Rating: 
Summary: Engaging, as is he
Review: Many will argue that Miles Davis is the single most important individual contributor to American music. Whether this is true or not, his life as well as his music is certainly worth a close examination. ...For those like me wondering what he thought, this work was eagerly awaited.Miles starts with his childhood, and quickly moves into his early love of music and his more formal training. He speaks candidly of the many individuals with whom he helped shape jazz music, like Bird, Dizzy, Jones, Trane and a host of others. Interestingly, he projects that jazz will continue drawing fewer and fewer fans as the years pass. Perhaps another innovator like Miles Davis will come along before it is too late, and save this particularly American art form. My only complaint? The book is too real. I found the incessant obscenity much too distracting. ...After a short time, it loses its punch. The only thing missing would have been a soundtrack. A couple of his boxed sets to go along with this work is the only necessary accessory.
Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely Searing Autobiography
Review: Miles davis pulled no punches when he wrote this incredibly honest memoir. His candor about himself and other luminaries of the jazz world is indispensible reading to jazz fans and anyone with an interest in music. He reveals many unflattering characteristics but also freely praises other musicians with whom he played and clearly describes why they deserve such praise. One can learn a great deal about the creative process and the environment that drove these musicians to explore and expand musically. Miles Davis is equally honest about heroin addiction and his and others struggle to overcome it. Some succeded, many more failed. Characters like Charlie parker, Sonny Rollins, Max Roach, Dizz Gillespie, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane , Monk and countless others float in and out of the story as Miles Davis and others were forming and reforming combinations due to a variety of circumstances. The music scene in New York in the late 40's and early 50's was overflowing with soon to be legendary performers. Davis had a vision of what his music should sound like and he relentlessly pursued that sound through the decades and evolved as an artist moving one step ahead (if not several steps ) of everyone else. I've always loved Davis' music but after reading this it is impossible not to admire the man's artisitc integrity. This guy was clearly a Giant of American music and nothing in this book will diminish his stature artistically. I feel that I understand the records and the context of the music much better for having read this. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Pulls no Punches
Review: Miles Davis was a central figure in Jazz throughout the 2nd half of the 20th century. It makes sense that if you want to learn more about this most important art form you would read this book. There are plenty of f-bombs and other cusswords in this book but they only lend a greater reality to the stories Miles tells. I could go on and on about Miles Davis and his shaping of Jazz during his carreer, moving through Bebop to the Birth of the Cool and bringing great artists such as Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Tony WIlliams, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Jack DeJohnette, Joe Zawinul, John Mclaughlin, and many others into the Jazz world--and I don't even really like the Trumpet as an instrument all that much--But Miles, he rules. And you get to read this book and feel as if you are sitting across the table from him. He reveals his life, warts and all, addictions, mistakes, temper flareups, and all that great ... music! Any person in the least interested in the history of Modern music owes themselves the priviledge of reading this book. Suspend judgement and enjoy the ride!
Rating:
Summary: One of the most enjoyable books I've ever read
Review: Miles Davis's autobiography with Quincy Troupe has to be one of the best books I've ever read. Constantly entertaining, tragic, hysterically funny and with lots of great stories it, the book is a must have for any fan of jazz. All of Miles's life is here, from his earliest memory, his arrival in New York, his fabulous recordings of the '50s and '60s, his six years where he didn't play at all, to his triumphant return in the '80s. The book was published only two years before his death, so really everything that he ever did is in this book. Highly reccomended.
Rating:
Summary: An important work of history and honest soul searching
Review: Miles Davis, with all his faults, flaws and laughable quirks, was still one of the most important musicians of the twentieth century. It takes a book like this where he leaves no stone unturned to make clear the debt we all owe him and his contemporaries, as well as the restless spirit that lead him beyond what he helped to establish as modern jazz. In many ways he shows himself to be, ironically, the archetypal and sterotypical artist simultaneously. Yet his telling of the profound friendships he had with Max Roach and Coltrane, his deep awe and respect but dispassionate eye for the genius and addictions of Charlie Parker, the loves of his life- and what he put them through, and his brutal, courageous hoonesty in general, gives us a gift of his haunting humanity. But above all, this about the music. His own telling of his style, the true creators of the form in total and the actual environment where it was produced, and how he created so many styles of his own is enough to make this book worth having. You will never find another human being who can make curse words sound so beautiful! If you love jazz, or are a jazz musician, this book will remind you why. And why you love Miles. Everybody does.
