Miles Davis - "He Loved Him Madly" an appreciation

"I want you outside this door, motherf****r," he said. "You don't come inside unless I invite you inside." The man scrambled past me out the door, and I stepped into a cool, dark room. A pretty girl was threading tape onto a tape deck.

I noticed that the room had an elaborate circular structure built into it, giving a circle-in-a-cube motif that repeated throughout the house. The back room had a huge wooden table and glass doors leading out to a sunny garden.

Miles said something to the girl and, after a short conference that seemed about the garden, decided to go upstairs. He led me to another dark room with a circular upholstered seat built around the wall and a built-in piano overlooking the space. Poll-winner plaques hung on the walls.

Miles motioned to me to sit behind a long coffee table that had a heavy wooden cube with a three-foot, wire mobile on it. As I started to unpack my Sony, he stood on the other side of his huge table and began to adjust the mobile, moving a piece of it slightly, stepping back for a better perspective, stopping the movement at arm's length, moving in, taking a piece off, putting it back.

I thought he would sit down when he got it right, and when I finally could see that he had no intention of stopping, the house was suddenly flooded with music from downstairs. I recognized it from the morning session. It was loud enough to hear in New Jersey.

I thought, "I'll never hear a goddamned word he says. Should I ask him to have it turned off?" I could see the whole afternoon going down the drain, and I didn't know what to do about it.

Miles's lips moved. I shook my head, pointed to my ears. His mouth moved again. It looked like he said, "Ask me some questions so I can tell you some lies."

I shouted, "I can't talk with you standing over there."

He said, "Why should I have to sit down to talk to you? You're supposed to ask me questions so I can answer them."

 

He still hadn't taken his eyes off the mobile. Neither of us said anything. The music was suffocating, broken only by an occasional clank as he moved the pieces.

I swallowed hard and said, "Teo said this piece was dedicated to Duke Ellington."

"When did Teo say that?"

"This morning, after the session."

"I call it 'He Loved Him Madly,'" he said. "I'd like to do one-tenth of what Duke did."

I wondered for a second if he was serious.

"You've already done as much or more."

He looked at me for the first time since I arrived. I hoped I was making headway.

"How do you feel?" I asked. "How are your legs?"

"They get sore."

"Do you still get to the gym?"

"I have one in the basement. I can't use my legs. They're sore. They stay sore."

Miles finally seemed to get the mobile the way he wanted it.

"The guy who did this is a research chemist."

I asked, "How many ways does it go together?"

"Only one."

He gently began to touch life into the mobile with his fingers. Circles revolved inside of the other circles inside of other circles.

"Like this house." I thought.

"Damn you!! Ask questions. You're the one asked to be here."

I swallowed resentment.

 

"How's the band coming? Is it finally where you want it?"

The reply was muttered into the mobile.

"What?"

Miles gave me a withering look through the mobile.

"I always get a band where I want!"

I was finally fed up.

"Goddamn it, Miles, sit down."

"I can talk standing up."

"********! Between you and that music, I can't hear ****."

Miles came around the table and turned off the air conditioner, which I hadn't even noticed. The din diminished, and he sat down next to me.

"Come on, Sy, relax."

He handed me his beer. I took a swallow and then another.

Miles called out, "Loretta, Loretta."

The girl from the living room came up the stairs.

"Loretta, this is Sy. Bring us some beer."

Loretta smiled at me and went back down the stairs. I wished desperately that I had asked to have the tape turned down.

I told Miles I had known him in California. He didn't remember me. He was pleased that Benny Carter had come to see him. Encouraged by our truce, I decided to press on.

"Miles, I'd like to ask you about your new band. Since you started adding extra rhythm players at the Fillmore, I'm having a harder time following the music. I'm probably missing something. I'm not sure what to listen for."

Miles was immediately defensive.

"You can't understand me 'cause you're not me. In the second place, you're not black. You don't understand my rhythms. We're two totally different people. That's almost an insult to say you don't understand."

 

"I don't think it's an insult."

"You don't like my music."

"I'm asking you about it, not insulting it."

"I haven't mentioned your music."

"No, you've probably never been aware of my music."

"Why is that? Give me one reason. I listen to Stockhausen."

"Stockhausen and I have nothing in common."

"Yeah. I know!!"

Miles went to the mobile again, deftly setting it in motion.

