Frances Taylor Davis - Miles's Wife, her story. Horrifying.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Completely fascinating and horrifying. She's riveting, A wonderful woman. Miles a total total bastard. When he wasn't literally punching her out, throwing her against the walls and then naked through the front door ctc, he was destroying her, her ambitions and her career.

One of the GREAT mysteries of jazz is how this music can be played with exquisite sensitivity, awareness and tenderness by those who in "civilian" life are barely emotionally functional, with the personal empathy and human decency of a house brick...

It's on YOUTUBE and VIMEO. Just search on "Frances Taylor Davis - Life before and after Miles Davis.

BN.

Frances Taylor Davis shares her life history as a pioneering dancer with Katherine Dunham dance company, her marriage to Miles Davis and renewal after as a survivor. Recorded at the Italian Cultural Center, Los Angeles. 50min feature. Rick Bowman videographer.

Bio:
At the age of sixteen, Frances Taylor was granted a scholarship to study Dunham Technique in New York with the famed Katherine Dunham. It wasn’t until two years later in 1948, at the age of 18, she trained with Katherine Dunham and toured extensively with the professional company to Europe and South America. It was on tour in 1948, that Frances was recruited for a special presentation to perform with the esteemed Paris Opera Ballet. She was the first Black in the history of the company to perform with them. Arriving in Paris she joined the Paris Opera Ballet, another first, as the Paris Press quickly labeled her “the Leslie Caron of the tropics.” Frances took up acting, appearing with Sammy Davis Jr. in Porgy and Bess, Mr. Wonderful, and Shinbone Alley. In 1958, Frances married Miles Davis; the relationship spanned nine years. A Broadway dancer, Frances's career faltered after she left the hit musical “West Side Story” as Miles told her, “A woman should be with her man.” Upon reflection, Frances states of her relationship with Miles: “There’s got to be full treatment of his genius, as well as his shortcomings". Frances Taylor Davis continues to educate and inspire others with her story of survival and renewal"

[Serial_Apologist]

Completely fascinating and horrifying. She's riveting, A wonderful woman. Miles a total total bastard. When he wasn't literally punching her out, throwing her against the walls and then naked through the front door ctc, he was destroying her, her ambitions and her career.

One of the GREAT mysteries of jazz is how this music can be played with exquisite sensitivity, awareness and tenderness by those who in "civilian" life are barely emotionally functional, with the personal empathy and human decency of a house brick...

It's on YOUTUBE and VIMEO. Just search on "Frances Taylor Davis - Life before and after Miles Davis.

BN.

Frances Taylor Davis shares her life history as a pioneering dancer with Katherine Dunham dance company, her marriage to Miles Davis and renewal after as a survivor. Recorded at the Italian Cultural Center, Los Angeles. 50min feature. Rick Bowman videographer.

Bio:
At the age of sixteen, Frances Taylor was granted a scholarship to study Dunham Technique in New York with the famed Katherine Dunham. It wasn’t until two years later in 1948, at the age of 18, she trained with Katherine Dunham and toured extensively with the professional company to Europe and South America. It was on tour in 1948, that Frances was recruited for a special presentation to perform with the esteemed Paris Opera Ballet. She was the first Black in the history of the company to perform with them. Arriving in Paris she joined the Paris Opera Ballet, another first, as the Paris Press quickly labeled her “the Leslie Caron of the tropics.” Frances took up acting, appearing with Sammy Davis Jr. in Porgy and Bess, Mr. Wonderful, and Shinbone Alley. In 1958, Frances married Miles Davis; the relationship spanned nine years. A Broadway dancer, Frances's career faltered after she left the hit musical “West Side Story” as Miles told her, “A woman should be with her man.” Upon reflection, Frances states of her relationship with Miles: “There’s got to be full treatment of his genius, as well as his shortcomings". Frances Taylor Davis continues to educate and inspire others with her story of survival and renewal"

How well I remember her extraordinary (unaccountably magnanimous) and powerful presence of Ian Carr and Mike Dibb's Miles documentary in the early 2000's. Bumping into Ian (he was living in Brixton) I mentioned this in thanking him for giving so much space to "Miles's women"; Ian concurred, saying in many ways it was the women they'd wanted to give space, and who really "made" the documentary. Must get my VHS out sometime before the player finally rusts into happy memories.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

How well I remember her extraordinary (unaccountably magnanimous) and powerful presence of Ian Carr and Mike Dibb's Miles documentary in the early 2000's. Bumping into Ian (he was living in Brixton) I mentioned this in thanking him for giving so much space to "Miles's women"; Ian concurred, saying in many ways it was the women they'd wanted to give space, and who really "made" the documentary. Must get my VHS out sometime before the player finally rusts into happy memories.

