"I'd sit there,
And look at them:
Watch the way they walked
And talked;
How they fixed their hair,
How they'd drink.
And of course,
How they P.L.A.Y.E.D."
( Miles Davis )
Fling the newspaper. Shoo the gossip.
Open your MIND...and LISTEN.
Shh!
Miles Davis is in the air, playing what?
"Kind of Blue" ? or "Bitches Brew" ?
May be it's "Miles Smiles" or "Miles Ahead".
Stanley Crouch, a jazz critic, once remarked that Miles Davis "Pimped himself" by going electric.
But the "Pimp of Darkness" is who Isaac Hayes once called "a complicated man". Not a villain, but a maverick...sort of.
Anyway, it was the beginning of M.A.G.I.C, at least in the World of JAZZ.
It came with a mix of soundz and provocative music that whispered, and teased, and breathed L.I.F.E into the listener.
Miles Davis played the 'Ballads', like Frank Sinatra.
He was knowledgeable. He was controlled.He was smooth, like a 'Mack Daddy'.
Ageless~Seduction, personified!
Remember the Robert Greene's classic, ART of SEDUCTION? We can travel that road, once again:
# " I Thought About YOU" (1961)
# "When I Fall in LOVE" (1961)
# "Nefertiti" (1968)
These were timeless, breathtaking stories; the Signature of a PLAYA...ballin'!
And when he did the number, "You're My Everything" from the album "RELAXIN" (1956), Miles was just...jivin'!
He was neither pleading nor apologetic, he was straight-up...mackin':
effervescent, cocky and full of P.R.O.M.I.S.E.S.
He was in a masculine, virile mood; something they called...toastin'!
This panorama is what the Movie Director, Krin Gabbard referred to in a 1992 essay as the "phallic style".
MILES DAVIS was not isolated from a masculine culture that A.S.P.I.R.E.D to master...'The Game'.
Go beyond their narrow 'calling' or profession, to master the Game of Life.
Including all its nuances: from the Language, to the Stroll, to the Pose, to the Clothes, to the Wheels...dreamin'
of S.T.R.E.E.T.Z... paved with G.O.L.D.
Classic Romanticism!
For Miles, everything boiled down to "The PIMP AESTHETIC".
The key word here is nothing else, but: A-E-S-T-H-E-T-I-C!
We must remember here that in the blaxploitation movies, the new hero or revolutionary was the P*I*M*P.
Though appraised as an 'amoral' kinda guy in many respects; the Pimp's ART sought to imitate LIFE, as close as possible.
Success is made up of...MANY COLOURS!
Hence, "Jacob gave his beloved son Joseph, a coat of many colours", says the Bible.
Like the epic black stereotype, the motto was to be 'hip' and, the mantra was to be like..."Superfly"!
"I'm your EVERYTHING
Under the sun;
I'm your EVERYTHING
Rolled into one."
( Miles Davis )
THE PIMPDOM of Miles Davis may be viewed beyond the violent exploitation or sex-ploitation of the feminine weakness.
The so-called 'exaggerated masculinity' of 'surges' and 'struts', has been characterized by the street lingo of 'SWAG'.
It is a riveting phenom of African-American folklore, with a powerful musical base --a Bloodline of 'SONG'.
The Blues...Funk...and, JAZZ.
Therefore to understand the Pimp Aesthetic, one must connect the dots:
back to the Adamic or primordial vein, when Music was pumped by the Heart of the MUSE ( or GOD ) into the veins of the UNIVERSE.
Music is still a continuum...a FLOW...into the veins of today's BLACKFOLK.
Music is...forever...in the air.
But the difference is how your MIND connects with it...how you 'pimp' it!
And that's creativity un-limited, if you know how.
HISTORY records Jelly Roll Morton as the 'jazz pimp progenitor'. But Hall of Fame credits Miles Davis as the 'Pimp of Darkness'.
By exploring the frontiers of Music, together with the vagaries of Life, Miles continuously re-expressed
the diversity and richness that was the black experience.
"Nobody has suffered like the black man", Rev. Martin Luther King Jr once observed.
"There's so much frustration in the world
because we've relied on gods, rather than GOD.
"We've genuflected before the god of Science, only to find that it has given us the atomic bomb, producing fears and anxieties that science can never mitigate...
"We've bowed before the god of Money, only to learn that there are such things as Love and Friendship that money cannot buy...