"Just takes a touch. I bought it for fifteen hundred dollars. I like to sit up here and write music. If that guy can make that mother****er like that, then I can use that ****in' chord. You know what I mean?"

I did know what he meant. All those delicate arms moving independently and precisely inside of one another. Always changing, yet solidly anchored to the same base. It was like the new Davis music was supposed to function, in theory, anyway.

Miles went on. "White guys keep saying they don't understand my music."

"Do all black people understand it?"

"I don't even look at that ****."

"Miles, to my ear the band seems to keep rambling around. I can't find a center."

He is angry. "Who told you to look for a center?"

"I have to. For my own needs."

"Ooh - That's your problem."

"I haven't said that it wasn't. That's why I'm asking."

"Do you realize you got me up here listening to you? Telling me you don't like my music? I could be out in the sunshine." He looked out the window.

I could feel anger welling up in me again.

"What do you want to talk about?"

Miles looked over at me and his expression softened. He sat down beside me.

"Sy," he said, very softly, "I got into music because I love it. I still love it. All kinds."

My resentment vanished. It was the second time Miles had made an effort to ease the tension, and it directly contradicted my image of him.

"I think it's time people changed where they put the melody," he went on. "The melody can be in the bass, or a drum sound, or just a sound. I may write something around one chord. I may write something around a rhythm."

He looked at me.

"I always place the rhythm so it can be played three or four different ways. It's always three rhythms within one, and you can get some other ones in there, too.
Do you know what I mean? It's almost like Bach. You know how Bach wrote."

We sat back and relaxed. Miles lit a cigarette. We listened to the tape from downstairs, which didn't seem so instrusive any more.

"White people don't like me."

I glanced over at him.

"I mean, a policeman grabbed me around the neck."

"Why?"

"'Cause I was black. I'm not gonna say what no white man wants me to say."

He reassured me, "I'm talkin' 'bout a policeman. 'Are you goin' peaceful, or am I gonna put handcuffs on you?' I'm supposed to say, 'Yes, I'll go down peaceful.'"

"That's what I would have said. Is it gonna be okay?"

 

He shrugs. We sit. Loretta comes up with two warm beers and glasses filled with ice cubes.

"We were out," she said. "I had to go to the store. I got you some cigarettes."

She left. I asked him about Big Fun, an album culled from tapes from his Bitches Brew period.

"I'll be tired of this music before today is over," he said, waving his hand in the air. "That's four years old."

I asked him about the many groups his former sidemen have spawned.

"Chick [Corea] has a nice band. He's so multitalented. He can play drums. He can play anything he wants to play, just like me. He's a music-lover, you know."

I mentioned some of Chick's compositions.

"He's written some pretty things," I said.

Miles made a face.

"Does it have to be pretty to be marvelous? I mean, the reason I don't go to the movies is that the music for the sex scenes is always so pretty. Strings and French horns. Sex isn't like that all the f****n' time. Sometimes you hear some drums and *****. You want to get to the b***h in a hurry!! You're stumblin' over *****. You don't wanna hear no sweet *****, man."

"How do you keep it up?" I ask, "I mean, how do you keep changing the music all the time? You've left so many good musicians behind. I'm forty-four and I can count . . ."

He cut me off.

"I'm forty-eight!! I never feel that *****. I'm not vain. As long as I'm not draggin' the musicians I'm with - and I pick the best ones I can find that are available to me - then I figure I'm pretty all right. That's the way I judge."

"They're probably worried about pleasing you"

Miles sips his beer.

"Like sometimes I say, 'Al, don't get excited.' And I usually can control everything. Tell them to settle down. Or maybe they're overanxious, and if I see I can't do anything, I'll leave 'em alone. They know themselves.
And Michael, fartin' around, showin' off, not being a group player. He'll do that ***** two nights, and I'll tell him, 'Michael, you been f****n' around for two days. Settle down!' And he'll say, 'I knew you were gonna say that!' And I'll say, 'Man, b*****s make you act funny.'
They get to think I'm their father! 'We don't see you f**k around on the road.' I say, 'I told you I used to have a b***h for every night I went to work, and one night I went to work and all seven of them were there. *****!! That's why I don't f**k around."

 

Miles's trumpet makes a sensual one-note entrance on the tape.

"Oooh," he says.

A long moody phrase follows.

