The Unassailable Miles Davis, or, To Know Him Is To Love Him

the movie is set in the late 70s when miles was retired, but there are flashbacks to the glory days, or something.

― tylerw, Friday, October 9, 2015 2:23 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i hope i'm wrong, but i wouldn't be shocked if the late 70s thing is just a framing device, in the same way the Folsom Prison show was in Walk the Line

I'd much rather see Cheadle play temporarily retired Miles at a "low point" in his life for a whole movie than the standard "Down-and-out late-70s Miles looks at a trumpet--cut to a young Miles Davis in East St. Louis seeing a trumpet for the first time"

^prescient post, i'm sure

haha definitely

The casting still bugs me; Cheadle looks more like Sammy Davis Jr. than he does Miles. I would have preferred to see Michael Wright as Miles. But I guess it's Cheadle's project, so...

― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Friday, October 9, 2015 4:39 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idg why anyone makes these movies, they're so pointless

― Οὖτις, Friday, October 9, 2015 4:41 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm not big on insisting on the actor who looks the most like the subject, but Cheadle's presence/bravado might be a bit lacking.

― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Friday, October 9, 2015 4:42 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agree with all these posts ^

Xpost. yeah that sounds about right.

Don't know that the 70s retirement period would make that watchable film, in his autobio he claims he was doing coke and sleeping with beautiful women but wasn't it the case that he was just getting fucked up on down for like 5 years? I mean it would be a pretty dark and narratively narrow film ha.

A second clip is released...aaaaand I'm out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zZXi6UGMs0

cheadle sounds like he's doing an snl voice or smth

I'm not crazy about big sweeping trying-to-be-accurate biopics; much prefer either an idiosyncratic approach or a focus on a specific short time period. Not that those kinds of films don't often suck too (last days eg)

― brimstead, Friday, October 9, 2015 5:05 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I remember The Hours and Times being really good; probably the exception that proves the rule, though.

This smelled bad from the get go.

would much rather watch something a la that nina simone doc. old interviews and live footage i haven't seen a ton woven together. the right director could make something amazing.

i was watching that old interview miles did with bill boggs recently - i have always loved bill boggs - and i'd rather watch that then a docudrama. also i totally forgot that the band bill boggs had on his show included christian mcbride and joey defrancesco. yo, philly! they have different trumpeters play for miles and they end with a young john swana. little kid plays and bill asks miles what he thinks and miles is like: "he needs practice, he knows that..." OUCH!

The Electric Miles DVD is probably the best Miles doc. There's one called The Miles Davis Story which is decidedly hit-or-miss. Mostly miss.

There was also a PBS special on Miles. I can't remember if it was Great Performances or American Masters, but it was made around 1986 or so, and while generally well-made, is has way too much contemporary footage of his digital-synth-drenched band and its worthless, mugging guitarist.

i love when bill boggs calls sketches of spain proto-new age music.

hahaha..."waitaminute...what did you say Sketches of Spain was?!"

miles' voice really did sound like that

the issue for me so far in that clip is just that don cheadle's presence just has a hesitant insecurity that is very un-Miles

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/don-cheadles-miles-davis-biopic-831212

John Coltraine

Yeah what d-40 said

New trailer! And it looks...not particularly good! Gonna go see it anyway.

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/02/02/don-cheadle-miles-davis-miles-ahead-trailer

lol Miles sure shot a lot of people

I've read his autobio maybe 10 times, and I can't recall a single instance of him saying he shot someone (or even at anyone...not even Steve Miller).

"miles the gangster" lol

this looks....... really bad, sorry don cheadle

the issue for me so far in that clip is just that don cheadle's presence just has a hesitant insecurity that is very un-Miles

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Saturday, October 10, 2015 1:17 PM (3 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yea very much so

I'd much rather see Cheadle play temporarily retired Miles at a "low point" in his life for a whole movie than the standard "Down-and-out late-70s Miles looks at a trumpet--cut to a young Miles Davis in East St. Louis seeing a trumpet for the first time"

― intheblanks, Saturday, October 10, 2015 1:30 AM (3 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol this movie looks like it somehow manages to accomplish both

this looks like a rainier wolfcastle version of the miles davis story.

so this... was pretty daft. thought Don Cheadle was actually okay in this. ewan mcgregor was truly awful.

