Miles & Me: Miles Davis, the man, the musician, and his friendship with the journalist and poet Quincy Troupe

by Quincy Troupe

Overview

Soon to be a major motion picture from the producers of Fences and The Hurricane

"Brilliant, poetic, provocative, Quincy Troupe's Miles & Me reveals the man behind the dark glasses and legend."—Ishmael Reed 

Poet, activist, and journalist Quincy Troupe's candid account of his friendship with Miles Davis is a revealing portrait of a great musician and an engrossing chronicle of the author's own artistic and personal growth. Miles & Me describes in intimate detail the sometimes harrowing processes of Davis's spectacular creativity and the joys and travails Davis's passionate and contradictory temperament posed to the two men's friendship. Miles & Me shows how Davis, both as an artist and as a black man, influenced Troupe and whole generations of Americans while forever changing the face of jazz. 

With a new introduction by film producer Rudy Langlais, an original photo essay of Miles and Quincy together by Jon Stevens, and a new Q&A with Quincy Troupe about how—and why—he came to write Miles & Me. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609808341
Publisher:	Seven Stories Press
Publication date:	09/25/2018
Edition description:	Media Tie-in
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	928,861
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Poet, teacher, journalist Quincy Troupe is an alumnus of the Watts Writers Workshop and, along with his friends Ishmael Reed, Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni and others, associated with the Black Arts Movement. He was named California's first poet laureate in 2002. Troupe's Miles: The Autobiography is considered a contemporary classic of musical artist biography. Among his many other books are his collaboration on the autobiography of Chris Gardner, The Pursuit of Happyness, which became a popular film starring Will Smith. He also wrote James Baldwin: The Legacy and Earl the Pearl: My Story by Earl Monroe and Quincy Troupe. Troupe has published many volumes of his poetry over the years and has also published several children's books.

Read an Excerpt

From the book:
"Listening to Miles play, I was always conscious way before I met him of being in the presence of a great poet, one who constructed great metaphors through the medium of sound. His voice is very close to that of a human voice. It was a mysterious voice that made me dream."

Table of Contents

	Prologue	1
1	Meeting miles	9
2	Up close and personal	39
3	Listening to miles	111
4	Saying good-bye	157
	Epilogue	163
	Index	177

Editorial Reviews

"Brilliant, poetic, provocative, Quincy Troupe's Miles and Me reveals the man behind the dark glasses and legend."  —Ishmael Reed

 "Using refreshingly unscholarly language, poet and literature professor Troupe paints an aptly minimalist portrait of the artist as a man-child in both his musical curiosity and his irrational tantrums. Miles and Me is witheringly honest and deeply perceptive. A must-read for Davis devotees." —Entertainment Weekly

"[Troupe] gives the stories behind the collaboration, from his own introduction to Davis's music in the1950s—and to Davis's stature as 'an unreconstructed black man'—up to Davis's death in 1991..." —The New York Times Book Review

"Troupe is a wonderfully astute judge of human behavior and brings a poet's acuteness of vision to depicting Davis's aura of intimidation and kingly power. He is also well aware of Davis's deeply felt loneliness, the terrible solitude of genius." —Kirkus Reviews

"It has been said that Miles Davis was a great poet on his instrument. In a similar vein, it can be said that Quincy Troupe is a great instrument in his poetic delivery. As fate would have it, these two very talented individuals would form a mutual and intriguing bond. Miles and Me, Quincy Troupe's latest book, is a honest, serious and sometimes hilarious memoir of his warm and cherished friendship with Miles Davis." —Larvester Gaither, QBR The Black Book Review

 

From the Publisher

Introduces us to the moody genius of the jazz trumpeter and paints a candid portrait-full of imperfections and color-that gives us a rare window into Davis' world.

Ebony Magazine

An indispensable and entertaining look at the musical giant in his more mundane moments.

Kansas City Star

Troupe seems to have penetrated the jazz legend's prickly exterior. Miles and Me seduces with hilariously mundane anecdotes.

Flaunt

Troupe's book will keep Davis fans happy.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

[Troupe] gives the stories behind the collaboration, from his own introduction to Davis's music in the 1950s-and to Davis's stature as 'an unreconstructed black man'-up to Davis's death in 1991—

NY Times Book Review

Many memoirs of friendships with famous people tend toward the sycophantic and predictable, but Quincy Troupe's Miles and Me is a vivid, complicated tribute to the legendary jazz musician.

Chicago Tribune

Using refreshingly unscholarly language, poet and literature professor Troupe paints an aptly minimalist portrait of the artist as a man-child in both his musical curiosity and his irrational tantrums. Miles and Me is witheringly honest and deeply perceptive. A must-read for Davis devotees. A-

Entertainment Weekly

Growing up in St. Louis, Mo., in the 1950s, Troupe idolized jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, seeing him as an alternative to his own white-dominated neighborhood and high school. Miles, as a successful black man embodying all that was hip and proud, was a favorite role model for Troupe and his friends. Thirty years later, Troupe met his hero, and eventually collaborated with him on Miles: The Autobiography. Now he's documented his relationships with man and music in this slim, conversational volume. In casual, sentimental language ridden with gossipy details about Miles's Italian designer clothes, Troupe notes every interaction between Miles and himself that preceded their collaboration and relates favorite vignettes from that project. But what's notable about these anecdotes is how banal they are, from a story about an incompetent roadie, whom Miles predicted would drop everything because he "walked out of tempo," to Troupe's reflections on Miles's habit of hurling harsh insults at strangers who approached him. Although Miles's fans may be happy to read sketches from his life, this book works more as a commentary on the phenomenon of devoted fandom than as another biography of the trumpeter. The book's third section, in which Troupe (now a professor of literature at UC-San Diego) writes about how Miles affected his own coming-of-age, is by far the most compelling, because it deals with the emotional effects music can have upon its listeners--which is, after all, both the cause and the most lyrical side of fandom. 16 b&w photos not seen by PW. (Mar.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Miles Davis's open-mindedness toward innovation (musically and personally) set an example that inspired many of his listeners. He made young blacks in particular feel special and free; and some, like Troupe (Choruses, Avalanche), were able to use their imaginations in ways not probable without Davis. Pithy and succinct (one wishes he had written twice as much), Troupe continues to flesh out and demystify Davis in this follow-up to their collaboration, Miles: The Autobiography (LJ 10/1/89), and the Miles Davis Radio Project (a multipart radio series). Filled with "Milesian" humor and off-color language (those sensitive to gratuitous swearing may find this an arduous read), Troupe's book reveals Davis as profoundly, artistically sensitive yet maddeningly mean-spirited and rude. From his teenaged impressions during the 1950s to his mature, deeper reflections at the time of Davis's passing, numerous vignettes clearly show that a rewarding and richly hued relationship had developed between the two men. Recommended for public and academic libraries.--William Kenz, Moorhead State Univ. Lib., MN Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Library Journal

Miles and Me is witheringly honest and deeply perceptive. A must-read for Davis devotees.
—Entertainment Weekly

Dennis M. Fett