"And that in a world of possible depression: stock market crashes, and bad business investments, money is a rather uncertain deity.
"These transitory gods are not able to serve us or bring HAPPINESS to the HUMAN HEART."
TO IMPROVISE IN Jazz and to improve his Persona, was to dignify his Art and Person.
And by extrapolation, to foster a positive image of the Black Race.
To 'pimp the darkness', could as well mean to usher in some kind of happiness...or FLOW.
"Soul Eyes", sang John Coltrane and Duke Ellington.
Miles turned the Whiteman's gaze away from his 'dark skin', and showed him the LIGHT hidden in his eyes!
His...Soul Eyes.
"The Soul of Blackfolk", emphasized W.E.B DuBois, an African-American Harvard grad and scholar.
The S-O-U-L...of Blackfolk.
That's where it's at, this enigma called: The P-I-M-P.
If for nothing else, the mastery of this power of S-O-U-L or the power of the P-I-M-P, may be the reason he's called 'The Prince of Darkness'.
Or simply, PRINCE of JAZZ.
THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN experience is an admixture of both pleasure and pain; both humour and pathos.
JAZZ is a case-study, in part, of the nitty-gritty of earning a l-i-v-e-l-i-h-o-o-d.
'BUSINE$$ of Pleasure'.
One duty of the musician, or the jazz player, or the trumpeter in this case, is to master the game ~ of business.
Another duty is to 'humourize the pathos' of life or to 'mitigate the suffering' of l-i-v-i-n-g.
'PLEASURE of Business'!
The VARIETY - sugar and spice - which the artist brings to the music table, for both the listener and himself, tells us how well he has mastered the game ~ of pleasure.
'How' to add COLOUR to LIFE, in terms of both Busine$$ and Leisure, that's the 'ultimate mystique'.
You can call it the PIMP AESTHETIC...or plain C.O.O.L.
To 'pimp' life, Miles Davis began a long journey on the road of the TRUMPET...and...JAZZ:
to 'add colour' to Music...and...Men.
In his hey-day, Miles Davis was a master of this game. His other name was...Mr C.O.O.L!
"JAZZ IMPROVISATION is an elusive genius", affirms D.C Dowdell.
"Hipness is what it is. But sometimes, hipness is what it ain't."
"It isn' true that you live only once. You only die once", concurs Bobby Darin.
"You live lots of time, if you know how"!
The aim of Afro-Revolution or Blaxploitation or for that matter, the Pimp Aesthetic was...to know 'how' to l-i-v-e:
~ lots of time ~
To know 'how' to forge:
~ something ~
To know 'how' to create:
~ anything ~
that was boldly c-o-l-o-u-r-f-u-l or that will...l-i-v-e.
In this regard, Miles Davis was:
~ everything ~
that was Negro-inspiring or Afro-delicious!
~ everything ~
Well...almost.
He was a noble...a veritable prince, who had 'game'!!
The penny-loafers, the pin-striped suits, the bell-bottoms, and the ferraris were 'pimping'.
The re-mixes: Jazz + Rock, Jazz + Funk, Jazz + Hip hop: or 'FUSION JAZZ', was 'pimping'
The quartets, the quintets, the sextets: or 'Jazz collabos', were 'pimping'.
EVERYTHING: the LOOKS...the WALK...the TALK and the way he P.L.A.Y.E.D his horn, was 'pimped'!
~ everything ~
The Life of Miles Davis was a "Kaleidoscope Dream", to borrow expression from the hip hop superstar, Miguel.
Inspired by the MUSE ( or GOD ) and the Power of SOUL, he took the canvas himself, and painted the UNIVERSE.
A florid, splendid painting of JAZZ and himself it was: many-sided, a mosaic.
"Jazz has evolved with an
INNER NECESSITY;
Characteristic of any
TRUE ART FORM."
Learn the TUNES by
Playing the M.a.s.t.e.r.s;
Learn EXPRESSION by
Playing Y.o.u.r.s.e.l.f."
( D.C Dowdell )
Duke Ellington nailed it when he described Miles Davis as the "Picasso of JAZZ".
"Nothing is out of the question, the way I think and live my Life", says Miles.
"I am ALWAYS THINKING about CREATING.
"My FUTURE starts when I wake up every morning. That's when it starts, when I wake up and see the first LIGHT.
"Then I'm grateful..."
TO BE a gentleman is appealing.
But to be a 'Mack Daddy', or a 'Playa', or a 'Hustler' or a 'Pimp'...say what?
