Miles Autobiography

The late jazz trumpeter Miles Davis's autobiography is a hard-hitting story of racism, drug addiction, and musical genius. Born to a relatively well-off family (his father was a dentist) in southern Illinois, Davis had a colorful but sometimes disturbing childhood. He recalls the multiracial community the family moved to in East St. Louis, and his first trumpet, given to him by a family friend, as well as the often violent fights between his mother and father. While attending New York's Juilliard School of Music, he became a rising star on the 52nd St. nightclub circuit; his music career started in earnest when he was invited to perform with Charlie Parker. Davis is candid about the drug use that nearly derailed his career in the 1950s, and rails constantly against the racial tension he depicts as endemic in American society; it's arguably this passion, coupled with an abiding musical curiosity that remained with him all his life, that fueled his almost 50-year career in jazz. Davis displays a gift for making his point concisely; the spare, uncomplicated rhythms of his prose recall the economic phrasing of his trumpet solos, while his knack for telling it like it is makes for compelling reading.