?"

I said: "Yeah, Miles."

He said:
"You can't have a festival without me."

I said:
"Miles, you want to be in a festival?"

He says:
"You can't have a festival without me."

So, I said:
"All right, I'll call your agent."

Newport was like an audition.

Listening in the audience
were executives from Columbia Records.

Columbia Records
was the Tiffany of labels at the time.

He knew what this meant.

He knew what this meant for him.

So, if he had that opportunity,
as he had at Newport,

he was going for it and with a vengeance.

Miles put the bell of his horn
right into the microphone...

and changed
the whole world of jazz right there

and changed his career right there,

because the beauty of that song
and the beauty of Miles's trumpet...

made bebop a music
that could be accepted by everybody.

They could now put on Miles's music
while they were making love.

It takes a lot of courage
to play a ballad.

You know, it's easy to hide with
a bunch of notes all over the place.

- Look what I can do.
- Look what I can do.

You know... okay.

Most men are afraid to be vulnerable.

That's what women love
the best about a man.

I think Miles, on one hand,
he comes out like this,

you know, but then he starts playing
and people are like... oh...

You know, he just disarms you.

Miles's sound
is unique from the first note.

There's a sense of pleasure, beauty.

There's something very romantic...

but it's romantic
without being sentimental.

He's spilling his guts to you...

so directly, you know, to the heart,
to your... you know, to your vitals.

I want to feel the way Miles sounds.

Miles had a way of playing

that sounded like a stone
skipping across a pond.

He just touched on the waves.

Sometimes he leaves a note out

and I've seen people
literally like this...

waiting for that next note.

His sound was so pure and elegant...

and tasty...

musically tasty.

Miles could play one note.
I've seen him play one note

and some of these high rollers
that came to the club...

these high rollers would come and say:

"That did it for me! That did it for me.
I just got my money's worth!"

And they're ready to leave.

Miles would say: "Bam!"
They'd say: "Oh, that's it, man."

In February or March 1956,

I had to have a non-cancerous growth
on my larynx removed.

It had been bothering me for a while.

I wasn't even supposed to talk
for at least ten days.

One week went by,
he was in pretty good shape.

The second week,
he couldn't keep his mouth shut.

Everybody was
"a sack full of motherfuckers".

And that was it.

He got that rasp and it never healed.

At that time, nobody knew
that Miles had had an operation

and that his voice had suffered from it.

He came on the stage
and began to announce,

in that gravelly voice,
what he was going to play for that evening

and I think he got
two or three sentences out,

and the audience, a large number of them,
began to laugh at him.

Miles turned around
and looked at the audience.

He had this very strange look
on his face and he left.

I could communicate with the band
just by giving them a certain look.

That's what I'm doing when I have
my back turned to the audience.

I can't be concerned with talking
and bullshitting while I'm playing...

because the music is talking to them
when everything's right.

George Avakian, the jazz producer
for Columbia Records,

wanted to sign me
to an exclusive contract.

I told him that I wanted
to go with Columbia

because of all the shit
that he offered me.

George Avakian says:

"Here's a list of demands
that I would like you to meet.

You got to be clean
and you got to have a consistent band."

And the last thing is, he's got
to get free of his Prestige contract.

I'll play it
and tell you what it is later.

He had a new quintet

with John Coltrane
as the tenor saxophone player.

And he took that quintet
into the studios of Rudy Van Gelder...

and he called tune,
after tune, after tune,

and recorded enough music
in a couple of days...

to get rid of his obligation to Prestige.

He basically took the handcuffs
off the musicians and said:

"Here, do you. Be you.

I'm just going to let the music live,
let it breathe

and let it develop as we feel it."

Miles thought he was just
dispatching his obligation

as fast as he could, but in fact
they are gems of spontaneous jazz music.

Two marathon sessions,
three hours or more of recorded music.

One of the great feats, really,
of jazz history.

I first met Miles Davis, I was performing
with the Katherine Dunham Company.

It was the introduction
to so many different people

that I met at that time
in the show business world.

I mean, I was in Paris.
I was in Berlin. I was everywhere.

I was told I had the best legs
in the business.

Hugh O'Brian wanted to date me.

Rory Calhoun wanted to take me
to Las Vegas.

Oh, God, trying to think
of all the different gentlemen.

Well, as a dancer, I mean,
I was spectacular on that stage

and I guess they just wanted
to find out more about me.

I didn't know that much about jazz.

Who I did know about was Johnny Mathis.

I was performing at Ciro's
and Miles saw the performance.

And he was smitten right away,
but so was everybody else.

This was just another chapter

of gentlemen wanting to be with Frances.

Sammy Davis Jr.
Asked me to join this new play

that he was doing called Mr. Wonderful.

On my way to rehearsal one day,
Miles is coming down the street...

and we looked at each other
and he looked at me and he said:

"Now that I found you,
I'll never let you go."

And what happened was,
I moved in with him.

Frances Taylor
was really a muse, an inspiration.

She was the most inspirational person
he had partnered with,

the one he was with the longest.

She was someone who gave him stability
and love at a time when he produced

some of his most groundbreaking
and popular work.

He had to go off to Paris
and he left me the music.

I fell in love with his sound.
It got to me.

And I just played it over and over.

And that was my introduction to his music.