To go about mackin' booty, or coppin' dope-cocaine, or chasin' filthy lucre, or simply pimpin' hoes...excuse me?
What's the world comin' to?
"Controversy", sang Prince, the rock musician.
Robin D.G. Kelly, a professor of History and African Studies at New York University, wrote that Miles Davis was "a Jazz GENIUS in the guise of a HUSTLER" ( New York Times, 05/13/2001 ).
Wait a minute? Can I get a witness?
A jazz genius...a hustler? How do we ever begin, this sort of narrative?
We'd begin from his childhood; from Miles Davis' youth, back in the day:
East St. Louis, Illinois...
His father, a successful Oral Surgeon, had taught him early to place value on financial security and the virtues of a studious life.
PURPOSE and PROFIT walked the same street. And their offspring was $ECURITY.
Well, long ago before Miles Davis did his 'thing' in the big arenas of the Fillmore ( East and West ), he had studied.
He had learnt both instrument and music;
both the TRUMPET...and...JAZZ;
both at the Juilliard and the Night clubs on 52nd Street, New York.
He'd studied Classical Music by day,
and played Jazz at the clubs by night.
It was a double life. The classes and the clubs.
But the latter made a deeper cut in his psyche.
For one, the clubs held more of his black kinfolk. For two, they played more Jazz and the Blues.
SOUL food was what he ate daily, at the night clubs.And he had a belly-full, of Sights 'N' Sounds.
There, he enjoyed the WORK 'N' PLAY dynamic.
"If you love the work that you do, you'll never 'work' again the rest of your life", says U.S entrepreneur, Steve Harvey.
All that you'll do is...PLAY!
IN THE UNDERGROUND GALA of the Jazz World, the hustler ( in his Work mode ) sang the a.s.c.e.t.i.c;
while the pimp ( in his Playa mood ) crooned the h.e.d.o.n.i.s.t.i.c.
Like 'street' life.
A double...lifestyle, you know.
Like r-e-a-l life.
"To be and stay a great musician, you've got to ALWAYS BE OPEN to what's happening at the moment", urges Miles Davis.
"You have to be able to absorb it, if you're going to continue TO GROW and communicate your music.
"And creativity and genius in any kind of artistic expression don't know nothing about age;
"Either you got it, or you don't; and being old is not going to help you get it."
But this continuous 'striving' to equilibrate the forces that drove men to Work, and the pressures that impelled them to Pleasure;
that was the HU$TLER's mystique...or the allure of the PIMP Sub-culture.
It was the duty of the bonafide PLAYA...perhaps Miles Davis, to achieve this balance or idyll.
The wheelin' dealin' of Miles, between the private halls of the Juilliard and the public night clubs of the New York streets, led him ultimately to the JAZZ IDYLLIC...
"Kind of Blue" or "Bitches Brew"?
It was d.o.p.e.
You know, not crack-cocaine. Not hoes.
But...Psychedelic Jazz!
Providence ( or God ) had finally led him to the land of the beautiful:
where his Purpose ( or Destiny ) made him his Profit...or his Pleasure?
A.E.S.T.H.E.T.I.C !
Whichever it is, "Kind of Blue" or "Bitches Brew" !!
Profit or Pleasure.
Anyway, it's the story of "an innovator with duelling ambitions", observes Martha Bayles.
Once again, it's Miles Davis ridin' memory lane...with his rear-view mirror.
He's looking back on S.t.r.e.e.t.z...paved with G.o.l.d !!!
The dreamin', and hustlin', and pimpin' leaves us with something lasting:
A Legacy of the T*R*U*M*P*E*T...yet toastin'.
It's a WORLD-WIDE generation...ballin' with the soundz of J*A*Z*Z.
LIFE was a struggle, and the game was a hustle.
To be a true playa, you rolled with the punches, and blew the trumpet like Miles Davis.
The gig was on. Soundz on the streetz.
Opposite side to the Juilliard, close to the PULSE of THE PEOPLE.
"The most important thing I look for in a MUSICIAN is whether he knows how to LISTEN", echoes Duke Ellington.
"What we hear is the QUALITY of our LISTENING", re-echoes Robert Fripp.
Sure, that kinda party-ride was the TRUMPET on the wheels, and JAZZ on the roll.
This time, Miles shirked dope-slangin', and looked beyond whore-mongering.
