Miles on Miles: Interviews and Encounters with Miles Davis (Musicians in Their Own Words)
Davis was regarded by many as, in the words of one journalist, the wickedest, canniest, deepest, slickest, baddest musician of the last century, and Maher (Kerouac: His Life and Work) and Dorr, a poet and literary agent, have put together a collection of interviews covering the full spectrum of his career, from publicity materials linked to one of his earliest recordings for Columbia Records in the 1950s to a conversation two years before his death. Davis wasn't always the easiest person to talk to—if you're going to shut up, man, I'll tell you was his impatient response in one frustrating conversation—but when approached by the right person, someone with the perceptiveness of Nat Hentoff or Art Taylor, he could produce dazzling insights (in one 1987 interview, he spins intricate technical details on getting the right sound out of synthesizers). It's the little scenes that are most memorable: Davis at a birthday party for Louis Armstrong, or trying to persuade his errand boy biographer Eric Nisenson to make a late-night drug delivery. In some unfortunate cases, the interview is more about the self-important journalist celebrating his proximity to a jazz legend than about Davis himself, but even then it's impossible for anybody but Davis to hold the spotlight for long.(Nov.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.