In 1956, when Miles arrived in Europe,
we were supposed to have a rehearsal.

He had never played
with a European rhythm section.

And he didn't say: "Hello."
He was not smiling at all.

And without saying one word,
he just started to play.

And I follow immediately
because we knew his music.

We were fans of his music.

I always asked myself the question
of if we had said:

"Excuse me. What are you playing there?
We don't know that."

I don't think he would have liked that.

But we played it.

And he said: "All right."
And then he... That's all.

That's it. We were engaged.

I love you.

I won't leave you, Julien.

I love you.

Without your voice,
I'd be lost in a land of silence.

That's not very daring.

Miles happened to be in Paris
at the time when

Louis Malle had finished his movie...

Ascenseur pour L'Echafaud,
Elevator To The Gallows.

Malle was very young
and was at the beginning of his career.

He wanted also to make different cinema

and change the way of doing films

like having real people in a real setting.

And he approached Miles with the idea:

"Would you be willing
to create a jazz soundtrack?"

Before, a musician, for a film,

he come, he ask...

30 person to come

violin... percussion... brass, etcetera,

and: "Three, four. Gentlemen,
are you ready? Three, four..."

The man who wrote the music knows
exactly how long each sequence takes

two minutes 40... etcetera, etcetera.

Not with Miles.

Miles didn't write any music.

He played the entire music directly along
to the screening of the movie.

Just improvising and creating the sound
in reaction to the images of the film.

Looking at the image at the same moment
as we were playing

was very important
because he's Jeanne Moreau.

His music but...

It's Jeanne Moreau suffering.

Very fast we realized
that it was something...

I mean,
something outstanding we were doing.

That soundtrack
made the film famous.

A lot of people,
they heard the record first

and then they wanted
to see the movie second.

During the recording
of Elevator To The Gallows,

Miles experienced a new way
of approaching improvisation.

That's something he would develop
in the next following years.

So, something started
in the recording studio

of Elevator To The Gallows.

Start again, please.

Here we go.
300622981, number two, take one.

Wait, one minute!

I was probably the first one there
'cause I had to set up the drums.

So, I had my drums, set 'em up
and waited till everybody else filed in.

He just came in with little notes
that he had.

He didn't even have sheet music for that.

And the only thing he'd tell me was, like:
"Just swing, you know, just swing."

I didn't write out the music
for Kind of Blue, but brought in sketches,

because I wanted a lot of spontaneity
in the playing.

I knew that if you've got
some great musicians,

they would deal with the situation
and play beyond what is there

and above where they think they can.

The first part of "So What"...

Then, Paul would go into the
bass saying...

Man, that was the first thing
I ever heard from Miles.

Grabbed the record out
of my father's collection, put it on.

First thing that catches your ear
is Paul Chambers playing that bass line.

We can't even question
the sacred texts that we have,

like, you know,
I mean, why is the Bible the Bible?

It's the Bible, you know.

I mean, why is Kind of Blue Kind of Blue?
It's Kind of Blue.

Like, it just is
and it changed the sound of jazz.

The cymbal crash at the start
of "So What", I thought I had overdone it.

It sounded louder
than it should've been to me.

And it seems to ring forever,
but it brings you right into the tune.

It's like you've hit the highway
and the rest of the tune just takes off.

On Kind of Blue, what he asked them to do
was to think deeper

about what kind of sound can you create.

He said: "I have these few ideas.
Let's go."

And this is something
that Miles does for the rest of his life.

Kind of Blue doesn't really
give away his passion so easily,

but at the same time,
once those musicians open up...

they show you how inventive
and ingenious they can be

and how incendiary.

Kind of Blue really signified

a different way of thinking
about your music

and a different way of playing the music
and approaching the music.

And, for Coltrane, that was the door
he needed to find his own identity.

Few people hear the potential
in the young John Coltrane...

but Miles brought him along
and provided Coltrane the space

to become the artist
who we would later love and revere.

People that don't even
like jazz like that album.

Every decade, there's something. There's
new people talking about Kind of Blue.

"That's what started me
to listening to jazz music."

You can listen hundreds of times,
it always has something new to say.

And that, for me,
is the definition of a masterpiece.

I don't think Miles knew
that that was gonna be a record

that would sell more records
than any record

in the history of the jazz music,
you know?

If Miles thought that
that was gonna be like that,

he would've asked for the building...

and he would've asked
for two Ferraris outside right now.

You know, he would've really went crazy.

If he thought anything
like that was happening,

he would've went out of Harlem.

Kind of Blue
becomes successful immediately.

He's becoming a popular, mainstream star.

The Columbia deal gets his music
into mainstream America like never before.

He elevates himself
into music maestro land.

All I ever wanted to do was
communicate what I felt through music.

Going with Columbia did mean more money,

but what's wrong with getting paid
for what you do and getting paid well?

It was the black man's era

when he wanted to show his pride
of what he was and Miles was Exhibit A.

And he would look clean as he could, man.

Miles Davis
was the personification of cool...

that mythological hero.

He becomes our black Superman.

When a new Miles album came out, man,
we would walk around with the album, man.

See, being into Miles was,
in itself, a definition of being hip.

Miles Davis wore slick clothes
and drove fast cars

and all the women and everything.

We didn't just want to play with
Miles Davis. We wanted to be Miles Davis.