His music was to seduce the people, win the hearts of the masses...playin':
The B-L-U-E-S !
The S-O-U-L of the P-E-O-P-L-E !!
Miles horn-y self sought to sow seeds in the read-y mind of the host-ess; to birth the kinfolk with the 'most-ess'.
FREEDOM !
EQUALITY!!
The PURSUIT of HAPPINESS !!!
The "Pimp A•e•s•t•h•e•t•i•c" was on...
running away from d=a=r=k=n=e=s=s; seeking to create "B•e•a•u•t•y from a=s=h=e=s".
The kind that moved the host-ess ( blackfolk ) toward...the most-ess ( Happiness ).
Once again, Miles Davis...in the house. Forget the playa haters...graaabbbb
The AMERICAN D*R*E*A*M !
Long ago, before Michael Brown or Alex Ferguson.
Long long, before Eric Garner or Freddie Gray...there was A S-T-O-R-Y.
Not the race riots of 1917. Nah!
This was around '50 somethin', amidst some intense recording sessions by Miles Davis.
The TRAGIC S-T-O-R-Y was EMMETT TILL, a 14-year old lad from south-side Chicago.
24th of August, 1955.
Black ! was the day. Black ! was the boy.
He was the only son of his mama, lynched in cold blood, in Mississippi, U.S of A.
His cradle or "The Windy City", hollered:
whyyyyy?????
Black America screammmmed at white folk:
baaaaad!!!!!
He was killed 'cause someone thought his skin was too dark...too daaaark!!!!!...to get close to white folk.
In God's Own Country, AMERICA.
"J.W Milam and Roy Bryant, the culprits, later died with Emmett Till's blood in their hands", says Simeon Wright, the victim's cousin.
To the villains, it was a taboo for the victim to 'tease'.
I mean, just 'tease' a white-skinned woman, at a grocery store...
In America. Emmett Till's America. Miles Davis' America.
MIND YOU, the victim's mother was at the time, a conscientious confidential secretary at the Air Force.
Mamie Till was her name; first black student to make the "A" Honour Roll, at the predominantly white Argo Community High School.
"People didn't know that things this horrible could take place", she says.
"And the fact that it happened to a child, that made all the difference."
MIND YOU, Emmette Till ( a.k.a Bobo ) in his spare time roamed his neighbourhood, around the clubs that drew the creme de la creme of jazz.
Edward Kennedy Ellington, the "Duke" came to his neighbourhood.
So did Sarah Vaughan, the "Divine One".
" When I think about the ones who are dead, it makes me mad, so I try not to think about it", laments Miles Davis.
"But THEIR SPIRITS are walking AROUND...
"I believe their MUSIC is STILL AROUND. Somewhere around...somewhere, you know."
The Emmett Till story marked the genesis of the Civil Rights Movement, in America.
It was just a hundred days before the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott of '55.
"I thought of Emmett Till, and I couldn't go back", confesses Rosa Parks.
Back of the bus, n-e-v-e-r again!
Nine years after Emmett Till and Rosa Parks, the U.S Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of '64.
"More than 100,000 people saw his body
lying in a casket, here in Chicago", Rev. Jesse Jackson recalls.
"That must have been at that time, the LARGEST Civil Rights demonstration in American history".
SOMETIME AGO, Kanye West ( a.k.a Yeesuz ) an African- American Artist of the URBAN genre ( classified under the "Conscious or Activist type" ), made an allusion to Miles Davis.
According to him, when people asked Davis what he wished to be remembered for, he answered:
"THAT I AM BLACK".
It was the sort of thing Miles Davis would have said. Anywhere. Anytime.
"AMERICA's such a RACIST PLACE, so racist it's pitiful...", says Miles.
"But I ALWAYS have had a built-in thing for RACISM. I can smell it. I can feel it behind me, anywhere it is...."
Now, the first law of 'pimping', as it were, was simply to recognize 'game'.
In this case, it's pimps UP and ho's down. The game's RACISM, it just ain't P*ssy!
In the Spirit of the P.I.M.P, Miles craved to reflect the changing 'soundz of the streetz', which he heard from his apartment.
The sounds of the Black S-t-r-e-e-t, the hiccups or violence, originate chiefly from institutionalized Racism:
from economic marginalization, to political disenfranchisement, to social discrimination.
The problem of racism anywhere, is that it creates an "identity crisis".
The question it asks its victim(s) is, "Who Are You?" or "Where are you from?"
