Rating: 
Summary: The best all-around biography yet written about Miles Davis!
Review: Prior to SO WHAT I felt that, as revealing as many prior Davis bios were (including Miles' own book), their sum was somehow less than the parts. That is, there was more to understand about Miles Davis than what was collectively written. Along comes SO WHAT, the most balanced and coherent one-stop source yet for getting to know about the entirety of Miles Davis' life. As much as Miles urged us to let the music speak for itself, the context and environment in which Davis' art was created is important, and author John Szwed is up to the challenge to walk down the many paths that lead to and from Davis' music and life (e.g., discussing the aesthetics of artists as wide-ranging as Stockhausen and Sly Stone, both of whom impacted Miles' musical vision in the 1970s). Szwed doesn't attempt to cram every interesting, revealing, or just plain provocative story from prior books into his bio. Still, his research does come up with some errors previously presented as facts, and there are plently of newfound "Miles Davis stories" to amuse and/or amaze the reader, for better and worse. What the author seems to do is pick and choose among the previously-revealed tidbits about Miles and use them as supplements to 1) his open-minded knowledge about the entirety of Davis' music (as well as the cultural and commercial environment in which it was created), and 2) fresh, revealing interviews he conducted with family members and others close to the subject at key points in his life. Having unprecedented access to Davis' family was possibly the missing piece of the puzzle needed to really reconcile what was already known about Miles with the many contradictions that sat unresolved for decades (e.g., tough exterior, insecure interior). Even as Szwed stays in tune with Davis' music from beginning to end, he reveals with unprecedented detail just how chaotic his personal life was. Previously I thought Davis was unlucky to have died so relatively young...albeit at age 65. Given all of the substance abuse and other problems he faced (and created for himself), I'm now amazed that Miles lasted so long, and how he could--with a bare minimum of lulls over nearly a half-century--be artistically creative right up to his final hospitalization in 1991. Being that Miles' life was often sensationalistic to begin with, Szwed plays it cool with this hot topic, writing the way that Davis played, sans ornamentation. SO WHAT stays focused on the big picture...with details that dip beneath the surface throughout Miles' entire life. The information seems mostly accurate; among the errors that I caught were that Szwed states the 1985 Artists United vs. Apartheid SUN CITY project in which Davis participated was a Quincy Jones production (in reality it was led by Little Steven and Arthur Baker). The author is confusing that benefit recording with WE ARE THE WORLD from the same year which Jones did direct (this error undermines Szwed's critique of the SUN CITY album). Also, it's unfortunate that the 20-CD COMPLETE MONTREUX boxed set came along too late to be included here, because the high quality of that music is the best evidence yet that Miles' final years were musically-productive ones. However, all this means is that understanding Davis remains an ongoing process. Even with its few minor flaws, no one to date has better unraveled the enigmatic genius of Miles Davis than Szwed. I recommended this book first, with Paul Tingen's MILES BEYOND next in line.
Rating:
Summary: Overall, the best
Review: This is the best-written, measured and unbiased of all the Miles biographies. Although it demystifed Miles somewhat, I still got "that feeling" I get whenever I listen to or read anything about the man. Of course, there's bound to be some overlap with some of the other biographies (there's only so many times you can read the same quote again and again . . .), yet because of Mr. Szwed's excellent writing skills, it's a good read from start to finish. The account of the first half of Miles' life is particularly engaging, and I appreciate the fact that Szwed did not "dis" the music Miles made in the 70's (as some others have). This is the most honest, and therefore (to me, anyway) the most HUMAN of all the writings on Miles. To paraphrase Joe Zawinul : "Miles - the greatest conversation piece in 20 years!". And the conversation is still continuing. Why? This book will help tell why. And while you're at it, check out Szwed's bio of Sun Ra: oh, thanks, John!