I'd say: "Miles,
what are you doing with your children

when you want to take them out with you?"

He said: "I tell 'em to get a taxi."

Miles becomes representative
of a kind of cool,

a kind of sophistication,
a kind of masculinity.

A kind of black man who takes no shit.

Being cool and hip and angry
and sophisticated and ultra clean...

I was all those things and more.

But I was playing the fuck out
of my horn and had a great group

so, I didn't get recognition
based only on a rebel image.

People were starting to talk
about the Miles Davis mystique.

I think the darkness
of Miles Davis' skin,

instead of seeing that as a liability,
he saw that as an asset.

It was very different
from anything that was projected

on television or in movies at that time.

Miles turned that into something cool,
something desirable.

I was sharp as a tack
every time I went out in public

and so was Frances.

A real black motherfucker like me,
with this stunningly beautiful woman.

Man, it was something.

People stopping and looking
with their mouths hanging open.

Miles would buy clothes for me,

because I have... everybody knows
I had the great legs.

He was chic. I was chic.

And then, of course,
getting in and out of a Ferrari.

I mean, we were a hot couple,
there's no two ways about it.

Miles and Frances on fire.

As a kid, when I would see them together,
it was just like wow.

You know, they dressed to the nines...
just clean.

And in love.

It was like a prince and a princess.

I had a friend who was a writer.
His name was George Frazier...

and he picked up on a word,
which he applied to Miles.

It had to do with the Spanish matadors,
the bull fighters.

A lot of guys could kill the bulls.

Some of them were very exciting fighters.

But others would just walk in the ring

and stand there, hold the cape
and the bull would charge...

and the audience
would just gasp their breath.

That fighter had duende.

And Miles had duende.

Miles was the kind of guy,
he had things that he liked.

If he liked you, he liked you.
If he didn't like you, he didn't like you.

So, he was just that kind of guy.

You know, if you were on his right side,
that's where you were, you know.

And if you were on his wrong side,

that's probably where you stayed,
you know?

I was just cold
to mostly everyone.

That was the way I protected myself,

by not letting anyone inside
of my feelings and emotions.

And, for a long time, it worked for me.

I went to the Village Vanguard
where Miles was performing...

and I said:
"Mr. Davis, my name is Archie Shepp

and I wonder if you'd let me sit in."

And he said: "Archie who?"

And I said: "Archie Shepp."

He said: "Fuck you.
You can't sit in with me."

Miles didn't care.

Miles didn't have to please anybody
but Miles.

Miles was not interested.

You know what I mean?
He wasn't interested in people...

because he was Miles Davis.

There were
all these personality quirks that he had.

He was angry, antisocial...

but often times those insecurities
and those demons

are the very things
that are the basis of arts,

so, that art becomes a way of healing.

It gave him an opportunity
to show a vulnerability

and to show a side of him that,
in the real world, he could not show.

We were working at Birdland and...

we got through a set
and Miles came upstairs to smoke.

I'm standing there,
in front of Birdland, wringing wet,

because it's a hot,
steaming, muggy night in August.

I had just walked this pretty white girl
named Judy out to get a cab.

This white policeman comes up to me
and tells me to move on.

Miles said:
"Why? I'm smoking a cigarette.

I'm working downstairs
and I'm smoking a cigarette."

And he was standing right by the sign
with his name on it.

"M-I-L-E-S... M-I-L-E-S. Miles."

That's me. Who are you?"

Kind of Blue has just come out.
He is the talk of the town.

And he is at the top of the marquee,
top of his popularity.

The guy said: "I don't care.
You just can't stand there."

Miles said: "Well, I'm not moving."

I just looked at his face
real straight and hard and I didn't move.

Miles, at that point,
was in such good shape

that it was hard for them
to actually get a hand on him.

From out of nowhere,
this white detective runs in

and, bam, hits me on the head.

I never saw him coming.

I received a telephone call

that I should come down
to the police station.

And I saw his face.

It was just terrifying.

I was in tears.

I would've expected this kind
of bullshit back in East St. Louis,

but not here in New York City,

which is supposed to be
the slickest, hippest city in the world.

It was racial. The whole thing was racial.

The whole city was racist,
the whole world, I guess, you know,

so, what is it, you know?

I can't see it being nothing else
but that.

It is a reminder
that no level of accomplishment,

no level of achievement,
no level of financial success,

or recognition, even, for that,
actually protects you

from the racial hostilities
of the United States.

Damn, you know, like,
there is no way out of this thing.

That incident
changed me forever...

made me much more bitter
and cynical than I might have been.

He used to flash back.
We'd be talking and randomly he'd just go:

"Those f... cops, man."

Right? Just out of nowhere,
it'd be completely random.

He'd flash back to that, man.

Man, that stuff don't go away,

just because all of a sudden
you got a little success.

That stuff that happens to you
when you're young,

that stays with you
for the rest of your life.

Miles Ahead
was the first collaboration

between Miles Davis and Gil Evans
after Miles signs with Columbia Records.

It's one of the reasons why Miles
even went over to Columbia Records

because Columbia had the budget

and the wherewithal
to make a project like this possible.

Gil and I were something
special together musically.

I loved working with Gil because
he was so meticulous and creative...

and I trusted
his musical arrangements completely.

