EXHIBITION WE WANT MILES Miles Davis : Jazz Face to Face with its legend OCTOBER 16, 2009 - JANVIER 17, 2010 Musée de la musique Press release 1 WE WANT MILES Miles Davis Exhibition: Jazz Face to Face with its Legend October 16, 2009 – January 17, 2010 Musée de la Musique/Cité de la Musique Curator: Vincent Bessières Associated curator: Éric de Visscher Sixty years after his first trip to France to perform at the Salle Pleyel, fifty years after recording his masterpiece Kind of Blue (Grammy Award winning and most best selling jazz record of all time), after the recording of Sketches of Spain and forty years after the revolutionary Bitches Brew, the Musée de la Musique presents an ambitious retrospective devoted to one the greatest music makers of the twentieth century: Miles Davis (1926-1991). Organized with the support of the Miles Davis Properties, LLC., this exhibition charts the jazzman’s musical trajectory from his childhood in East St. Louis to the retrospective concert he gave, actually at La Villette in Paris, just a few weeks before he passed away. Following several years of silence out of the public eye, Miles Davis came back “One thing I do know is that the year after I was in 1981 with the album The Man with the Horn. Shortly after, his come-back was confirmed by a live album aptly named We Want Miles – a title that reminds born a bad tornado hit St. Louis and tore it all up. us how eagerly he had been awaited by his fans. In tribute to the passion the (…) Maybe that’s why I have such a bad temper musician inspired throughout his whole career, the Musée de la Musique’s first sometimes; that tornado left some of its violent exhibition devoted to jazz bears the same title as the album that emphasized his return on the forefront of the scene. Almost thirty years later, this title, acting like creativity in me. Maybe it left some of its strong a slogan, is at once an invitation and a wish. An invitation to rediscover the music winds. You know, you need wind to play trumpet. and measure the immense talent of an artist who never ceased to question the I do believe in mystery and the supernatural and a boundaries of jazz. A wish to better understand the man’s complexity as well as tornado sure enough is mysterious and supernatural” his musical genius and mystery, a man who forged his own image throughout his lifetime. We Want Miles: jazz face to face with its legend. 2 Miles Davis Covering a surface of 800 m , the exhibition is divided into thematic sequences arranged chronologically and presenting numerous artifacts, many of which are presented to the public for the first time: rare or previously unscreened footage, original manuscript scores, an exceptional ensemble of trumpets and instruments his fellow-musicians played, original documents relating to his albums, stage costumes, vintage pressings of his records, as well as numerous pictures taken by the greatest photographers. The exhibition also displays works of art, that bear witness to Miles Davis’s aura beyond the mere sphere of music. Conceived by the Projectiles team, the exhibition is entirely designed to facilitate the appreciation of sound and ease of listening. It pays homage to the music by displaying several“mutes” throughout the itinerary. These so-called mutes – coined in reference to the very particular sound Miles Davis obtained from such devices – are oval-shaped spaces; small listening rooms designed to allow the public to discover the artist’s emblematic works in optimal conditions. Moreover, equipped with headphones – either their own or ones lent by the museum – visitors can entertain themselves plugging into interactive audio and video stations that complete the show’s musical circuit. 3 WE WANT MILES : Prologue to an Exhibition Miles and Paris: A Long Story repeatedly, performing at the Olympia, the By Vincent Bessières, the exhibition’s curator Salle Pleyel, the TNP and, after he retired, at Paris has featured in the destiny of many artists the Châtelet and the Zénith, up until his great and, among jazzmen, Miles Davis is one for retrospective concert “Miles and Friends”, that whom the City of Light played a decisive role. was held in the open-air – just weeks before Looking for Miles Davis : inventory of what was in their collections, and The exhibition at the Cité coincides with the he passed away in 1991 – on the grounds of it was only by going to the relevant locations sixtieth anniversary of his first trip to Paris in La Villette, in front of the Grande Halle. For How do you show music? Imagining an and launching out on an exciting treasure trail 1949. Invited to perform at the International Jazz the first time in his career (and because it was exhibition on an artist with the stature of Miles and