Told by Chris Murphy, a young, down-on-his-luck, Irish-American guitarist who devoted himself to Miles Davis, first as his roadie and assistant, and then as one of his most trusted road managers, Miles to Go is a frank and intimate exploration of Davis’s eccentric working life, drug habits, paranoia, depression, and subsequent recovery. It also deals with Davis’s troubled relationship with his children and the controversial role Cicely Tyson played in his life. Murphy explores the dynamics that made Davis’s band work so well together, placing Davis’s work in a historic, literary, and musical framework. It corrects Davis’s own almost self-hating autobiography, and attempts to treat with some balance the rumors about Davis being bisexual and HIV positive upon his death. Willie Nelson, Mick Jagger, Jimi Hendrix, and a very unlikely Mother Theresa all have walk-on parts in this engaging, intelligent, and often hilarious narrative that takes us from the small seedy jazz clubs that Davis was always at home in, to the world tours, and then finally to Davis’s triumphant return with his celebrated concerts at Lincoln Center in the early ‘80s. Eight pages of black-and-white photos are included.
In this thin memoir, an adoring fan and former assistant of Miles Davis makes a plea for the legendary musician's sainthood. Working as Miles's roadie and doting servant for two narrow stretches 1973-1976, and 1981-1983 the author recounts his sketchy memories and tales from the road in an effort to shine more light on the musician's later years. (In the mid-1970s, Miles quit playing music altogether and slid into a five-year depression, reemerging in the early '80s with a few inspired, if uneven, records.) Unfortunately, most of these fragmented anecdotes like the one about Miles's pants repeatedly popping open on stage during a concert, or the "Spinal Tap" moment when he got himself wrapped up in the wires to his amp tell readers little about the man. Murphy is also unconvincing in his attempts to correct Miles's own "self-hating autobiography." On Miles being a misogynist: "I never once saw him raise his hand against a woman"; a hater of whites: "No, he didn't." It all reads like vanity press and is likely to disappoint even the most obsessive Miles fans. They and newcomers will be better off with Miles: The Autobiography with Quincy Troupe, and Ian Carr's Miles Davis: The Definitive Biography.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
An out-of-work guitarist in the 1970s, Murphy gave up his day job at a music store to work as a road crew member and later as road manager for Miles Davis' band, during one of the most tumultuous eras in the trumpeter's long musical career. The two formed a close bond, and their professional relationship evolved into friendship, with Murphy becoming an all-around man Friday to Davis. Many of the "scandalous" aspects of Miles' life--drug use and freewheeling sex life--are fairly well-known and widely reported. But Murphy has written a revisionist account of Miles the man. Instead of the enigmatic, aloof, intimidating, and violent person Davis revealed to the public in his autobiography, Murphy insists the man he knew was far more human than the myth. Murphy portrays Miles as funny, loyal, and generous but lonely and often depressed, struggling with the pressures of his career and chaotic personal life during what was a difficult era for jazz musicians.
Ted LeventhalCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
