“He was something else”: what Miles Davis thought of other jazz icons
When Miles Davis didn’t like someone, the world knew about it. Never afraid to share his true thoughts on other musicians, the jazz icon certainly had an acid tongue on him, whether it was to be critical of their playing ability or to berate them on a personal level. Nobody was ever truly safe from Davis’ scorn, but that’s not to say that he wasn’t capable of making friends within the industry.
Davis played with a formidable list of musicians throughout his equally illustrious career, and many of them could say that they were far more than just colleagues of the bandleader and trumpeter. In addition to this, there were numerous other idols who Davis respected as both peers and pals and by the time he had reached the latter stages of his own career, he was far easier to probe for his opinions on the other jazzmen of his stature.
In a 1985 interview with NME, Davis mused on various aspects of his career and his past associates, providing far more information and opinion than anyone needed to know about the likes of John Coltrane, Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker, and Sonny Rollins in the process. While largely positive about the trio, he was also fearless when it came to sharing less-than-savoury anecdotes about them and their personalities.
Speaking about Rollins’ saxophone playing style, he said that “we played different styles which he doesn’t play any more. We used to play a style called peckin’, broken phrases … nobody does that any more.” Davis attested that this came from Parker and that he used to emulate the rhythm of a tap dancer due to his father having been skilled in the art of fancy footwork. “That was one of Charlie Parker’s styles – Ba-ba-bip da-dah-d’n-da dee-da-dee-deh – like tap dancers dance! That rhythm, you hadn’t heard no shit like that!”
On the sax style of Coltrane, he was even more complimentary. “He was something else,” claimed Davis. “People don’t know it, but it took him a long time. I was going with a girl who was an antique dealer in France. She gave this soprano sax to me, and I gave it to Coltrane. I gave that thing to Trane, man, and it’s probably still in his hand. He probably died with it in his mouth!” He would go on to praise the speed at which Coltrane used to pick up new skills, master them, and be able to play them back to Davis at lightning speeds and in different keys.
The three saxophonists may have impressed Davis on a musical level, but what did he make of them as people? For Coltrane, he couldn’t help slipping in a slight insult towards his peer. “He was a very greedy man,” Davis proclaimed before adding, “I seen him with a whole ounce of dope once the dope was spilling over, and he wouldn’t give it to nobody.”
He would go on to share the same insult about Parker: “Bird was, too.” Reminiscing about when he was still a teen and living off a meagre weekly allowance, he said that he would regularly invite Parker down for food, and he would leave little behind for others. “Fuck Bird!” Davis shouted. “After a couple of times, I didn’t leave him anything to gobble up,” before going on to dish out the ultimate insult to his appetite. “He was a big hog.”
As for Rollins, who was Davis’ sole living contemporary at the time, he was a lot more complimentary towards him on a personal level. “We loved each other,” Davis claimed, “still do.” While there were few other living legends in jazz around Davis by the mid-1980s, Davis didn’t feel like it was ever lonely at the top. “They end up being your best friends. If I ever leave a will it’s not gonna be to my relatives, it’s to the people I function around best. You’re around musicians all the time. You’re not alone.”
