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So what that there is another book about Miles Davis? Years after his death, and after reams of pages have been written about his life, art and mythos, is there anything left to garner (or imagine)?
So what that John Szwed, a jazz teacher (currently at Yale) and author (Space is the Place) spent years and gave a detailed telling of this musician’s life that is largely unequaled? So what that Szwed can and does write beautifully when detailing Davis’s music, as when he depicted Miles’ emerging trumpet style:
"He had found a way to personalize the instrument, return breath and voice to it, and...converged on a style of music that had often been identified with white players from the Midwest like...Beiderbecke...But Miles’ playing was also deeply inflected by the blues: he could signify with a single note, make it sing with the phrasing and the declamatory quality of some blues singers, or murmur with the small vibrato and introspective phrasing of others. Or he could make that note shimmer and hang in the air like the steel-string stroke of a blues guitarist."
So what could I, a Miles-o-phile of thirty years, learn from this book, beyond its overwhelming (and occasionally benumbing) detail of daily existence, recording sessions, drug and woman abuse? So what that this is a portrait of a musician who relentlessly educated himself, in jazz, in classical music,
in art—not a mere one semester stay at Julliard as part of the Davis myth-bio, but an intense, night-after-night, hour-after-hour immersion in every facet of music?
So what about post 1970? So what that the detailed exposition of Davis’ shift to the recording studio (and first tape and the computerized splicing of recorded segments) to create (?) his LPs makes us think again about where jazz improvisation ended (?) and technology took command? So what that Szwed articulately and persuasively (in some instances, at least with early electrified suites such as “In A Silent Way”) shows a linkage to Davis’ work orchestral work with Gil Evans?
So what that in the immensity of this book it occasionally feels as if Szwed was writing without reading a preceding passage, as when he proclaims that Davis’ “Dark Magus” album showed a rebalancing of musical elements that placed rhythm on a parity with melody and harmony, an occurrence previously noted.
So what that Szwed is uncomfortable, as many Davis fans are, with the trumpeter’s post 1975 recordings, constantly finding a glimmer of artistry and then backing off with muted (as per the trumpeter?) criticism? So what that Szwed notes the tension between Davis’ elation at returning to work and desiring to always make something new and the sometimes tawdry and commerce-driven results but never makes a clear judgment on these efforts?
So what is the overall view? So what that Szwed convincingly likens Davis to a Picasso, a role-changing, greater than life itself, creator who, at least to some critics, used his youthful creations as buffer, justification and shield for his later excesses, mis-steps and idiosyncracies.
“So what” is a phrase of derision, of non-chalance, of cool detachment. There is nothing “so what” about this undertaking, and anyone who delves into it will come out the richer, and hear Miles better. That’s what.
John Szwed:
So What: The Life of Miles Davis (Simon & Schuster)
Release Date:
29 October 2002
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last update 18 October 2003