In the mid-70s of the past century, the biggest jazz trumpeter of all times, Miles Davis, was a ruin. Physically and mentally exhausted, with the unsuccessful marriage and drug addiction behind him, Miles made a five year break, the longest one in his career. It is precisely this period that is covered in a movie Miles Ahead that approaches the narrative just like it should – intermittently, crazy and non-linearly. This is the only way to break inside the mind of mysterious genius and understand the philosophy of jazz, or social music, as Davis called it.
The director and the lead protagonist are the same person, brilliant Don Cheadle. The film has a personal note that may not please typical fans of biopic, rather those who like questions such as Who does this song remind me of. Surreal audio-visual cocktail comprised of fragments of Miles’ real of imaginary life offers perfect selection of music numbers.
One of my favorites from the soundtrack is Nefertiti, a post-bop masterpiece created by an all star crew – Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. The song comes right before the fight between Miles and his wife Frances. The sound and the image are complementing each other throughout the movie. Seven Steps To Heaven is one great example, but also wild tribal funk of Black Satin and subtle, jazz flamenco in Solea (both of these are central points of Sketches Of Spain, one of Davis’ best albums).
Due to the fact that this film breaks stereotypes with its storyline, the same can be said for the choice of music. Kind Of Blue is missing from the collection, and it is Miles Davis’ most commercially successful piece. On the other hand, the opener of that revolutionary piece that invented modal jazz, So What, gracefully appears at the beginning of the movie when Davis yells at the radio host I have made a lot of mistakes on Kind Of Blue, better play something from Sketches of Spain.
This story is abundant of these type of moments – just when you think something is going in one direction, the normal rhythm stops and everything enters the new dimension. Isn’t that unpredictability the meaning of jazz?