We worked together at the piano
always saying:

"How about this? How about that?"

I was just crazy about his interpretations
of the songs, you know.

They just fit in so naturally.

When Miles Ahead comes out,
there's this young white female model

on the deck of a sailing ship
as the original cover.

This was, I think, meant to evoke
the high life, the good life,

and it would allow
the album to be marketed

to a broad, that is white audience.

Miles goes up to George Avakian
and he says:

"What's that white bitch doing
on the cover of my album?"

He becomes aware of his power

as an artist who is generating
a tremendous amount of income

for his record label as well,
that he has some say in these decisions.

And the next pressing
of the same music comes out

under another title, with another cover
and Miles Davis himself is on the cover.

Miles Ahead was the first
of three wonderful collaborations

with Gil Evans and a 19-piece orchestra.

Two years after Miles Ahead
came Porgy and Bess.

And then, two years after that...

I had spent time in Barcelona.

After we would finish our shows,

we'd watch and listen to flamenco music
and dance

and I was just taken with that.

I said to Miles:
"I want you to really see what I see

and feel what I feel with flamenco music."

He didn't want to go. He didn't want
to go, but finally he gave in.

And we'd go to see flamenco music
and dance.

When we left the theater...

we went right to the Colony record shop...

and he bought
every flamenco album he could.

That was the hardest thing
for me to do on Sketches of Spain...

to play the parts on the trumpet where
someone was supposed to be singing,

especially when it was ad-libbed.

My voice had to be both joyous
and sad in this song

and that was very hard, too.

If you do a song like that
three or four times,

you lose that feeling
you want to get there.

It seemed to work out all right.
Everyone loved that record.

Once there was a princess...

Was the princess you?

And she fell in love.

Was it hard to do?

Oh, it was very easy.

Anyone could see
that the prince was charming.

The only one for me.

Miles always loved a strong melody.

He really felt like those melodies
would allow him to speak...

saying here's something
that you're familiar with.

I'm going to show you
how beautiful it can really be.

So, he could take something like.

"Someday My Prince Will Come"
from a Walt Disney movie...

and he could invest that
with amazing feeling and depth.

He said:
"I'm playing it for my wife Frances."

And you can feel the love and care
in his playing.

"Someday My Prince Will Come"

was the first album cover
I was on for Miles.

And he was out of town
and I remember going to the shooting

and he was calling every two minutes

to see what I was wearing, how do I look.

He wanted to make sure
that I looked perfect...

and, of course, I thought I did.

I put the mole on my little cheek
'cause I thought it had flair.

It was on
"Someday My Prince Will Come"

that I started demanding that Columbia
use black women on my album covers.

I mean, it was my album
and I was Frances's prince.

So, I was able to put Frances
on the cover.

He was standing up
for the beauty of black women,

you know, and saying: "This beauty here
is the beauty that I'm projecting

you know, through this music,
through this song."

A major statement to make.

And I'm sure it was just because
he thought his wife was hot and fine, too.

Everybody wanted to be in West Side Story.

Jerome Robbins, Stephen Sondheim,
you know, it was, like, the one.

There were at least, I'd say,
300 girls auditioning.

I got on stage and I stood up there
and I snapped my fingers and I went...

I did an Ella Fitzgerald scat.

And Jerome Robbins...
they all freaked out.

I was in. I was in.

Around this time,
I was drinking more than I had in the past

and I was snorting a lot of cocaine.

That combination
can make you real irritable.

Frances was the only woman
that I had ever been jealous of.

And being jealous
and using drugs and drinking,

she just looked at me like I was crazy,
which I was, at the time.

I thought I was sane
and on top of the world.

He was a jealous person
when it came to me.

He just couldn't handle me being
with these people

and getting, you know...

all of this attention.

And that's when he came to the theater
and picked me up in his Ferrari and said:

"I want you out of West Side Story.

A woman should be with her man."

I froze.

But I was in love with him
and I did as he said.

I quit the show.

He sent for his children

Cheryl and Gregory and little Miles.

What I ended up doing
was performing in the kitchen.

I came to New York
and Frances got us enrolled in schools

and we started going to school,
coming home, doing our homework.

So, it was a big change for her.

I didn't know how to cook or anything.
I'd been on the road. I didn't know.

He said to me: "Look, listen.
Watch what I'm doing and do it."

So, I learned to cook.

She would be downstairs cooking

and every now and then she would
go upstairs and disappear.

And later on, she told me:

"You remember when I used
to disappear, go upstairs?"

I said, "Yeah."

She said: "I went upstairs
to look at my ballet slippers."

She always seemed
to be holding in, uh, certain feelings

about what she could've been doing.

My hip was operated on
in April 1965,

and they replaced the hip ball
with some bone from my shin...

but it didn't work and so
they had to do it again that August.

I was in a lot of pain all the time.

I was starting to drink
more than I had in the past

and I was taking pain medication.

And I was starting to use more coke...

I guess, because of the depression.

It was a combination
of jealousy, cocaine...

Percodan, Scotch and milk,

that's the combination...
that I found out later.

And...

this combination causes you to snap...

which he did.

I was with Miles
at Birdland one evening...

and Quincy Jones was there.

When we got home that night...

I just mentioned to Miles
that Quincy Jones is handsome.

And before I knew it, I...

It was so fast.