Trust Miles, for an answer!
"Pimp yourself, your mother, anyone", Miles Davis once urged his girlfriend.
Racism in great part, led to the Pimp "Sub-culture". It drove the black population to create its own geography and demographic characteristics.
"A set of places or sites ( or people ) through which it gains cohesion", observes Ken Gelder, a professor at Melbourne University, Australia.
Urban Sub-culture easily embraced the fast, furious, and defiant; attributes shared by the pimp.
It was a black man's lifestyle, largely at variance with the Mainstream Culture of white folk.
In the face of discrimination, the pimp in Miles Davis refused to play along.
Not with the mass pretense, of "shuffles and grins", expected by the bigot.
He chose to be real.
And to "strut his stuff"!
Miles Davis p.l.a.y.e.d his horn so..ooo well.
So well that it was the white man himself who "shuffled and grinned".
Using pimped lingo, Miles Davis was simply, "representing!
MILES DAVIS was like Emmett Till.
Alex Ferguson, Michael Brown.
Eric Garner, and Freddie Gray.
ALL were kith and kin.
Miles was not just a nigga, he was a negro. He wasn't just black, he was beautiful.
He wasn't just a hustler, he was a genius. He wasn't just a pimp, he was a prince!
The Prince ~ of Darkness was in part, a picture of Racism.
The Pimp ~ of Darkness was in part, a creature of necessity:
underlined by "resourcefulness".
Therefore to identify the pimp, was to acknowledge his diversity:
"S.O.U.L of BLACKNESS"!
According to Quinn ( 2000), "The PIMP figure has probably MOST FULLY RESISTED the dynamics of mainstream incorporation, market co-optation, and WHITE IMITATION."
Miles aloofness, his mistaken arrogance, his aggressiveness, were mostly reactionary.
A personality was in PROTEST!
Against the way white folk treated black folk, in America.
In the face of police brutality, his poster-boy demeanor took sudden flight.
Miles cut the image of a BAAAAD MAN, of the highest calibre, on encounters with racist onslaught.
Racism caused the wound of the ghost slave to bleed!
It brought out the buried 'underclass' elements of a bourgeois personality, like Miles.
And polite language gave way easily to street 'cussing'!
Cussing is a classic pimp flow; a deeply ethnic and self-elating lingo.
It was full of sarcasm, scorn, and wounded pride.
"RAGE is the FIRST NOTE in the Jazzer's scale of BEING", explains Lawrence Russell, a Media and Culture attorney.
"His flowing obscenities and double-negatives obey a counter-rhythm and a counter-logic that uses insult as praise.
"Nigga and motherf*cker predominate.
"It's BLUES TALK, a defiant parallel language born outside of church and state, a black hipster's cynical blunt-force HUMOUR.
"Obscenity as CHANT THERAPY is by no means just a Black American thing.
"For Miles, this way of talking is AN EXHALATION, just like P.L.A.Y.I.N.G HIS HORN."
I'M BLACK!
They never let me forget it.
I'm black all-right.
I'll never let them forget it!
( Jack Johnson )
Like TUPAC SHAKUR's reactionary "Thug Life" , racism had created a "Concrete Jungle" in America's h-e-a-r-t land.
Where Emotional Intelligence easily turned into vapour!
Where Mr Cool readily became what professor Robin D.G Kelly described as:
"A Chameleon Hustler".
It was so contrasting a scenario that Yasiin Bey ( a.k.a Mos Def ) provocatively called it:
"The New Danger" (2004).
I am a FIGHTER and a LOVER.
I am the freaky baby daddy,
I am a bad motherf*cker.
I am the earth, wind, fire
And the thunder...
SPEAK Language:
that comes straight from
the gutter...
What's good,
What's popping,
What's cracking?
WORK Songs:
that the slaves sang then...
( Mos Def )
For Miles, when a man ventured out...on the road/street, being middle-class meant nothing!
Racism and its baggage had created the "Prince of Darkness".
or worse still, the opposite:
the "Darkness" ~ of the Prince!
Little wonder Miles Davis became known worldwide, as the Ultimate Negro With Attitude.
SPACE!
Gimme the space!!
Back up,
Gimme the space!!!
Let a N*gga Rock!
Let a N*gga Rock, ha!!
This is the S.O.U.N.D.Z...
This is the S.OU.N.D.Z...
And the motherf*cking ROLLLLLLL.
( Mos Def )
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