"That's all I was gonna play on there, you know. Because it didn't lend itself to no more."

It was the passage that surprised my ear during the playback this morning.

"See what I mean," he says.

I asked him why he had begun to play organ.

"I can play it the way I want it. I know guys who can show their technique and all that stuff. I just play it for Dave [Liebman] and different little sounds and ****. Reggie [Young] can play the same things that I can play. I taught him to make the same sounds."

The drums can be heard making slow funeral snare drum patterns. Miles listened.

"That's nice. It kinda grows on you."

I told him I knew Al Foster and thought he was a nice guy.

"So nice I lent him my piano and he never did bring it back."

"What's more or less one piano to you," I tease him.

"A Rhodes-Fender!! You go to be kidding."

I poured the rest of the warm beer in my glass and wished I had some more ice cubes.

"Loretta!! Bring me a Band-Aid."

No response from downstairs.

"Look at that," he says.

He has his right shoe off. I could see a dime-sized hole on the knuckle of his middle toe. It is red and raw.

"Jesus Christ, how did you do that?"

"I don't know."

The bare foot is wheezed and old. I had the weird notion that Miles might be aging from the feet up. I remembered that he had broken his ankles when he smashed up his Ferrari earlier that year.

Miles let his injured foot drop.

"He's lost interest in it already," I thought. "Just another small hurt."

"Couldn't you feel that when you were walking around today?"

Miles shook his head abstractly.
I realized that the medication for his hip and legs was probably so strong that he really couldn't feel his feet.
We talked halfheartedly about a band Teo Macero had assembled. I told him I had arranged a piece of Teo's around a bass ostinato figure.
Miles came to life.

"See there. Now you're gettin' around to the bass. It's a pleasure to write around the bass."

He asked who was in the band. When I told him, he said, "All white guys."

I said, "Yeah, and he calls it 'Cotton'"

Miles grinned. "Oh, yeah," he said.

I told him I had to write around the bass all the time working for Mingus.

He said, "Mingus is a man. He don't do nothin' halfway. If he's gonna make a fool of himself, he makes sure he makes a damn fool of himself. You know what I mean?"

He drank some beer.

"Mingus and I were really close. We used to rehearse all the time in California. I don't see enough of him.
Sy, why don't somebody write an article about musicians who are really close friends and don't have time to see each other. You know, like Thad Jones, Elvin Jones, Hank. We're glad to see each other. We never see each other."

"Miles," I said, "Thad and I went to one of your Carnegie Hall concerts. We sat in the third row right under your nose."

"No kiddin'!"

"Yeah, and Thad got so upset that you kept spitting on the stage that he left."

Miles looked upset.

"Maybe it's because I didn't see him. I never see anybody when I'm onstage."

"No," I said. "He kept saying, 'Miles shouldn't spit onstage in Carnegie Hall.' And finally he said, 'I'm sorry, Sy, but if he spits one more time I'm gonna have to go.' And you spit, and he went."

Miles said, very softly, "Maybe it's a good thing we don't see each other. Didn't he know I just got over pneumonia?"

He shook his head sadly. I saw Loretta coming up the stairs.

"Loretta," I called out, "Miles needs a Band-Aid."

Miles said, gently, "She does what I tell her. She won't do what you say."

Miles hobbled off to talk to Loretta.

"You know," he said as he sat down again. "Roberta [Flack] called me from London, and she said, 'I went to hear Thad's band and nobody spoke to me.' She felt very bad."

Loretta came and knelt at Miles's feet. Some antiseptic cream and a Band-Aid were expertly put in place.

"Loretta, did you know Thad walked out on my concert?
I take Loretta down to hear Thad, and I tell her, 'This is one of the greatest trumpet players you're ever gonna hear.' Don't I, Loretta?"

"Yes, Miles really loves Thad."

Miles sent Loretta to place an out-of-town call for him.

He continued, "When I go to hear a trumpet player, I've really gotta like him. I don't go to hear Freddie Hubbard only because I don't like him. I'd rather hear Thad miss a note than hear Freddie make twelve."

I told him that Thad told me how much he loves Miles's playing but that Miles's continual changing made him very threatening to older players.