And I saw stars. I was on the floor.

It was the most unbelievable thing
that ever happened to me

because I'd never been hit in my life.

That was the first...

and it wasn't going
to be the last, unfortunately.

I didn't know at the time
that I was close to leaving...

but... that's when it happened.

I can say this right now...

Frances was the best wife that I ever had.

I realized how badly I'd treated her
and that it was over.

I know that now
and I wish I had known that then.

He was always talking about her.

Even after it was all over,
four or five years later...

he would say:
"See that suit that girl's wearing?

I bought Frances a suit like that once."

After I left, I heard Miles say
that he really screwed up.

He also said: "Whoever gets her
is a lucky motherfucker."

That's what I heard he said.

Well, he was right.

In the last years
that Trane was with my group,

he started playing for himself.

When that happens,
the magic is gone out of a band

and people who used to love to play
together start not caring any more.

And that's when a band falls apart.

I'd be lying if I said
that it didn't make me sad,

because I really loved playing
with this band.

And I think it was the best small band
of all time...

or at least the best I had heard
up until then.

I had always been looking for
new things to play,

new challenges for my musical ideas.

Now it was time for something different.

I was working
at a place called The Half Note.

Miles had come in
during the course of the set

with his black cape and his black hat,
looking mysterious.

And he said: "I'm looking for
a bass player. Are you interested?"

Well, at the time, the only thing hotter
than Miles Davis was the pancake.

My phone rang and I hear this guitar,
plung, somebody strumming a guitar.

Then this voice said:
"The guitar is a motherfucker, ain't it?"

"Come to my house tomorrow at 1:30."
Click.

He never said his name.

He never gave me his address,
phone number, nothing.

But Miles called me.

And he sent me
a first-class ticket

and sent me to his tailor
to get a tuxedo made.

And I flew to California.

Miles, what are you going to play
this time?

Somebody else tell me
'cause Miles has laryngitis.

Blues of some kind or other.

All right, once again,
the Miles Davis Quintet. Here he is.

Miles's great quintet of the 1960s

created a way
of improvising that was totally new,

that allowed this incredible level
of democracy to enter into the music.

And anyone could take the music
where they wanted to.

He consistently surrounded himself

with young, emerging, unknown voices.

He allowed them to develop
their musical identity in that band.

And he continued to just keep regenerating

over and over
for the remainder of his career.

At the time I joined Miles's band,
I was 23 years old.

Tony Williams, the drummer,
was 17 years old.

We were kids... just kids.

Creativity and genius
in any kind of artistic expression

don't know nothing about age.

Either you got it or you don't.

And being old is not going
to help you get it.

We were looking at it,
like every night going to a laboratory.

Miles was the head chemist.

Our job was to mix these components,
these changes, this tempo,

into something that explodes safely
every night with a bit of danger.

And it happened every night.

Miles wanted us to live on the stage
in front of the people,

creating in front of the people.

In other words,
don't lean on what you know.

What he was looking for
is the stuff that you don't know.

I liked that idea, man.
I hate to rehearse.

All the good ideas get shot.

I want to make mistakes on the bandstand
and fix them there.

Miles even told us:

"I pay you to practice on the bandstand
in front of the people."

I said:
"Well, public's not gonna like that."

He said: "I'll take care of the public.

You just play."

Teo, you know
I can't play this shit, man.

Yes, you can.

You're getting there.

You know what I mean?
Herbie, can we do it like that?

- We gonna divide it up.
- Yeah, that's a good idea.

Six!

Wait a minute, Teo,
I don't even know what to play there.

- Don't play that first beat.
- Play that, Teo.

Once, he does a take where
the horn players all play the melody...

correctly, without any major kind of flub.

That take's going on the record.

I had this book I have with me

that I'd been using
when I was in the Army.

I'd wrote stuff down a little bit
and he said: "You got any music?"

I said: "Yeah. I got some stuff
in this book."

He opened the book and he said:
"Let's try this."

- What's this called?
- "Footprints"!

"Footprints"?

And then we just...
no rehearsal,

just looked at the music, went over it
a little bit and then recorded.

And the next time we went
to the recording studio,

he would say: "We're gonna record
next Wednesday. Bring the book!"

In 1969, historically,
a man had walked on the moon...

and the United States
is still in this bloody... Vietnam War.

I think Miles sensed the importance
of the younger generation,

'cause Miles was always looking forward.

1969 was the year
rock and funk were selling like hotcakes.

People were packing stadiums
to hear and see stars in person,

and jazz music seemed to be
withering on the vine.

We played to a lot
of half-empty clubs in 1969.

That told me something.

The music of Jimi Hendrix,
Sly Stone and James Brown...

it made Miles aware that you could play
one concert and hit a lot of people.

You could make more money
playing one concert for 45 minutes

than you might make playing a week
in a club, three sets a night.

One reason he got the electric band

because he had hung out
with Sly & the Family Stone.

Sly was telling him how much money
he made. Miles said: "What? What?"

So, after that,
Miles kind of changed his stuff up.

I started realizing

that most rock musicians
didn't know anything about music.

I figured if they could do it,

reach all those people
and sell all those records

without really knowing
what they were doing,

then I could do it, too, only better.

Miles asked to see me
and it was a very, very tense meeting.