Rating: 
Summary: Streaky Chronicle, Retelling the Legend
Review: To be a jazz fan is to be a Miles junkie, so Szwed's book really may require no further justification than the sizable audience it is bound to attract. Nevertheless, he offers 3 defenses for another biography: there is more to be known; there are misunderstandings to be corrected; his book is more a "meditation" than a bio or musical study. He also decries biographies that "fill in the blanks," "heat up the significance," and turn the "biographer into a novelist." It doesn't seem to occur to him that blanks communicate their own significance, that the narrator's decision about what materials to use and how to order them is in itself an "interpretation." There is no way to resolve his contradictory roles as "mediator" and "meditator," but had he at least acknowledged the difficulty we might have had greater faith in his narrator. To the reader familiar with the Miles' literature, the first 300 pages are bound to seem much like recycled material, leavened occasionally by a quote from an acquaintaince of Miles heretofore not on the record. Moreover, it's hard not to experience impatience at yet another explanation of "bebop," at the gratuitous introductions of jazz giants (e.g. to learn that Sonny Stitt played alto saxophone and sounded like Bird), and at yet another extended description of Miles' major recording sessions ("Kind of Blue," "Sketches of Spain," "In a Silent Way," "B's Brew"). Close to a quarter of the book's representation of Miles' 65 years is devoted to the years 1969-1971. The "Silent Way" recording session is afforded 24 pages whereas the author finds 8 pages sufficient to handle the "Kind of Blue" session. Wayne Shorter receives considerably more space than John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock gets more attention from the author than Red Garland and Wynton Kelly combined. The author's implicit criterion when it comes to Miles' music is that it's all good, and that each change is an innovation requiring little more than description of what was going on with Miles' choice and deployment of musicians along with his editing of the raw recorded product. In place of specific musical or aesthetic analysis, he constantly sets up "straw men," then refutes them with general sociological-cultural arguments as a way of defending Miles' accomplishment. For example, virtually any critic readily acknowledges that Miles was a better musical complement to Bird than was Diz. By suggesting otherwise, the author is able to "argue" what should be a given. Or he uses Martin Williams' unfavorable response to "Bitches Brew" to portray all such responses in terms that he can attack: "Many critics had an investment in being adult, in resisting the rising tide of rock." His counterargument is to draw on parallel developments in the arts (Eisenstein's theories of film montage to justify Miles' post-production shaping of his records) and the forces of change in popular culture, Wynton Marsalis, of course, comes off as a misguided bully, shrewd capitalist, and even hypocrite who "understood the social costs of innovation and bohemianism in the arts". Never mind that Miles himself had once heaped abuse on the likes of Louis Armstrong and tapped into the "bank" of pop culture, if not the treasury of commercial trends. Earlier, in fact, the author suggests that Miles is quite capable of playing his audience: "He knew how far not to go." In the absence of footnote numbers, the constructions beginning "he knew" or "he thought" become problematic, raising questions about the author's disavowals of intrusion. Perhaps most readers will find the final 100 pages the most fascinating part of the book as they recount Miles deterioration. Still, no thoughtful reader can help but be incredulous at the reportage of the apparently indiscriminate, non-stop consumption of uppers and downers, injected street drugs and prescribed medications, beer and hard liquor by a 150 pound specimen (at his peak) who along the way is reported to have diabetes, broken and rebroken ankles, hip replacements, a heart attack, a stroke, while maintaining a prolific love life. (The rumors of Miles having AIDS are simply repeated, along with the observation that he was once treated with AZT. Does anyone bother to check medical records?) The author barely considers the psychological effects of even one of these events--and he fails to address the question of Miles' physical addiction or withdrawal in his final years. If the book is intended to de-mythologize Miles the icon, it rather succeeds in doing quite the opposite, creating a superhuman phenomenon whose energies, appetites, capacities exceeded even Bird's. By treating the death of Miles' father as just another of many events, it fails to offer the reader a "Rosebud" that might help us see into the soul of the artist, whose own denial of the past need not block our own attempts at understanding its connection with the artist's present.
