December 31, 2001
A Poet's Apprenticeship
By cheo tyehimba
Co-Author of the best-selling Miles: The Autobiography (publ. 1986) and the recently published Miles & Me: A Memior, the poet Quincy Troupe reflects on the meaning of Miles Davis.
From the be-bop modernism of Langston Hughes' poetry to the connotative fire of today's hip hop lyrics, the character and culture of the African American oral tradition - our rich vernacular and poetic style - has always been wed to the intricate rhythms and harmonies of American jazz music. So it was no surprise that the collaboration between jazz legend Miles Davis and renown poet Quincy Troupe produced the much heralded Miles: The Autobiography (Publ. 1989). Now in a just published follow-up memoir, Miles and Me, Quincy Troupe explores his relationship with America's truest musician and the transformative effect it has had on his own art and life. Recently, I caught up with Troupe at Marcus bookstore in Oakland, where he was about to give a reading from Miles & Me.
Q: How is this book a departure from what was offered in Miles: The Autobiography?
A: Miles: The Autobiography was a book written in Miles' voice. So what I was charged with was giving that book structure, giving his voice flow and the narrative a flow. I wanted it to read like a novel, but in his own voice. To give a good history of the music and tell a truthful story of Miles' life. This book is my remembrances of Miles Davis and I wanted to tell the story of how I first started listening to him as a teenager growing up in St. Louis. The arc of the book is from when I first discovered him and began idolizing him, and then meeting him for the first time and getting dissed by Miles and then recovering from that. Then meeting him, getting the opportunity to write the book [Miles: The Autobiography] and then getting to be his friend. So this book is insight into Miles Davis from someone else who was very close to him.
Q: As a poet, how has Miles Davis influenced your work?
A: At one time I had memorized every solo that Miles Davis ever played. I could hum them. I used to transpose those solos into my writing style, the cadences of my poems. I would make my lines mimic those solos. I did that with John Coltrane and Jimi Hendrix too. He also taught me to be a risk-taker in terms of what I heard and what voice I thought I should write in, not voice somebody else I thought I should write in. I really began to experiment with different forms in my writing and it was a direct influence of Miles Davis.
Q: In your book, you say, "Miles was a great poet on his horn." If Miles had been an actual, literary poet, who would he be?
A: What I mean is that he was not "constructed" by anybody. It seems like in this society certain people put together the black people that we see. They follow certain social codes and even if they have certain feelings or opinions, they won't tell you. But Miles Davis was the kind of person, who had his own personality, said whatever was on his mind. He didn't understand the culture of manners. If you did something he didn't like, he would curse you out right on the spot. I don't care if you were Jesus, you'd get cursed out. He didn't care about the consequences. Like, he cursed out [former vice- president] Mondale's wife at the White House, I mean, he didn't care that she was the wife of the vice-president. No social airs at all. None.
Q: What do you think was the single-greatest misconception about Miles Davis?
A: That he was uncaring. That he was a racist. That he wasn't a sensitive person inside. That he wasn't funny. He was very funny.
Q: Did he have a favorite poet?
A: No. Miles didn't read that much. He was encyclopedic about musicians and music but he didn't talk about poetry.
Q: Some say Miles' relationship with composer Gil Evans could be likened to the biblical union between Damon and Pythias. Their synergy produced incredible music. Did Miles ever talk to you about Gil?
A: I met Gil Evans. Miles loved Gil Evans. That's why you couldn't call Miles Davis a racist. Gil Evans was his best friend. The only two pictures he had in his apartment were of John Coltrane and Gil Evans. In both of his houses, on the West coast and the East coast. And everytime he would travel, he would take those two photographs, and a painting of his mother and father with him. When Gil Evans died, he was absolutely heart-broken, devastated. He felt comfortable with Gil. I saw that when I was with them. They would just sit around and talk like I wasn't even there. They would be laughing and rolling on the floor, it was wonderful to see two people who had been friends so long, and had kept that friendship in tact.
Q: How did they meet?
A: They met back in the bebop days in New York on 52nd street. The black guys then were clean, clean, clean, you know? Dressed to kill. And Gil Evans walked in dressed in some baggy pants and a wearing a little cap. And he had a pocketful of radishes. Raw radishes. Miles was like, who is this little weird guy? And that's when they first started getting friendly. They did, Birth of the Cool, Sketches of Spain, Miles Ahead, and Porgy and Bess. But as great friends as they were, Gil always wanted to work with Miles again, but Miles wouldn't. Miles was saying he had to go forward. That was his whole attitude.
Q: Didn't you have an argument with Miles related to this attitude of his?
