#01 The Hubris of Humans
"You must not sound like anyone else, ever."
Miles Davis is one of the most influential, innovative, and acclaimed musicians in history. He revolutionized jazz through multiple movements, including bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz, and fusion. A masterful bandleader, he cultivated a unique stage presence and mystique, and made possible that jazz legends collaborated to create absolute masterpieces. His status rose to that of a cultural icon beyond just his musical prowess.
Born a black man in a middle family, he had the stacks against him during the seggregation years of the USA. At age thriteen, to his mother’s disapproval, he got his hands on a trumpet (she wanted him to play the violin). A short few years later, Miles Davis left his hometown in Illinois to join The Juilliard School, a private school in New York City considered one of the world’s top in performing arts.
This alone would already be considered a feat reserved for the best, especially under his conditions. Miles was smart, dedicated, and a quick learner, and was doing well in a very demanding school. During the nights, though, instead of locking himself in his room and practicing his scales, he went out to live the music of New York. He had no trouble finding gigs to play with other musicians, especially in areas where black people gathered. He fell in love with jazz.
Shortly before two years, Miles Davis took a train back home to tell his father he was decided to stop studying at Juilliard. “That’s dead white men’s music,” he said, something he could no longer see himself doing. He wanted to give life to a living music, black people music. He was going to be a jazz player.
“I'll approve of your dropping out, and will even pay for your expenses while you need me to,” said his father, who knew how talented Miles Davis was. “On one condition,” he continued: “you must not sound like anyone else, ever."
My favorite jazz song, Blue in Green, in a masterful collaboration of three giants and the lead song in the most successful jazz album ever. This song is considered “the Impressionist’s painting in Jazz” for breaking with many of the “accepted” norms of how jazz should be.
Of course, he was Miles Davis, so easy for him, right? Well, he was definitely not an easy person, and some accounts would portray him as a proper jerk, from signing songs he never wrote (as is said about Blue in Green) to drug abuse and cheating on partners. Others would say that was a persona he put to be able to endure the fame and the showbiz.
I, for one, don’t care much, and I don’t think Miles Davis would as well. Whatever he did after he was famous is not the most important part of his history. Not entering Juilliard also - a guarantee of success as a musician, one of the professions with most rarified success rates. But being willing to walk out of this and accepting his final challenge, posed by his father - that is the hubris we should all be capable of. The only way of becoming who we are is being willing to be disliked for sounding like no one else, ever.
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