Witty, hilarious, pugnacious and profane, Davis’ singular voice leaps from each sentence of his autobiography. The vivid language and no-holds-barred accounts of the trumpeter’s drug use and mistreatment of women made the book controversial, but there’s no denying that Davis and collaborator Troupe achieve an estimable task here: capturing the half-century of jazz that Davis stood astride, and opening a window onto the restless mind of a man who, by his own accurate estimation, “changed music five or six times.”
Universally acclaimed as a musical genius, Miles Davis was one of the most important and influential musicians in the world. Here, Miles speaks out about his extraordinary life.
Miles: The Autobiography, like Miles himself, holds nothing back. He speaks frankly and openly about his drug problem and how he overcame it. He condemns the racism he encountered in the music business and in American society generally. And he discusses the women in his life. But above all, Miles talks about music and musicians, including the legends he has played with over the years: Bird, Dizzy, Monk, Trane, Mingus, and many others.
The man who gave us some of the most exciting music of the twentieth century here gives us a compelling and fascinating autobiography, featuring a concise discography and thirty-two pages of photographs.