And he said
these fucking long-haired, white kids

were stealing his music, his riffs.

He was irate and asked to be released
from the label.

I said: "Look, I can get you dates

playing with musical artists
of a different generation,

playing a different kind of music.

I just know that if you play those dates,
something will happen."

Around this time,
I had met a beautiful young singer

and songwriter named Betty Mabry.

She was full of new things and surprises
and helped point the way I was to go.

Betty Davis
was just a very fierce, dynamic sister

who was a part of that whole New York
and California rock scene.

She totally changes his sense
of what's happening in music.

Betty was a big influence

on my personal life,
as well as my musical life.

She also helped me change
the way I was dressing.

I went by his house,
he had a bunch of funny-looking suits,

and things hanging in his closet,
funny-looking shoes, hats and all of that.

I said: "What's going on, man?"

So, he changed up.
He went from that to that.

I wanted to change course,

had to change course for me to continue
to believe in and love what I was playing.

My interest
was in an electronic bass player.

It gave me what I wanted to hear
instead of the stand-up bass.

He called me and said:
"I want to talk to you." I said okay.

He said: "All you got to do is play
like you're playing upright."

I said: "Man, it's not the same."

"The notes are different. The sound
is different. The impact is different.

The note length is different.
Their placement...

The only thing the same, Miles,
is the same fucking notes.

I'm hearing this since I was 18, man.

Why the fuck would I give it up?

To join you?
No, man, I'm not going to do that."

He said okay.

So, I put my hat on and got in the wind.

The group broke up
when Ron decided to leave for good,

because he didn't want to play
electric bass.

Now, I was starting to think
about other ways

I could approach the music.

I went into the studio in August of 1969.

Miles had said to be
at Columbia Studios at ten o'clock.

I was there at 9:30.
The cleaning lady let me in.

I brought in these musical
sketches that nobody had seen,

just like I did on Kind of Blue.

I told the musicians
that they could do anything they wanted...

play anything they heard,
so, that's what they did.

There were four percussion players
playing at the same time,

two bassists playing at the same time,

two or three keyboard players
playing at the same time, a guitar.

It was a great, massive improvisation.

All he had me bring
was a cymbal and a snare drum.

And we went over the first part
of Bitches Brew.

And then...

You hear Miles's trumpet
bouncing against the buildings

at night, three o'clock in the morning.

You know? It sounds like New York
is a grand canyon of buildings.

It's this ominous thing.

You know, it's like something
getting ready to happen.

Moving like an amoeba
that just moved along...

and it did like this and then, like,
you know, something would stick out.

But, like, it was like this whole thing
just moved like this, together.

I had the jazz station on
and the guy was like:

"Oh, my God. The new Miles just came in."

And then he said the name of it.

I was like:
"Man, can you even say that on the air?"

He said: "Forget the music.
Y'all got to see this cover."

Bitches Brew sold faster
than any other album I had ever done,

and sold more copies
than any other jazz album in history.

After he did Bitches Brew, he started at
the Fillmore East and all of that stuff.

We're in the dressing room
and Miles got the check.

He's looking at it and we heard him say:
"I feel like a thief."

It was an Indian restaurant
on 125th Street.

And we're sitting there, we're eating
and we're talking for about two hours.

So, we get up, and as we're walking out...

he says: "So, what do you think?"

I'm like:
"First of all, think about what?"

I mean, I'm trying...
my brain is into the conversation.

He said: "What do you think
about the music?"

And I do this... because, you know,
they're playing Indian music.

And Miles, he said: "That's where we're
going on the new album, On the Corner."

He said, "I'm gonna mix tablas and sitar,
electric sitar with the funk."

The On the Corner album,
there's no ambiguity.

We're going for this.

Bap! Boom! Bap!

It just got more intense.

Four, one, two. That's what funk is.

They were just taking off.
They were making the Big Bang,

kind of upping the ante every night,

just so gnarly and...
and dangerous with it,

in terms of the use of percussion
and the use of distortion.

This cosmic jungle music.

That's when we really locked in to Miles

as kind of our Hoodoo-voodoo priest
of music.

This is acid music.

People who smoke weed
and they go there high

all of a sudden they're straight,
you know?

And people who are straight, they're high.

He totally changed everything
just by the way he was playing.

Miles's audience was changing
because his music was changing...

absorbing what was happening now.

What was happening now.
Not ten years ago... now.

I never understood what was
so appealing to so many people.

I was trying to figure out what
he heard in it. I didn't understand it.

Plus, it didn't sound good.

People who say that,

I just always looked at 'em like:
"You're really ignorant

and what drove you to say that
is because you're jealous,

because you could never be,
or have, or even comprehend

something that is beyond
your limited, twisted, crooked mind."

"Damn, Carlos, that's a little harsh."

But it's accurate.

When you listen to that slew of records

you know, he made in rapid succession
about '69 through '75,

I mean, you hear the template
for hip-hop, for house,

drum and bass, electronica.

Miles was doing all of that
in the early '70s.

He's creating new music
and kind of disturbing the fabric.

When I was with him he was pretty healthy.
He was doing very well...

eating a good healthy diet,
keeping his body clean.

Of course, he worked out in the gym
every day, pretty much, boxing.

And, so, those things were very important
at that time and that was really good.

