Jazz Miles Davis
Miles Davis. Trumpet. Jazz.This whole blog is from a book.
Book: Jump Up and Say, Page 137
Authors: Linda Goss, Clay Goss
Jazz Scene
Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe
“Listen. The greatest feeling I ever had in my life …. was when I first heard Diz (Dizzy Gillespie) and Bird (Charlie Parker) together in St. Louis Missouri, back in 1944. I was eighteen years old.”
Miles made up his mind to be a musician. He came to New York to study at Julliard but really wanted to study with jazz great Charlie Parker. He soon had his chance and began playing with Bird at nineteen, getting a musical education no school could teach.
Back in New York. The Street was open again. To have experienced 52nd Street between 1945 and 1949 was like reading a textbook to the future of music. You had Coleman Hawkins and Hank Jones at one club. You had Art Tatum, Tiny Grimes, Red Allen, Dizzy, Bird, Bud Powell, Monk, all down there on that one street sometimes on the same night. You could go where you wanted and hear all this great music. It was unbelievable. I was doing some writing for Sarah Vaughan and Budd Johnson. I mean everybody was there. Nowadays you can’t hear people like that all at once. You don’t have the opportunity.
But 52nd Street was something else when it was happening. It would be crowded with people, and the clubs were no bigger than apartment living rooms. They were so small and jam-packed. The clubs were right next to each other and across the street from one another.
Nonqaba waka Msimang
Blogger Without Borders
Comments