One of the "heroes" of her story, and thank God the men were not all like Miles, was Cannonball Adderley, who when she had finally left Davis, but was still in real fear of him, and what he threatened to do, took her down to see him play, and together with her, they faced him down.

The incident that really got me was Miles and her meeting up with Quincy Jones and his lady at Birdland, all very sociable. When Frances and Miles got home, she innocently said, "what a good looking man Quincy is". Mlles just looked at her, picked her up, and hard punched her out cold. Knocked her clean out.

[Alyn_Shipton]

Quite by chance I met her while I was in LA working on my Jimmy McHugh biography. She was working in a restaurant on Sunset Strip where one of the McHugh family happened to know who she was. And she spent a good couple of hours reminiscing with me about Miles. Amazingly, she was almost entirely generous and magnanimous in her conversation about him. Yes, they'd had their ups and downs, yes she'd had some really bad times, but now she looked back on him with a considerable degree of both affection and admiration.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

"Ups and Downs", well yes, literally in her case, on the floor. He was the classic abuser, controller, and a calculating sociopath. I've seen a "justification" that his career was often Insecure, he was "in pain" , he was "an artist with temperament", bla bla bla. I think he treated his Ferrari with fsr more respect. Rarely have I watched something, at least lately, that made me so angry. I think it was Hazel Scott, who knew him well of old, who said he was a spoilt brat who never grew up. I think he was just degraded.. And to indulge that because of the "quality of the art" is to condone and gloss over it.

[Serial_Apologist]

Juliette Greco and Shirley Horne would seem to have been two women for whom Miles did at least seem to show respect, though I'm not clear as to whether or not the relationship with Ms Horne was purely platonic and musical.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Juliette Greco and Shirley Horne would seem to have been two women for whom Miles did at least seem to show respect, though I'm not clear as to whether or not the relationship with Ms Horne was purely platonic and musical.

His attitude to women seemed to be, at its most "respectful, "let's go fuck some bitches". Full stop. His first words to Monika Zetterlund, new in Chicago, when he strode past her as he went the mens room mid set, "You know I'm going to fuck you tonight". Why do we continue to excuse or diminish this. If a politician or anyone else beat women up they would catch public hell. But as "an artist", its a shrugged shoulder and mumbled talk of "genius".

[Richard Barrett]

Making excuses for the behaviour of someone like Miles on the grounds of his genius as an artist is a classic example of confusing the artist with his art, in other words of thinking of art as consisting of personal "self-expression" and little or nothing more. So, no excuses for his behaviour, even for an admirer of his music like me. But let's also not forget, as Miles was never allowed to forget, that as an African-American he was already part of a disrespected and brutalised sector of society, growing up before even the civil rights movement got under way, and if that brutalisation found its way into his personality in the form of sociopathic behaviour that's something else that needs to be understood. His behaviour is horrifying but also tragic.

[Jazzrook]

Perhaps Cecil Taylor was right when he described MD as "the Mean Devil".
But then he created(with Gil Evans' help) something as beautiful as 'Filles de Kilimanjaro' with Betty Mabry on the cover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noUs3NfC07o

JR

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Well...(Cicely is the front cover of "Sorcerer")

"Davis was also abusive of legendary actress Cicely Tyson during their troubled marriage...

“One time we argued about one friend in particular, and I just slapped the SHIT out of her,” Davis recalled in the book. “She called the cops and went down into the basement and was hiding there. When the police came they asked me where she was. I said, ‘She’s around here somewhere. Look down in the basement.’ The cop looked in the basement and came back and said, ‘Miles, nobody’s down there but a woman, and she won’t talk to me. She won’t say nothing.’” And that's the pattern. All abusers.

Frances is on the cover of ESP, with Miles looking admiringly at her. She said in that photo "I was just about to run" (away from him). Less than a week later she did.

There's a clip on YouTube featuring Barney Wilen towards the end of his life, playing My Funny Valentine. Post Miles' death. He introduces it without naming Miles, along the lines of "for a part devil who is now maybe with angels". For me there's now a clock striking thirteen with Miles. Like that album cover, just how much was phony. And I've never thought that before. The music was always "other". It's troubling.

[CGR]

Always best to just to enjoy the music, the book, the artwork, etc. Reading up on the artist often disappoints. After all, they are only human.

[Ian Thumwood]

I read the Miles' autobiography when it came out and was captivated by the narrative and admire the direct and integrity -driven approach to his music. The personal information never really shocked on the first read and it was only upon reflection that I started to question his character a few years afterwards. Whilst I totally concur with the race aspect impinging upon him, no one here has commented that he was actually from a well-to-do middle class background and that he rejected his family's values. Had he been white in those circumstances, no one would have cut him any slack.


