Miles Davis

Miles Davis, September 2010, 3' x 4'

This large picture of Miles Davis, done in September 2010, is one of my favorites. It hangs over my drawing table and presides over my music room. He was The Man With The Horn.  He was jazz. Cool. Bop. Fusion.

Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – Sept. 28, 1991) also was a lot like The Honey Badger, of current viral video fame.  “The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger (original narration by Randall)"  features National Geographic footage on these tough little buggers. A Honey Badger, it seems, has few natural predators due to its thick skin and ferocious defensive abilities. "Honey Badger don't care."  And Miles Davis really didn't care, either, unless it came to the horn, the chart, the band and the sound.

By all accounts, Miles Davis was not a nice person. He'd play with his back to the audience.  He was a badass, a womanizer, a drug addict and dictator. But he was a brilliant composer, player, arranger.  He was a boxer, and a painter -- and played like both, with jabs, bursts and splashes of tone.

He was very prolific. I own more records, tapes and CDs of Miles Davis than any other musician. In the hundreds. Each hold surprises every time I hear them.
Check out this discography (pull up a chair): http://www.milesdavis.com/us/discography
and  http://www.jazzdisco.org/miles-davis/discography/

From his own bio:
"For nearly six decades, Miles Davis has embodied all that is cool – in his music (and most especially jazz), in his art, fashion, romance, and in his international, if not intergalactic, presence that looms strong as ever today.  2006 – The year in which Miles Davis was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame on March 13th – is a land­mark year, commemorating the 80th anniversary of his birth on May 26, 1926, and the 15th anniversary of his death on September 28, 1991.  In between those two markers is more than a half-century of brilliance – often exasperating, brutally honest with himself and to others, uncompromising in a way that transcended mere intuition. 
 "Beyond his defiant stance, his piercing glare, his amorous conquests and one-of-a-kind fashion statements – there was and always will be one eternal truth: the music of Miles Davis."
Read more here:  http://www.milesdavis.com/us/biography

For me, there were two truly great periods. There was the “first great quintet,” featuring John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones; then Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, and Jimmy Cobb – who stayed together until 1961. The“second great quintet” included Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams -- until 1968.

Later adventures added electric guitar (John McLaughlin!) and keyboards, sounds more akin to rock and funk music, and at the end, electronic music and rap (Doo-Bop). The constant through all of this was Miles and his horn, weaving and ducking in and around the band. 

This drawing was unique to me in September 2010 because Miles is the first African-American person I chose to draw. He has since been followed by Aretha Franklin, Duke Ellington and Jimi Hendrix.
As it turned out for all, it is a very difficult thing to make a black man or woman look black enough on paper. Not too light but not too dark, all in shades of gray.  The hair is a challenge, too: Not strands, but squiggles and concentric circles.
Even now, with Miles, I don't think I got it right, but I got it close. You can see the spotlight reflecting off his face, hands and arms. 
 

I finished Miles with a heavy oak frame and a unique matte of cracked brown and tan paint. The overall effect is of an enduring and imposing figure. That fits Miles Davis.

Miles Davis is not for sale.