Miles was silent for a minute and then said: "Thad should get that **** outta his head. That boy's a mother****er. Has been for some years.
You know, Sy, Thad's always around, and he doesn't come to see me. Nobody comes to see me. None of the guys, you know. All the young guys do, but Thad and all my friends like that never do. I like them, but they don't like me. Dizzy asks me to teach him. I say, 'Yeah, come by. I'll show you everything we're doin'. It'll be my pleasure.' And he don't come by."

Loretta: "Pick up, Miles."

The man he wanted was at another number. He asked, "How's he acting? Is he healthy? Huh? Is he thin? Is he drinking too much? Okay, Loretta, try this other number."

He comes back. His face is full of concern.

"One of my old gangster buddies. He ought to take care of himself. He gonna kill himself before I get to see him again."

"Miles, pick up."

"Hello, you old mother****er. What!! **** him. If you think I . . .
Good-bye!!"

He slammed down the phone. He was calm again before he even sat down. I asked him which of the younger guys came by to see him.

"Herbie [Hancock] does. He always comes by when he's in town. Chick does."

He stopped for a minute.

"No, Chick doesn't come to hear me."

I could barely hear him.

"Chick wouldn't be interested in my band."

Miles eyes were moist.

I thought, "That's why he wears those huge glasses. His eyes give him away. The pain, the hurt, the vulnerability, forty-eight years, all there to see. But he puts those glasses on and it's the Black Prince, who knows no pain."

I said, "Maybe you have to come to them. Nobody's gonna knock on that front door."

I watched him put his shoe on again.

"Don't you wear socks? It's no wonder those ****ing ridiculous shoes are tearing your toes off."

He went to a mirror and poked at his hair.

"It was those ****ing policemen hurt my foot."

"What did they do, step on your toe?"

"It was a ****ing policeman."

He walked over and slapped my foot.

"Damn it, Sy, I'm gonna throw a party. Do you think they'll come? Max, Mingus, Gil, Dizzy, Thad?"

I assured him they would if they were in town.

"That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna throw a party.
Come on, Sy. I gotta get ready for a rehearsal at six."

He tried on another hat as I packed my Sony.

"I love this hat. Ain't it a bitch?"

He laughed all the way down the stairs. I said good-bye to Loretta. Miles took my hand at the door.

"Come by tomorrow, if you want."

I stepped into the street. Sunlight blinded me. I remembered I hadn't taken my pictures.

I thought, "I bet it never happened. I'd better check the tape when I get home."

 

full unexpurgated interview here:

http://hepcat1950.com/f_mdiv.html

 

I love "Bitches Brew" so far, but I have not yet heard "Get up with it" - should i get the vinyl or is the length a problem ? How do those CD versions sound ?
Thanks.

 

The remastered CD sounds fine. If you get the On the Corner box, then you'll have half of Get Up With It including He Loved Him Madly and Calypso Frelimo, which were an LP side each.

The remastered 2 CD set of Get Up With It sounds fine to me. I've been told that the LPs sound surprisingly good considering the sides are so long.

 

"He Loved Him Madly" is my favorite Miles cut, from my favorite Miles album. I love to play the song on a nice autumn day as I drive through the countryside looking at the marvelous colors. It's become a bit of an annual tradition for me.

 

Unless I'm forgetting something, the OTC box includes all of Get Up With It except "Honky Tonk" (which is only available in the Get Up With It edit on that album, but the unedited version is on the Jack Johnson box).

 

At just over 32 minutes in length, HLHM is a bit groove crammed on LP.

I've got the mid-90's Japanese CD reissue and the OTC box set and and it sounds just fine on both.

Another amazing song on GUWI is Rated X; a song that pre-dates Drum 'n' Bass by a couple of decades and is the only tune in Miles' catalog that does not feature trumpet, if I recall correctly.

later, chris

 

A good track, but I prefer Laswell's remix of it on Panthalassa. By the late 90's people knew how to EQ a track so dense in rhythm.

 

Just bought "Get Up With It" yesterday at a sale for $8. We listened to HYHM on the way home. Having only heard the Laswell remix before, it was great to hear the whole thing. Beautiful stuff!

 

Outstanding value. I got the Laswell remixes at a bargain price, and only listened to them once. They just didn't do it for me. I'll go give them another chance.

 

Another big Miles fan here who cannot get into the Gil Evans orchestral albums with Miles at all. Sketches of Spain being the worst offender, Porgy & Bess being the most accessible to me.

