Miles: The Autobiography

The book that I’ve read for my second blog report was called Miles: The Autobiography. The book is an autobiography written by the famous trumpet player Miles Davis. In this book, Miles talks about his life, his music, and all of the famous jazz musicians that he has played with over the years. In this book, Miles talks about his heroin addiction, and the many other problems that he has confronted during his musical career. This autobiography begins with Miles earliest memory, which is a small blue flame jumping off a gas stove. Miles then begins to describe his relationship with his parents and how he first became interested in playing the trumpet. Miles then talks about his first professional gig, and how he met Charlie “Bird” Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Miles’ relationship with Charlie Parker is especially complex. Miles respects his playing, but as Bird’s heroin addiction worsens, he begins to move away from Bird’s band, and begins to start his own solo career. Miles then starts up his own working band, which many famous jazz players have passed through over the years. Miles also describes many of the famous jazz clubs in the world, such as Milton’s Playhouse, the Blackhawk, and Birdland. Miles then begins to describe his heroin addiction in earnest, from when he first became addicted while in Billy Eckstine’s band, up to when he finally kicked his habit “cold turkey” more than four years later. After he kicked his habit, Miles returned to New York and experienced one of the greatest periods of musical creativity in his life. Eventually, Miles becomes sick of the racism shown to him by white critics, and he decides to stop playing trumpet altogether. During this five year silence, Miles becomes extremely depressed. He also experiences problems with his addiction to cocaine and alcohol. Eventually he breaks out of his depression, and begins to play his trumpet again. By this time, jazz is a dying style of music, so Miles re-invents his image and begins to play a more modern style of jazz/funk. The book ends with Miles career still rolling along, although he is over sixty by the time the book ends.

One of the most interesting facets of this book is that since it is an autobiography, it is written in Miles’ own hand. If you read the afterword of the book, you will find that initially many critics canned the book because of Miles’ use of language. However, this style of writing is what gives the book its character. The language adds a sense of intimacy to the book. While you are reading it really seems that Miles is speaking to you personally about his life, and not just to a general audience. His honesty regarding his addiction to heroin is also refreshing. Many men would not speak as honestly about their addiction as Miles does. He recounts many of the disgraceful things that he had to do to support his habit and his many attempt to rid himself of his addiction. He eventually managed to defeat his addiction by locking himself in the two-storey guest house of his father’s farm and staying there for eight days straight while he was suffering withdrawal symptoms.

The way that Miles describes his withdrawal symptoms are very lifelike. He compares his withdrawal symptoms to many things in this particular quote, “It was a feeling like arthritis, or a real bad case of the flu, only worse. The feeling is indescribable. All of your joints get sore and stiff, but you can’t touch them because if you do you’ll scream. So nobody can give you a massage. It’s the kind of hurt that I later experienced after an operation, when I had a hip replacement. It’s a raw kind of feeling that you can’t stop. You feel like you could die and if somebody could guarantee that you would die in two seconds, then you would take it.” This quote appealed to me because I admire Miles’ determination to rid himself of his heroin addiction. I think that it takes an amazingly strong person to simply stop using such an addictive drug altogether. Because of this quote, you can also imagine how difficult it must have been for him to stop. Another quote that appealed to me was when Miles described how he once knocked out his best friend Max Roach because Max tried to attack him while he was addicted to heroin. Miles said that, “That wasn’t the real Max Roach screaming in that club at me, just like it wasn’t the real Miles Davis who had been a junkie all them years. Drugs was talking for Max and so when I hit him like I did, I didn’t feel like I was hitting the real Max that I knew. But that shit hurt me real bad, real bad, and I went home and cried like a baby in Frances’s arms that night, all night.” This experience is an excellent example of how people act differently when under the influence of drugs. I think that it’s important that people realize how easily drugs can ruin the relationship between the user and his or her friends and family. Max never held it against Miles, and he later managed to beat his addiction by following Miles’ example.