Yeah, I lost all interest after watching the trailer.

Music biopics are generally awful. Do we have a thread about them?

Anti-Miles memories from the founder of JazzFM (not a recommendation from this UK listener). Interesting because from my limited contact w. the British JazzSNOB world a not untypical mindset of the way jazz appreciation developed here, and the anecdote at the end is p funny despite the author:

https://12barblog.com/category/miles-davis/

ok lol classic Miles anecdote

lol

haha the author is such a prick way 2 go miles

heh, miles otm

Yeah, striking intuitive perception on miles part there.

Hahaha. I got as far as 'famous comedian Bill Oddie' and wanted to kill everyone. Miles otm.

Bill Oddie:
You won't believe the musical pretensions that went on in my head. I listened to a lot of jazz and a lot of funk, and that period of the '70s for me was fantastic - it was really the era when fusion started. The people I liked were Sly Stone and early Parliament, and I listened to what was happening in jazz at the time, when Miles Davis was coming up with some very interesting hybrid music. With 'Funky Gibbon', I started off - it's almost unbelievable considering how stupid the song is - trying to get the feel of a Miles Davis track, I can't remember which, probably just after Bitches Brew and that sort of era: some really choppy Miles Davis-type rhythm, again with a Sly Stone influence.
http://www.alwynwturner.com/glitter/funky_gibbon.html

what in the ever lovin fuck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAmx_XdQky8

forget it shakey its britishtown

That was like a nakh afl post filtered through Garrison Keilor.

RE: Funky Gibbon - "You know, for kids". One of the first singles I ever owned. Growing up in the 1970s, the Goodies were definitely a gateway for kids into Monty Python. Oddie was one of the regulars on the proto-Python radio series I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again at the same time that Derek Bailey was in the house band.

Oddie was also a regular customer when I worked in the jazz dept of a massive chain record shop, and absolutely no trouble at all. This is him answering questions on 'American Jazz' on Celebrity Mastermind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyTD4j1Wcso

American here who loves Miles and loved The Goodies as a kid when it aired on NYC Public Television. So Oddie's cool with me.

Love the Miles anecdote but I feel bad for Red Rodney going thru all that trouble lol.

To the jazz cognoscenti, Miles Davis’s peak playing years were when he was playing with Charlie Parker right up to when he made the series of recordings collated under the title “Birth of the Cool”.

Peak snobbery.

Peak dumbassery really, I don't think anyone thinks that and it mostly suggests he hasn't heard the records MD made with Parker etc or can't hear the frequent mistakes Davis makes on them. It's good, just super embryonic type stuff. Which I thought was a p much universally held opinion. I don't remember his playing being as tentative on BOTC but that's obv way more of an ensemble thing. Anyway there're pre-fusion periods one could make an argument like that for, but choosing that one seems kinda random/uninformed.

I honestly can't tell if this sentence is satire or just ignorance: "the very exclusive Getzen company in Wisconsin, who make only the finest hand crafted trumpets"

Getzen horns are not exclusive in the slightest and are basically middle of the road as far as being considered "fine"

Peak dumbassery really, I don't think anyone thinks that and it mostly suggests he hasn't heard the records MD made with Parker etc or can't hear the frequent mistakes Davis makes on them. It's good, just super embryonic type stuff. Which I thought was a p much universally held opinion. I don't remember his playing being as tentative on BOTC but that's obv way more of an ensemble thing. Anyway there're pre-fusion periods one could make an argument like that for, but choosing that one seems kinda random/uninformed.

yeah I've actually never heard ANYONE suggest that his peak playing was with Parker or BOTC. Not only is it the standard wisdom on him that he was never a "player's player," but his concepts really weren't well-formed yet when he played with Parker.

I mean I thought even straight-ahead curmudgeons preferred the Riverside/early Columbia era.

sry meant to say Prestige

To the jazz cognoscenti, Miles Davis’s peak playing years were when he was playing with Charlie Parker right up to when he made the series of recordings collated under the title “Birth of the Cool”.

Peak snobbery.

― Austin, Thursday, June 23, 2016 11:22 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol yea it took some effort for me to read past that first line, i was just like "wha?????"