The other comment I would like to make was that I wish I had appreciated just how ridiculous he was in his later incarnation. I have really enjoyed listening to "The man with the horn" over the last few weeks and this surprised me because it was far better than I had remembered. It would certainly serve as being within the jazz mainstream in 2018 and more so than so much of what he produced in the last decade of his life. The book was written around the time of "Tutu" and I always felt that there was an imbalance in the then contemporary recordings as opposed to the classic works of the 50's and 60's. Miles didn't want to be seen to be "old hat" but that is exactly what happened in the end as the contemporary jazz of the 1980's started to outstrip him. It is difficult not to see the later manifestation of Miles as a bit ridiculous - there is a wonderful story of his encounter with John Cage in an airport lounge where Cage was clearly not impressed. I have heard John Scofield make a comment that Miles could be a "pain in the ass" and I would like to think that a lot of the musicians who worked with him in the later years were not quite so much in awe.


Picking up on the comments about artist's lives being unsavoury, it is strange to read about the likes of Saint-Saens having been a recent convert to his music. I was really shocked to read about his life-style choices which would have led to a jail sentence nowadays. With jazz musicians there always seems to be a bit of oddness in the character and there have been a few musicians I have met who I took an instant dislike to as they appeared pretty dis-functional. In these days of social media and movements like #MeToo, I think that may artists would have been slaughtered in today's environment. However, there are still a good number of musicians who might not have reached the levels of unpleasantness of Miles or Saint-Saens but are still total c**ks. I went to a music lecture given by a celebrated Armenian pianist (ECM artist) and was surprised that no one decked him. He was so far up his rosette that I was surprised he could reach the keyboard. Had the French students has a better grip of English, I think he would have had a black eye. These days I prefer not to meet the musicians I admire. Generally their music is more interesting than the person even if you get the odd musician like pianist Uri Caine with whom you feel you could talk forever about music and never reach an end. There are only a handful of jazz musicians I have met that I have really warmed to (bassist Denis Irwin, Peter Erskine, Huw Warren , Simon Purcell, Stanley Cowell, rapper RedCarl) I would hate to be in a position of finding that a musical idol was a really dreadful person as I would probably find it had a detrimental effect on listening to their music.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I'm certainly not proposing boycotting or down grading Miles music, that would be absurd. It now has life outside him. If it was discovered that Beethoven delighted in burning down children's homes, the music remains. I even thought the BBC's attitude to not playing Gary Glitter's "platters" was infantile.

What I am saying is when you (OK, I) now hear "Fran Dance" or the tenderness of "I thought about you" it raises uncomfortably questions. If the context of Charlie Parker's breakdown is relevant to the Dial "Lover Man", then Miles' bloody brutality impinges also. Everyone has their own take on this and I'm still working through mine.

Finally from me, "Miles can be a real Prick" - John Coltrane.

[Quarky]

....Gesualdo....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p062kjm7

[Serial_Apologist]

....Gesualdo....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p062kjm7

I just KNEW somebody would come on and have a stab at him!

Speaking personally I have in general found of the jazz musicians I have met and feel privileged to know or have known, most have been the wonderful people I'd hoped if not totally expected them to have been, purely on the basis that if making this music in the way it is make alongside and in interaction with other musicians, and against the grain of predictability - at least by the commercially-defined musical values it generally eschews. Only two of the Americans came across as aggressive and haughty: the singer Mark Murphy ("Ah, take that shite off!") and Steve Coleman ("If you say you like the music, just keep buying the records, right?"). Of those with prickly reputations, Johnny Dyani warmed to ME immediately, as did John Stevens; only Roy Babbington was truculent: "If you thought that was one of my best solos you obviously haven't been listening to my recordings". It's stood to reason for me that the music probably makes the characters of those who play it, though I wouldn't be at all surprised if many are attracted to the genre for its aura or mystique, particularly its "outsiderness" in the Camusian sense. That was what probably attracted the Existentialists to it, though of course they weren't all particularly nice, authentic people! I once asked Norma Winstone - another truly wonderful human being - about this question of whether it was the music that made the musicians or vice-versa, and she answered "Well, we've discussed one or two who don't quite fit that image, haven't we!" There is probably a fine line between resilience and hubris, born of the status of jazz, along with those who make and made it and their reasons why, often involving race and identification; but then you come across a genius of the calibre of the great Kenny Wheeler, a man so shy and physically diminutive that he might be expected to disappear into the street furniture. "Small in physical stature, yes, maybe", Norma said, "But on stage, once that trumpet was in his mouth, he was, just, huge!"