I knew that Miles
was getting back into drugs...

even though he hadn't been
doing them around me,

because he was getting paranoid a lot.

He was violent. He was abusive.

I said: "You know,
I'm not going to live like this."

In October 1972,
I fell asleep at the wheel

and ran my Lamborghini into a divider.

I was laid up for almost three months
and when I got home,

I had to walk on crutches for a while,
which further fucked up my bad hip.

That was probably
the most pivotal moment in his life.

The abject pain that he was in,
from awakening to going to sleep...

forced him, and I say "forced him" to use
prescription medicine,

cocaine, alcohol, cigarettes,

anything to dull the pain.

He started taking fewer
and fewer jobs and tours.

Eventually, there was no band.
There was no Miles Davis band.

I was spiritually tired
of all the bullshit I'd been going through

all those long years.

I felt artistically drained.

I didn't have anything else to say,
musically.

I knew that I needed a rest
and so I took one.

I put down the thing
I love most in life, my music.

And the more I stayed away,

the deeper I sank into another dark world.

His apartment building
was his cave...

and he sequestered himself there.

And there were days,
weeks, he wouldn't go out.

When I was 15 or 16,

I would go and stay in New York
during that dark period.

I remember it being dark,
always dark in the house.

I just remember... you know,
cigarettes, beer bottles and cocaine.

I remember
going to visit him a couple of times.

It was a dark time for him.

He was... Like, I wasn't...

I was a little bit scared of him.

He was in there by himself,
just dealing with pain and not playing.

I know, for him, not playing is...
is just like not having water anymore.

I just wanted it to stop.

I wanted the darkness to stop.

It was like a person I never knew.

And I wanted him to get back to... to, uh,
you know, to my uncle, my superhero.

I remember going up to Harlem

and there would be a woman
in the car with us.

She'd be sitting next to me

and Miles would drive up there
and then just say: "Wait."

And he would come out of the building
that he was in... very high.

There would be cocaine smudges on his face

you know, and I'd want to say something,
but I was too afraid.

He would kind of nudge me over,
and he'd say: "You fucked her."

And I'd say:
"I didn't fuck her."

And he goes: "We're not leaving
till you tell me you fucked her."

He'd shut the car off.

I said: "All right. I fucked her
on the hood. Can we go?"

And he goes: "And I thought
we were friends."

This is... This is an evening with Miles.

Miles would come around
during that time. We would...

He needed money
and we'd lend him some money,

which we figured was gone,
you know, and...

Whatever the case, we left there one day
and I said to Marie...

I said, "I think that's the end. There's
no way he can come back from this."

And I said: "But you never can tell."

Around this same time,

Cicely Tyson started coming
to see me again.

She had been dropping by
throughout all of this,

but now she started coming by more often.

He was in terrifically bad health
in those years.

It was thought by many people,
he was in such bad shape

that he would never play music again.

He even thought
he might never play music again.

Cicely inspires him
to see once again

that he has something to offer...

that his creativity... his creative voice,
he has not reached his creative peak.

She helped run
all those people out of my house.

She kind of protected me
and started seeing

that I ate the right things
and didn't drink as much.

She helped get me off cocaine.

She would feed me health foods,
a lot of vegetables

and a whole lot of juices.

He was running up and down the beach
and trying to be a vegetarian...

which was... which was amazing,
because he couldn't do it.

Miles would say:
"Come by the house. Pick me up, man.

Take me somewhere where they got meat.

Just let me smell the smells
and then get me a hot link sandwich."

Miles needed those years
to summon up the strength...

to kick drugs,
to play again, to handle the public...

to handle the touring,
to handle the critics... to live.

From 1975 until early 1980,
I didn't pick up my horn.

For over four years
I didn't pick it up... once.

In the end, it was almost six years.

He kept bringing tapes to my office

of a different sounding band,
the electronic band.

I said: "I'll pay you $70,000
to do two concerts at Avery Fisher Hall."

He looked at me as if I was crazy.
Nobody did that.

And I wrote out a check for $35,000
and gave it to him.

I held my breath.

I bought a brand-new, canary
yellow 308 GTSi Ferrari sports coupe,

with a targa top.

I was ready to go back to music.

He bought that car
just to show up at that gig.

And yeah, man, you know,
I bought a new shirt.

He bought a Ferrari.

Miles was back.

And he had this whole new sound
with all the young musicians.

He was seven years out
and all of a sudden he came back.

This cat could've stopped completely
and said: "I've done enough."

And everybody would've said:
"You sure have."

But he wanted to keep going.

It wasn't just
a comeback of an artist.

It was a comeback of a human being.

I never saw anybody do that like he did.

Do you still enjoy playing
jazz festivals in Europe?

Yes. I love to play in Europe,
jazz festivals.

What about Molde?
You're arriving late.

I was sick this morning.

Starting with the first tour,
we were in a different city,

or a different country, every single day.

Say a show starts at eight o'clock...

we'd get back to the hotel by midnight.

After that, he wants to paint.

He would just pick up whatever
writing device he had and start to draw.

When we were on the road,
he drew on the plane, he drew in the car.

He drew in the lounge,
waiting for the plane.

We get to the gig.
He's drawing in the dressing room.

It was literally flowing through his arm,
into his hand, onto the paper.

When you make a wrong line,

does it feel with you like
the same as in music?