Rating:
Summary: he is the picasso of jazz
Review: Miles is one of those musians that you have to give credit to. He has changed his style so much, but you know it was him. If it was cool jazz, hard bop, or fusion miles turns everything into an art form. And he also had the pimped out life style. It was hard to believe that in the seventies when he retired from music that he was all coked out. Once he was driving in his ferarri at night and thought the police were after him, so he stopped his car and ran into a building and left his keys in the car in the middle of the street, and he was hiding in an janitors room. I hope Miles will be remembered for his music and his cool personality.
Rating:
Summary: Great lesson of life and music
Review: Miles reveals his music and life secret in the best way: being himself All the world behind a legend in a very complete and vivid description. A true lesson of life and jazz.
Rating:
Summary: Collaborator occassionally but never politically
Review: Miles' words match his music. That revolutionary sound burns, subverts and takes you to a whole new space. If you read his life story you'll never question whether he put himself into his sound. The book doesn't pander to anyone. ( A mild way of stating he writes raw and real.) He was a sinner but did not succomb to the pressures of the establishment press. Who else would turn his his back on the audiences, and terrorize influential interviewers?
This volume, like all his work, totally his own; proves him an intolerant bully, certain drug addict, chronic
irreverent often seething with universal contempt. The section of Cicely Tyson's extravagant 'Tribute to Miles' is too good for me to spoil it here. Miles surely demythologizes Tyson, whom he claimed he never loved. But he also gets a few jabs in at Trane, and we all know the pantheon wherein he presides.
His childhood is interesting and not the typical po' boy refrain. His father a dentist, comfortable but surely not wealthy. Still, on the whole, Davis had it better in St. Louis than most black folks.
This book is a "must read" for jazz lovers and people who seek liberation from the ordinary. Hear Miles talk about how good he looked and sounded. Nobody else could have written this book. Nobody would dare.
Rating: 
Summary: Caveats
Review: Not great literature, and not exceptionally insightful. Miles' public persona was a construct, affecting intentionally coarse language and simplistic, conflicting views. Lest you haven't gotten your share of that in the numerous interviews he gave, you can get your fill here. One might say that Miles in his own words is just being "direct"; one might also say that, in terms of this gutteriffic book versus the man's incredible music, his crudeness is hugely disappointing. The best things Miles ever said were thru his music. For measured commentary on his life and work, you'll have to turn elsewhere. Speaking of which, the highly recommended Milestones by Jack Chambers, in its 1998 edition, detailed several passages of Miles autobio that were direct rips from Chambers' own texts. Anyone who thinks Miles' book is the bomb should at least glance at Chambers' recent forward to Milestones, which should raise an eyebrow or two. (Milestones itself is probably the best Miles bio available, in any case.) It's kind of fitting, though; Miles wasn't exactly a stranger to assigning his own name to someone else's music, so why would he be above plagiarizing words? Especially when there's a book advance already doled out and a deadline approaching? I don't mean to demean the musician, though; Miles was obviously a giant and one of the most important visionaries of the 20th century. But again, it's the music itself that tells that particular story. What you get here, in Chambers' words, is "self-inflicted tabloid journalism." The sleazy parts are not worth detailing, and the questions regarding authorship and originality can be distracting to the discerning reader.
Rating:
Summary: Meet the "black Jesus" archetype.
Review: This artist was fantastic, breathtaking in the way he carried himself, his music, and his life in general. He was messianic in terms of what he brought to jazz, a saving grace when jazz music languished on shelves untouched by consumer hands. He worked, baby, to rise above the strict confines of his race, striving not to be a black man, not to be a jazz artist, but to be just a man, just an artist. When drugs worked their evil hoodoo to take him out of the game, he launched a pre-emptive strike and used the time gone to fight his way up from hell. Brutally honest and outstanding to read. The last angry man, he isn't. But the last angry great man, he just might have been.
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