A: Well, I would be over the house sometimes when Quincy Jones would call, asking Miles to play the music of Gil Evans at a jazz festival in Montreux, Switzerland. "He wants me to play that old shit, man," he would say. "I love Gil but I ain't going to play it, I ain't going to do it." One day when I went over his house, he was packing his clothes and I asked him where he was going. He said he was going to Montreux to play. I said, "Going to Montreux for what?" He said, "I'm going over there to play in this festival with Quincy Jones, we going to play Gil Evans music." So then I was joking when I said, "Man, you must be dying man, playing that old shit." And he threw a fit, man. He put me out of his house. Put me out. He was so angry, I backed out of the apartment. I didn't want to turn my back to him because I thought he was going to hit me in the back of the head with something. And he didn't talk to me for a month or so. Then he finally called me and said how much he had hated playing that music still. Then he died shortly after that. I don't know if he had a premonition about his death, but I kind of feel he did.
Q: What fueled your relationship with Miles beyond the business relationship?
A: I think he thought he could hang out with me, I was from St. Louis. The first band he played with was my mother's cousin band in St. Louis. The fact that I didn't take stuff off him. I remember one day he told me he was going to hit me upside my head. I said, "Man, you looked at yourself recently? You 5'8" and weight 150 pounds, I'm 6'2" and weight 220 pounds, I'll hurt you man. I understand you beat up Paul Chambers and all them other people but you ain't gonna hit me." He got mad and put me out of his apartment but he never said it again. I think he respected me and I had given him some of my poetry, so we had a rapport.
Q: Miles is well known for his sexist views. Did you ever confront his sexism and/or were there ever anything he did that bothered you?
A: Yeah, he used to like to use the word "bitch" to refer to women and I told him he shouldn't say that.
Q: What did he say?
A: He just looked at me and wouldn't say nothing. His look was like, "fuck you." But then, what he would do, is he would kind of check himself or be conscious of the word, when he used it around me. I think Miles was a product of his generation. He had sexist views, like a lot of us still do, but he was trying his best to be contemporary. The problem that some women have with Miles is that he would be violent with women. But I never saw that. By the time I met him, he had stopped drinking, stopped smoking and using drugs. I do know that he hit Cicely Tyson but I also know that Cicely Tyson hit him. It was a two-way street for him. I'm not saying that's good or bad but that's the way he was.
Q: Miles Davis once said, "Music is my curse, I have to do it, I have to go through it" Do you think he needed to suffer or feel pain to express his art?
A: I don't think that Miles Davis was a suffereing artist. I think that he had a deep pain just being a human being first, and then an African American man living in the United States. Having that much genius, being a fair-thinking person himself and coming from a very wealthy family and then living in a country where when he was in highschool in Illinois he would finish third and fourth in the State Finals to white guys who couldn't even hold his trumpet. You know? And everybody said he should have won. He had to deal with that. And of course, you don't even know about none of then now and he finished third or fourth or last. That was the kind of pain he dealt with. He was angry about the way he was treated in the United States, but Miles Davis wasn't a suffering musician because he was rich. He was world-famous. He used to say things like he played much better as an artist in Europe and every other place besides the United States. When he played here it just tightened him up, and sometime his body would just shut down because he had to deal with all these racist views here.
Q: Do you think things have changed? Does America have more respect for Black Genius today?
A: No. I think it has changed with some people but on a whole, no. I think you have individuals in this society who are very, very cool. I have a lot of really, great white friends but institutionally, things are the same. And anybody who doesn't understand that is a fool.
Q: What if anything did you envy or admire about Miles Davis?
A: I envied his talent! (laughs) I envied the fact that he all those fine women! I envied the fact that he had all those great clothes. Miles Davis was the hippest guy I ever met. Miles Davis had stupendous talent. Great feeling, great emotion, great creative ideas, just wonderful. He had the most gorgeous women I ever seen one man have. Ever. I mean they were so fine, when you went to his house, you wouldn't even look at them. So you found a spot on the wall to look at. International. Japanese, Chinese, Brazilian Black, European, Israeli, Italian, African, Blue-black.
Q: Have you ever written any poems dedicated to Miles?
A: Yeah, there are a few. "Four and More" is one. It's named after one of his tunes, Weather Report did it. My poem is in four parts and I try to [poetically] deal with some of the questions he dealt with in his piece. I recently began a poem that is rhythmically based on his piece "On the Corner."
Q: What was Miles favorite word or phrase?
A: (long pause.laughs) I don't know, he used "motherfucker" a lot. But that wasn't his favorite word, that was his way of expressing himself. He used "motherfucker" on all kinds of levels. He'd say, that's a bad motherfucking woman, there, you know? Or that's a bad motherfucking suit. Or fuck you, motherfucker! But I wouldn't say it was his favorite word because his father used the word so much.
Q: If heaven exists, what do you think God said to Miles when he first arrived?
A: "Go over there and play in the trumpet section, you're the new leader. Your new job is to play for me everyday."
Q: And Miles probably said?
A: Yeah.
Copyright © 2001 Cheo Taylor Tyehimba. All Rights Reserved.
Posted at December 31, 2001 10:04 AM