Miles Dewey Davis

I was listening to "Jazz Track" by Miles and just thinking about the love, and not like so much relationship I had with his music. I also began to think about Miles "the person".

I was born in the exact same neighborhood Miles was raised in. I didn't know this until I read his autobiography and discovered I knew the people he mentioned as well as recalled details he spoke of about the neighborhood.

I never met Miles because I was three years old when he left the neighborhood. The interesting thing about Miles "The person", is the fact that he is so much different from "Miles the celebrity".

I talked to his friends, people he played basketball with, went swimming with, and even tried to play football with. His best friend, Millard Curtis, was a star football player in high school, and he had every record Miles had recorded when I talked to him.

Miles the "foul mouth celebrity" was a very mannerable young man around his elders in the neighborhood, the same as any other young man of that day. "Better not let one of your fathers friends hear that you were cussing".

The funniest story about "Miles the person" occurred in a funereal Limo. It was "dead silent" for a long while on that seemingly long ride to the cemetery, when someone broke the silence with a comment about Miles and his music, and the most bereaved person in the Limo piped in;

"I remember Miles, he was that little dark skinned kid who was always trying to play the trumpet".

Again the funereal Limo was "dead silent".

Everybody loved Miles "the person", not a single bad word did I discover about him. When he gave parties for his old friends, non of his musician friends were allowed, or anyone else for that matter, because at those gatherings he was no longer "Miles the celebrity", but Miles the kid from the old neighborhood.