The note next to the one that you think
is bad... corrects the one in front.

It was early morning
and I was going running.

I was waiting by the elevator
and the elevator opened and there he was.

My heart was racing.
It was kind of like, um...

like in a movie
when you meet the vampire

and you know you're going to die
and you don't care.

I looked back and he said:
"You better run fast

'cause when I get back
I'm going to catch you."

And that was it.
We started painting together.

There was just all this interest
in everything he was doing,

coming from everywhere.

Miles, what got you into painting?

He was never more in demand.

Who are you guys?

It seems almost
as if he forgot who he had been.

It's like a brand-new start for me.

He was on talk shows.

Hello, good evening. This is Miles Davis.

On late night television.

- Miles Davis.
- Miles Davis.

- Miles Davis.
- Miles Davis.

Miles Davis!

He was accepting interviews
in every city he played in.

He was a totally different seeming person.

And he was even going out
and sitting in with Prince.

He loved Prince. You know,
it was destiny that they worked together.

I got a call from Tommy LiPuma,

who was an A&R vice president
at Warner Bros.

He said: "Miles Davis just left Columbia
and he's coming to Warner Bros."

And I said: "Really? Congratulations!"
He said: "Do you have any music?"

As soon as I hung up the phone,
that bass line to "Tutu" hit me.

I'm writing a song for somebody
if I can see them going...

like grooving to the song, I go,
"Okay, this is right for him."

I'm looking across the studio
and I'm looking at Miles.

And then he just started playing
stuff on the piano for me.

Looking back on it, I realize
this dude never recorded like that before,

with headphones, playing to a track
with drum machines and all that stuff.

He was, like, into it. He wasn't
just like stepping gingerly into it.

He owned it.

Yeah!

At the core,
he's just staying that young kid

who came to New York
to play the hip music.

You know,
he wanted to always have that feeling.

Miles never talked
about his old records.

He didn't keep 'em in the house.
He didn't have any of 'em.

You know, not one of them
and he didn't want them in there.

He wanted only the stuff
he was working on.

When I first got in the band,
Miles seemed cool.

You know, he was alert and on top of it,

but soon after that,
he started looking not so good, you know?

And if you see a concert we did
on Saturday Night Live,

you'll see what I'm talking about.

He's just kind of moving
and his sound is very fragile, you know?

He was tormented, man,
'cause he couldn't get the tone.

He couldn't get the tone.

Sometimes he would hobble around
the stage, but... but...

he was still Miles.

It will be for the first time tonight
that Miles Davis and Quincy Jones

will be on the same stage,
playing together.

I'd been trying for 15 years, man.

I kept bugging him about it...
you know, kept bugging him about it.

And he said: "Okay, motherfucker."
You know?

If he never played another note,
he doesn't have to

because he has led the way
on the cutting edge for the last 50 years.

To see him at 65 years old

trying to recreate his 25-year-old self

was just amazing, man.

My love, my brother,

and one of my favorite musicians
and idols, Miles Davis!

Yeah, I loved him, man.

It just makes my soul smile.

There was a tune called "The Pan Piper"...

and I knew that that was a hard piece

and I wasn't sure
that he would be able to play that one.

He would never say that.

So, when it was time for us to do it,
I remember jumping in.

I remember him telling me: "Listen,
if I ever went back to that old stuff,

I'd die."

And I sat there in front of the TV
and I was like: "He's sick.

He's sick."

He said: "When God punishes you,
it's not that you..."

So sad.

"...it's not that you don't get
what you want.

You get everything that you want
and there's no time left."

Miles Davis!

Quincy Jones!

Miles went into the hospital,
Labor Day weekend of 1991.

We were talking and listening to music...

and I looked at him
and he looked funny, like, still.

And then I looked up
and a doctor came in to the door

and he walked over
and it was just a second.

And I was sitting
with his head in my lap...

and the doctor started pounding on him.

And then he beeped something
and then another doctor came in

and then a bunch of doctors
and nurses came in.

And I was still sitting on the bed
and he was blank.

I mean, he was breathing. I knew
he didn't die. I mean, I didn't know...

It was horrifying.
And they're working on him

and they're pounding him and injecting him

and then they roll us both out like that
into the elevator, into the hall.

And they didn't even notice
that I was on the bed,

when his head was still next to me.

And, you know,
we were surrounded by people.

We're in the elevator and... you know,
and they said: "He had a stroke."

Deborah, my ex-wife,
called me and she says:

"I think you'd better hold on
to something."

I said "What's going on?"
She says: "Miles Davis just passed."

And it just felt like, um...

someone hit me with a...

with a jackhammer over the head.

I think Miles was definitely,

without a doubt,
the most unique person I've ever known.

He did things totally in a different way
than everybody else.

He looked at things differently.
He saw things differently.

You have to be true to yourself.
I think a lot of that was his philosophy.

How can someone come up
with such beautiful music

when you can have that other side?

Sometimes I couldn't take it.

Sometimes it was just perfecto.

I don't regret,
I don't forget, but I still love.

I miss him, you know?

I miss him. I dream about him a lot.

He, uh...

What a big presence.

Of course I loved him.

He was like a brother...

who did dumb things and you accepted it.

He was real.

Very real.

There won't be many Mileses again.

That's enough.

I'm through.