Dear Richard,

I am reading the most wonderful book. Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe
"Miles, the autobiography". Simon and Schuster 1989 ISBN 0-671-63504-2.

Here is the Prologue:

Listen. The greatest feeling I ever had in my life---with my clothes on---was 
when I first heard Diz and Bird together in St. Louis, Missouri, back in 1944.
I was eighteen years old and had just graduated from Lincoln High School. It was
just across the Mississippi river in East St. Louis, Illinois.

When I heard Diz and Bird in B's band, I said, "What? What is this!?" Man, that 
shit was so terrible it was scary. I mean, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie "Yardbird" 
Parker, Buddy Anderson, Gene Ammons, Lucky Thompson, and Art Blakey all together
in one band and not to mention B: Billy Eckstine himself. It was a motherfucker.
Man that shit was all up in my body. Music all up in my body, and that's
what I wanted to hear. It was something. And me up there playing with them.

I had already heard about Diz and Bird, was already into their
music---especially Dizzy's, with me being a trumpet player and all. But I was
also into Bird. See, I had one record of Dizzy's called "Woody'n You" and a
record of Jay McShann's with Bird on it called "Hootie Blues." That's where I
first heard Diz and Bird, and I couldn't believe what they were playing. They
were so terrible. Besides them I had one record of Coleman Hawkins, one record
of Lester Young, and one of Duke Ellington with Jimmy Blanton on bass that was
a motherfucker, too. That was it. Those were all the records I had. Dizzy was
my idol then. I used to try to play every solo Diz played on that one album I
had by him. But I liked Clark Terry, Buck Clayton, Harold Baker, Harry James,
Bobby Hackett and Roy Eldridge a lot, too. Roy was my idol on trumpet later.
But in 1944 it was Diz.

Billy Eckstine's band had come to St. Louis to play at a place called the
Plantation Club, which was owned by some white gangsters. St. Louis was a big 
gangster town back then. When they told B that he had to go around to the back
door like all the other black folks, he just ignored the motherfuckers and
brought the whole band through the front door. Anyway, B didn't take no shit
off nobody. He would cuss and knock a motherfucker out at the drop of a hat.
That's right. Forget about the playboy look and the air he had about himself.
B was tough. So was Benny Carter. They would both drop anybody they thought
was disrespecting them in a minute. But as tough as Benny was---and he was---B
was tougher. So these gangsters right there on the spot fired B and brought in
George Hudson, who had Clark Terry in his band. Then B took his band across
town to Jordan Chambers' Riviera Club, an all-black club in St. Louis, located
on Delmar and Taylor---in a black part of St. Louis. Jordan Chambers, who was
the most powerful black politician back in them days in St. Louis, just told B
to bring the band on over.

So when word got around that they were going to play the Riviera rather than
the Plantation, I just picked up my trumpet and went on over to see if I could
catch something, maybe sit in with the band. So me and a friend of mine named 
Bobby Danzig, who was also a trumpet player, got to the Riviera and went on in
to try and catch the rehearsals. See, I already had a reputation around St.
Louis for being able to play by that time, so the guards knew me and let me and
Bobby on in. The first thing I see when I got inside was this man running up to
me, asking if I was a trumpet player. I said, "Yeah, I'm a trumpet player."
Then, he asked if I got a union card. I said, "Yeah, I got a union card, too."
So the guy said, "Come on, we need a trumpet player. Our trumpet got sick."
This guy takes me up on the bandstand and puts music in front of me. I could
read music, but I had trouble playing what he put in front of me because I was
listening to what everybody else was playing.

That guy who ran up to me was Dizzy. I didn't recognize him at first. But soon
as he started playing, I knew who he was. And like I said, I couldn't even
_read_ the music---don't even talk about _playing_---for listening to Bird and
Diz.

