‘Miles Davis: The Birth of Cool’ Reconciles Groundbreaking Music And Bad Behavior Of Legendary Jazzman

The first thing you notice are those eyes, impossibly large, all seeing and vibrating with a controlled anger. Then there was his raspy speaking voice, the result of an unhealed throat operation, as much his sonic signature as the haunting breathy sound of his trumpet. Able to create music that was both immediately accessible and defiantly challenging, Miles Davis is one of the most important artists in jazz and American music as a whole, even if at various points he seemed locked in battle with the genre, the nation and himself. 

The 2019 documentary Miles Davis: The Birth of Cool uses archival footage, interviews and Davis’ own words, as voiced by actor Carl Lumbly (Alias, This Is Us), to bring its subject to life, warts and all. Besides his genuine musical genius, Davis battled addiction and was notoriously difficult. Directed by documentarian Stanley Nelson, the film originally premiered as part of PBS’ American Masters series and is currently available for streaming on Netflix. 

Born in 1926, Davis grew up in East St. Louis, a place he says was filled with “country people, black and white,” and “racist to the bone.” He came from a well-to-do family, his father was a dentist and land owner, but prosperity couldn’t protect Davis from the violence and indignities of being black in Jim Crow America. Even after becoming famous, he was the victim of police brutality and would eventually become one of black America’s cultural figureheads, “our black superman,” in the words of noted musicologist Tammy L. Kernodle. 

Davis says his parents were “at each other’s throats since I was a little kid,” sometimes resulting in domestic violence. Friends say this colored his attitude towards women. He would mimic this behavior in his own relationships.  Davis blames paranoia, insecurity and drugs for his violence against women, but there’s no real excuse for it. Though he later expressed regret for his actions, he never stopped physically abusing his romantic partners, according to final girlfriend Jo Gelbard.   

Music and change were the two constants throughout Davis’ life. Music “comes before everything,” he says at the film’s beginning, adding that, “If anybody wants to keep creating, they have to be about change.” Over the course of his 46 year recording career he played a variety of styles and was instrumental in the development of cool jazz, hard bop and jazz rock fusion. He played in small jazz combos, large ensembles with rock instrumentation and led orchestras and his repertoire included jazz standards, pop tunes and group improvisation. Among myriad other accomplishments, he released two of the best selling jazz albums of all time; 1959’s Kind of Blue and 1970’s Bitches Brew. That they sound nothing alike and were equally important is a testament to his greatness. 

While Davis’ artistry brought accolades and commercial success, he was infamously caustic, which added to his mystique. “I was cold to mostly everyone,” he admits, though says it was at least partly a defense mechanism. He also claims his penchant for playing with his back to the audience, taken as a slight by some, was actually in order to better communicate and direct his band in the heat of performance.  

Unfortunately, Davis also battled addiction throughout his life. He became a junkie after returning from a triumphant European tour in 1949, depressed by the stifling racism of his home country. By the early 1950s, he had kicked heroin but was not sober in the strict sense. He drank, used cocaine and took painkillers to deal with a series of hip injuries. His cocaine addiction eventually got so bad that he spent the second half of the 1970s in drug-addled seclusion before finally getting clean again in 1980. 

Like the painter Pablo Picasso, the length of Davis’ career is matched by the diversity of his output, and I’m hard pressed to think of another musician who remained relevant for as long. It’s a challenge doing justice to the different stages of his life in a two-hour documentary, but Miles Davis: The Birth of Cool does an admirable job, covering the basics with enough detail to satisfy fans and hopefully inspire further investigation by those who only know the name. While being frank about Davis’ personal failings, they don’t dominate the narrative and instead are incorporated into a thorough examination of his life and work. 

In July 1991, Davis returned to the music of his past for the first time, playing selections from his 1950’s catalog at the Montreux Jazz Festival with a band and orchestra led by Quincy Jones. That September he died from a stroke at the age of 65. According to Jo Gelbard, Davis told her at the end of his life, “When God punishes you, it’s not that you don’t get what you want. You get everything you want and there’s no time left.” 

Benjamin H. Smith is a New York based writer, producer and musician. Follow him on Twitter:@BHSmithNYC.