opening boxes and drawers – often left Festival organized at the Salle Pleyel by a group in Paris, the first city to have recognized his Davis poses a twofold objective: first, to make untouched since the demise of the musician – of jazz aficionados, who were as enlightened talent) Miles Davis agreed to perform once the most significant aspects of his work heard that we were able to bring to light numerous as they were dynamic (including Eddie Barclay more with his former partners, revisiting the and, secondly, to display the objects that bear artifacts that would be shown to the public and Charles Delaunay), the trumpeter was past. Symbolically, the exhibition closes with witness to his artistic development. Reflection for the first time. Among these, there are a considered, at the age of twenty-three, to be the projection of the film that was made of this on the quality of the sound was therefore an considerable number of manuscripts illustrating one of the rising stars of modern jazz. The historic concert, which took place just meters important issue for this exhibition, which led the certain key episodes of Miles Davis’s career line-up also boasted the likes of Sidney Bechet away from where the Cité de la Musique, which Projectiles team to produce an original solution: (original charts from the Birth of the Cool nonet, and Charlie Parker. Not only was he greeted houses the Musée de la Musique and has taken the “mutes”(see on page 18-19). Reflection on orchestral scores of Porgy and Bess, hand-written enthusiastically by the French public and warmly over the management of the Salle Pleyel, would how to exhibit musical objects was an equally themes by Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Joe welcomed by a certain intelligentsia of the time, be built in 1995. complex matter, given the absence of a real Zawinul, Hermeto Pascoal…) but also outfits Miles Davis realized that in Paris he was more museographic institution anywhere in the world and personal belongings. At the same time, than just a musician, he was an artist. Boris Vian devoted to jazz in general or to Miles Davis in our research led us to locate certain rare or introduced him to the Existentialist set who particular. previously unscreened footage (Miles in the congregated in the cellars of Saint-Germain- “Directions in music”: Very enthusiastic for this exhibition, Miles recording studio, Miles boxing) the presentation des-Prés, and it is there that his fleeting, yet Miles or Jazz on the Move Davis’s beneficiaries had however no detailed of which, in itself, constitutes something of an highly symbolic, romance with Juliette Gréco event. Consulting the archives of Teo Macero (a contributed to forging his attachment to Paris. Miles Davis (1926-1991) is one of the most producer who was to Miles Davis what George When he returned in 1956, he would play with fascinating characters in the history of jazz. Martin was to the Beatles) kept at the New the great saxophonist Lester Young, his idol as Whilst the majority of jazz’s great names York Public Library, allowed us to find working a teenager. The following year, backed by the developed a musical language they spent documents of his and better understand the French musicians who accompanied him at their whole lives exploring (Thelonious Monk, production of certain major albums. Finally, the Club Saint-Germain – the hotspot for jazz Charlie Parker) – be it in the most absolute of whilst it brings together an exceptional number on Paris’s Left Bank – Miles Davis recorded the ways (John Coltrane) or in a way that could of trumpets that belonged to Miles Davis, the music for Ascenseur pour l’échafaud (Lift to the be seen as forming one cohesive body (Duke exhibition also includes several instruments Scaffold), Louis Malle’s first full-length film, Ellington) – Miles Davis never stopped calling used by his fellow musicians, who, in their whose success owes a lot to the atmosphere his music into question and, in what was often a support for the project, were kind enough to created by the soundtrack improvised in one visionary move, provoking his own revolutions at part from the instruments and lend them to the night. From then on, Miles would return to Paris a startling pace (almost every five years). From museum. This body of exhibits, complemented his first contact with bebop in the middle of the with works of art that bear witness to an aura 1940s right up to his experimenting with rap at that goes beyond music itself, constitutes a the twilight of his life, the trumpeter continued documentary and aesthetic whole that is the to work with different musicians, scouting up first of its kind ever to be assembled on the uncharted sounds, sometimes at the risk of subject.