Tag: Miles Davis

THE INCANDESCENCE OF MILES DAVIS

There is something unsettling about the late works of Miles Davis.  Not the music. We have learned how to speak about that. We have found language for Kind of Blue, for Bitches Brew, for the many revolutions that made Miles legible to history. It is the drawings that resist us.  In the latter years of […]

SKETCHES OF BECOMING: CONVERSATIONS ON MILES

There are friendships forged in proximity, and others tempered in absence. Stretched across borders, tested by history, and sustained by memory. The musical reflections that follow emerge from the latter: a lifelong dialogue between us. Our paths diverged early under the pressures of exile, yet remained tethered by a shared sensibility, a common ear, and […]

THE SORCERER: MILES DAVIS AT 100

The other day, I woke up with a serious affliction. I was hustled and mugged by a tune. I could not banish it from my interiority. It had me in its clutches. The song was Jo-Jo from Miles Davis album Amandla, released in 1989, on the cusp of our democratic breakthrough. The album was an […]

THE SOLITUDE OF SILENCE: LIFE THROUGH A HORN AND LESSONS FROM MILES DAVIS

Every person eventually discovers an instrument through which existence becomes intelligible. For some it is a pen, for others a camera, a classroom, a stethoscope, a courtroom, or the quiet patience of a workshop bench. The instrument becomes more than a tool; it becomes a lens through which the world is interpreted. Over time it […]

THE VISIBLE COUNCIL, GUIDED BY THE INVISIBLE

For three days and two nights, tucked away in the quiet embrace of a farm, I sat with men who have lived more than half a century of South Africa’s unspoken histories. It was less a gathering than a council. Visible in our laughter, debate, and storytelling, yet guided always by an invisible hand of […]

MILES DAVIS AT 99: THE LEGACY OF THE MAESTRO

On May 26, 2025, the world would have marked the 99th birthday of Miles Dewey Davis III.  A man who redefined the very structure and soul of modern music. Born in Alton, Illinois in 1926 and raised in East St. Louis, Davis was far more than a jazz trumpeter. He was a cultural icon, sonic […]