But shit, I wasn't alone in listening to them like that, because the whole band
would just like have an orgasm every time Diz or Bird played---especially Bird.
I mean Bird was unbelievable. Sarah Vaughan was there also, and she's a
motherfucker too. Then and now. Sarah sounding like Bird and Diz and them too
playing everything! I mean they would look at Sarah like she was just another
horn. You know what I mean? She's be singing "You are my first love" and Bird
would be soloing. Man, I wish everybody could have heard that shit!

Back then Bird would play solo for eight bars. But the things he used to do in
them eight bars was something else. He would just leave everybody else in the
dust with his playing. Talk about me forgetting to play, I remember sometimes
the other musicians would forget to come in on time because they was listening
to Bird so much. They'd be standing up there on the stage with their mouths
wide open. Goddamn, Bird was playing some shit back then.

When Dizzy would play the same thing would happen. And also when Buddy Anderson
would play. He had that thing, that style that was close to that style that I
liked. So I heard all that shit back in 1944 all at once. Goddamn, them
motherfuckers was terrible. Talk about _cooking_! And you know that they were
playing for them black folks at the Riviera. Because black people in St. Louis
love their music, but they want their music right. So you know what they were
doing at the Riviera. You know they were getting _all_ the way _down_.

B's band changed my life. I decided right then and there that I had to leave St.
Louis and live in New York City where all these bad musicians were.

As much as I loved Bird back then, if it hadn't been for Dizzy I wouldn't be
where I am today. I tell him that all the time and he just laughs. Because when
I first came to New York he took me everywhere with him. Diz was funny back in
those days. He's still funny now. But back then he was something else. Like,
he'd be sticking his tongue out at women on the streets and shit---at white
women. I mean, I'm from St. Louis and he's doing that to a white person, a
white _woman_. I said to myself, "Diz must be crazy." But he wasn't you know?
Not really. Different, but not crazy.

The first time in my life I went on an elevator was with Diz. He took me up on
this elevator on Broadway somewhere in midtown Manhattan. He used to love to
ride elevators and make fun at everyone, act crazy, scare white people to
death. Man, he was something. I'd go over to his house, and Lorraine, his wife,
wouldn't let nobody stay there too long but me. She would offer me dinner all
the time. Sometimes I'd eat and sometimes I wouldn't. I've always been funny
about what and where I eat. Anyway, Lorraine used to put up these signs that
said, "Don't sit here!" And then she'd be saying to Diz, "What you doing with
all them motherfuckers in my house? Get them out of here and I mean right
now!" So I would get up to leave, too, and she'd say, "Not you, Miles, you can
stay, but the rest of them motherfuckers got to go." I don't know what it was
she liked about me, but she did.

It seems people loved Dizzy so much they used to just want to be with him, you
know? But no matter who was around, Dizzy always took me every place he went.
He would say, "Come on, go with me, Miles." And we'd go down to his booking
office, or someplace else, or like I said, maybe ride in elevators, just for
the hell of it. He'd do all kinds of funny shit.

Like his favorite thing was to go by where they first started broadcasting the
"Today" show, when Dave Garroway was the host. It was in a studio on the street
level, so people could watch the show from the sidewalk, looking through this
big plate glass window. Dizzy would go up to the window while the show was on
the air---they shot it live, you know---and stick out his tongue and make
faces at the chimpanzee on the show. Man, he would fuck with that chimpanzee,
J. Fred Muggs, so much, he would drive him crazy. The chimpanzee would be
screaming, jumping up and down and showing his teeth, and everybody on the
show would be wondering what the fuck got into him. Every time that chimpanzee
laid eyes on Dizzy, he'd go crazy. But Dizzy was also very, very beautiful and
I loved him and still do today.

Anyway, I've come close to matching the feeling of that night in 1944 in music,
when I first heard Diz and Bird, but I've never quite got there. I've gotten
close, but not all the way there. I'm always looking for it, listening and
feeling for it, though, trying to always feel in it and through the music I
play every day. I still remember when I was just a kid, still wet behind the
ears, hanging out with all these great musicians, my idols even until this
day. Sucking in everything. Man, it was something.
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