Email
Print
New books let readers see behind the scenes of 2 careers
Miles Davis
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: November 6, 2008
Music. You can play it. You can watch it. You can certainly listen to it.
Or you can read about it.
Miles On Miles: Interviews and Encounters With Miles Davis,
edited by Paul Maher Jr and Michael K. Dorr. (Lawrence Hill Books, 342 pages. $24.95)
There is no shortage of books about the late Miles Davis, one of the greatest trumpet players, and the most active and contrary visionary, in jazz history. His obsessive need for change unquestionably produced some of jazz's most universally respected, hotly debated and angrily hated music.
No matter the critical response (Davis didn't care), the music changed the musical culture, Davis was as personally complex and contrary as his music. His various public personalities, and the surrounding rumors about his private life, were so deviant and difficult that he was dubbed "The Prince of Darkness."
Literary attempts to assemble, correlate and, to some point, justify, all of his various voices, musical and personal, have ranged from the overly scholarly tome to, in the case of Miles, Davis' autobiography, co-written by poet Quincy Troupe, a highly entertaining, jumbled portrait of a genius prone to racist rhetoric, cruel antisocial behavior, offhanded self-destruction and cat-and-mouse humor.
All books have one thing in common: Nobody (messed) with Miles.
The new Miles On Miles: Interviews and Encounters With Miles Davis, offers the best view of who and what Miles Davis was and what he wanted to accomplish with his music. Davis had a pronounced dislike of critics and the interview process and, for a man of his stature, did relative few in the course of a long career. Editors Paul Maher Jr. (best known for his tomes on author Jack Kerouac) and Michael K. Dorr (a poet, playwright and figure in the literary business) have assembled a balanced batch of highly readable -- and revealing -- interviews that find Davis consistent enough in his statements, declarations and reactions to key questions about his life and music so as to present a reasonable reflection of his true personality.
There are also enough interviews conducted with Davis in one of his infamous horrid moods, or illustrating him being purposefully contrary to cow an interviewer, to show how Davis protected what was essentially a tender, and in many ways, insecure creative soul.
It is a fascinating and quick read, and the Q&A format cuts through a lot of the usual heavy-handed musing that accompanies jazz books. The reflections that do come simply mirror the moment of encounter and balance it against Davis' accomplishments and public persona.
Plus, Davis, and his often playful ego, at times come across as laugh-out-loud funny.
Everybody should read at least one book about Davis' life and music, and Miles On Miles is the perfect place to start.
When I Wake Up: A Memoir, Juliana Hatfield, by Juliana Hatfield. (Wiley, 330 pages. $24.95)
Juliana Hatfield has never found the stardom that many people thought was inevitable. She has managed just one radio hit, "My Sister," in a 20-year career that started with the Blake Babies, a popular indie-rock trio, and continued through a string of consistent, often critically acclaimed, solo albums.
In an odd turn, the lack of spotlight success has probably been a good thing for Hatfield, who, as evidenced by her memoir, When I Wake Up, never really wanted rock stardom -- the idea was nonsensical to her. When I Wake Up is a deeply personal and revealing portrait of an irregular girl in search of normalcy, and, once she discovers making music, embarks on a quest to take charge of her life and her career.
The book is a frank, sometimes funny, more-often heartbreaking, look at the journey of a gifted misfit adrift in a world that she can barely tolerate in the best of times. Hatfield is terminally shy, often deeply depressed and incapable of carrying on any prolonged relationship, romantic or musical. She is maddeningly over-analytical, to the point in which sympathy begins to fly out the window as she ponders the possible ramifications of doing something as simple as wearing a stage outfit that bares her midriff.
She seems unable, but not unwilling, to enjoy success or handle failure. Her best days are anybody else's fair days, and her bad days are inevitably made worse by her constantly fluctuating moods. In the course of the book --part tour diary, part autobiography -- Hatfield reveals her personal grapples with anorexia, crippling depression, self-doubt, showbiz turmoil and assorted other miseries.
But she delivers her self-analysis with enough of a wry twist to turn what could easily be woe-is-me whining into the compelling story of a person seeking answers, sanity and strength through dead-honest revelations that expose vulnerability -- but never pander to cheap emotions.
This is not a "rock book" crammed with lurid tales of debauchery. Hatfield's story is one of survival.
Email
Print