 

I can't answer your question, but I can say that you're not the only one. I can listen to "He Loved Him Madly" from beginning to end--or anything from On the Corner for that matter. But the Gil Evans material just doesn't do it for me. Don't know why--don't care, either.

 

After a break from listening to later-period Miles, I started listening to this track about once a day since stumbling on this thread.

I have to say, it is definitely becoming one of my most favorite Miles compositions. I've always enjoyed the In A Silent Way album and era material. I have all of the box sets, but now I'm craving even more Miles of this type. What am I missing out on?

 

One of the greatest songs of all-time, IMHO. It's the song I take to my masseuse every couple months. Sometimes I make her play it twice.

 

Dark Magus: Pretty much the lineup on He Loved Him Madly, but it's the loud and fast version.

In Concert Live at Philharmonic Hall: Perhaps not his best band, but Al Foster is playing drums. The most 'Indian' of his live recordings, and the rhythms for the On the Corner pieces are less herky jerky than on the famous album. A sleeper, IMO.

Agharta and Pangaea: Goes without saying. Numerous threads debate the sound quality of the various LP and CD mixings and masterings. No matter, IMO. These aren't sonic marvels. The consensus is to get the import LP's, I think, if you can.

We Want Miles: The post-retirement band, still with Al Foster (the one essential ingredient, IMO). Not quite as evil, but nicely stripped down to its essence. Sort of like what he did with Jack Johnson.

Live at the Fillmore: Dense. The live record that comes closest to replicating the perceived chaos of Bitches Brew. Chewed up in the editing, however. No guitars.

Black Beauty: The Fillmore West version, sort of. Again, DeJohnette rather than Al Foster. Wayne Shorter. No guitars, IIRC.

It's About That Time: Recorded the same night as the Neil Young Fillmore disc. Miles was opening for him. No guitars, DeJohnette. It was the first time Columbia recorded him live 'plugged in'. The sound is pretty distorted. Held back for many years.

Complete Cellar Door: Do you have this box? It's not always counted. The lost quintet with Keith Jarrett, Gary Bartz, Michael Henderson, and Jack DeJohnette. Edited down to Live Evil originally. Many versions of the track Honky Tonk from GUWI. John McLaughlin sits in on guitar for something like one or two discs, which was the material chosen for Live Evil.

Complete Montreux: 20 discs, but only two from the early 70's. However, I've grown accustomed to the other stuff, and again there's some nice blowing from Al Foster on the later material as well as guitarist John Scofield. The 70's material is not as good, IMO, as Agaharta or Pangaea.

There are many bootlegs and grey area (such as the JMY label) recordings out there, as well as websites for downloading music of the fusion era. It's hit or miss with those, and I suppose we're not allowed to discuss them. Caveat Emptor on those, but some are pretty good.

 

Nice writeup. One correction: Steve Grossman had replaced Wayne Shorter by the time of Black Beauty. Correct, no guitars. (Except for a couple sit-ins, Miles didn't have guitar in his live band until 1972.)

 

Yes, have this on SACD.

Never heard about this one!

I've been meaning to get these for a long time, but never researched for exactly which version I should pursue.

Definitely need this one.

And this one.

Have this one on SACD, very cool.

Interesting!

Yes, I have this one. It's definitely one of my favorites, and probably the most 'listenable' for me. However, it drives my wife crazy when I play it! While not like HLHM, my favorite performances are of Inamorata.

I've been very tempted, but the price is always so high on this one, I'm nervous about getting stuck with a lot of material that I won't like. I'll break down and get it eventually.

 

Not true. "Pee Wee", on the Sorcerer album, does not feature Miles participating at all. Just his band.

By the way, I started another thread comparing the Panthalassa remixes with the original tracks and "Rated X" is the one song, IMO, that the remix kicks the original to the curb. The remixed "X" is a frightening, intense groove, with deep bass and well-timed pauses. The GUWI version, in comparison, is dominated by an ethereal organ/synth that tends to drown everything else out.

 

Also "Billy Boy" from Milestones. "Freaky Deaky" from Decoy had Miles on synth, no trumpet.

 

It is sad somewhat.

For me, Miles Davis was at his peak 1965-1975, just like popular music was.

I don't really care for much Miles before 1965. Filles De Kilimanjaro is better than Kind Of Blue imo.