Rating:
Summary: Streaky Chronicle, Retelling the Legend
Review: To be a jazz fan is to be a Miles junkie, so Szwed's book really may require no further justification than the sizable audience it is bound to attract. Nevertheless, he offers 3 defenses for another biography: there is more to be known; there are misunderstandings to be corrected; his book is more a "meditation" than a bio or musical study. He also decries biographies that "fill in the blanks," "heat up the significance," and turn the "biographer into a novelist." It doesn't seem to occur to him that blanks communicate their own significance, that the narrator's decision about what materials to use and how to order them is in itself an "interpretation." There is no way to resolve his contradictory roles as "mediator" and "meditator," but had he at least acknowledged the difficulty we might have had greater faith in his narrator. To the reader familiar with the Miles' literature, the first 300 pages are bound to seem much like recycled material, leavened occasionally by a quote from an acquaintaince of Miles heretofore not on the record. Moreover, it's hard not to experience impatience at yet another explanation of "bebop," at the gratuitous introductions of jazz giants (e.g. to learn that Sonny Stitt played alto saxophone and sounded like Bird), and at yet another extended description of Miles' major recording sessions ("Kind of Blue," "Sketches of Spain," "In a Silent Way," "B's Brew"). Close to a quarter of the book's representation of Miles' 65 years is devoted to the years 1969-1971. The "Silent Way" recording session is afforded 24 pages whereas the author finds 8 pages sufficient to handle the "Kind of Blue" session. Wayne Shorter receives considerably more space than John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock gets more attention from the author than Red Garland and Wynton Kelly combined. The author's implicit criterion when it comes to Miles' music is that it's all good, and that each change is an innovation requiring little more than description of what was going on with Miles' choice and deployment of musicians along with his editing of the raw recorded product. In place of specific musical or aesthetic analysis, he constantly sets up "straw men," then refutes them with general sociological-cultural arguments as a way of defending Miles' accomplishment. For example, virtually any critic readily acknowledges that Miles was a better musical complement to Bird than was Diz. By suggesting otherwise, the author is able to "argue" what should be a given. Or he uses Martin Williams' unfavorable response to "Bitches Brew" to portray all such responses in terms that he can attack: "Many critics had an investment in being adult, in resisting the rising tide of rock." His counterargument is to draw on parallel developments in the arts (Eisenstein's theories of film montage to justify Miles' post-production shaping of his records) and the forces of change in popular culture, Wynton Marsalis, of course, comes off as a misguided bully, shrewd capitalist, and even hypocrite who "understood the social costs of innovation and bohemianism in the arts". Never mind that Miles himself had once heaped abuse on the likes of Louis Armstrong and tapped into the "bank" of pop culture, if not the treasury of commercial trends. Earlier, in fact, the author suggests that Miles is quite capable of playing his audience: "He knew how far not to go." In the absence of footnote numbers, the constructions beginning "he knew" or "he thought" become problematic, raising questions about the author's disavowals of intrusion. Perhaps most readers will find the final 100 pages the most fascinating part of the book as they recount Miles deterioration. Still, no thoughtful reader can help but be incredulous at the reportage of the apparently indiscriminate, non-stop consumption of uppers and downers, injected street drugs and prescribed medications, beer and hard liquor by a 150 pound specimen (at his peak) who along the way is reported to have diabetes, broken and rebroken ankles, hip replacements, a heart attack, a stroke, while maintaining a prolific love life. (The rumors of Miles having AIDS are simply repeated, along with the observation that he was once treated with AZT. Does anyone bother to check medical records?) The author barely considers the psychological effects of even one of these events--and he fails to address the question of Miles' physical addiction or withdrawal in his final years. If the book is intended to de-mythologize Miles the icon, it rather succeeds in doing quite the opposite, creating a superhuman phenomenon whose energies, appetites, capacities exceeded even Bird's. By treating the death of Miles' father as just another of many events, it fails to offer the reader a "Rosebud" that might help us see into the soul of the artist, whose own denial of the past need not block our own attempts at understanding its connection with the artist's present.
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