[HN Gopher] Miles Davis: A candid conversation (1962)
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Miles Davis: A candid conversation (1962)
Author : Tomte
Score : 58 points
Date : 2023-06-25 17:51 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.erenkrantz.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.erenkrantz.com)
| borbulon wrote:
| > Have you always been so sensitive about being a Negro?
|
| I know this interview is from 1962, but are you fucking kidding
| me?
| lisasays wrote:
| From the way Miles responded to the question, he wasn't in the
| least fazed by it. Why should you be? (BTW the term 'Negro' had
| an entirely different connotation and sound at that time than
| it does today, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Also, it
| may help to consider who the interviewer was).
| medler wrote:
| The question definitely seems odd by today's standards but it's
| worth noting that the interviewer is Alex Haley, who was
| himself Black.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I have no idea what people are finding shocking about this
| sentence, unless it's literally that people now think "negro"
| is some sort of swear word rather than an anachronistic term
| for black people (that wasn't at all anachronistic in 1962.)
| Davis is almost entirely talking about issues that spring from
| him being black in America, and he's being asked whether he's
| always been so sensitive about it.
|
| Aside from the fact that this is a black man speaking to
| another black man, the question wouldn't even be inappropriate
| for a white interviewer.
|
| edit: Also, "colored" didn't refer to "people of color," it was
| just another name for black people. I've noticed that mistake
| lately from some shockingly ignorant wokesters trying to claim
| Jim Crow for their own.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > Why I sometimes walk off the stand is because when it's
| somebody else's turn to solo, I ain't going to just stand up
| there and be detracting from him. What am I going to stand up
| there for? I ain't no model, and I don't sing or dance, and I
| damn sure ain't no Uncle Tom just to be up there grinning.
| Sometimes I go over by the piano or the drums and listen to what
| they're doing. But if I don't want to do that, I go in the wings
| and listen to the whole band until it's the next turn for my
| horn.
|
| I wrote about this exact thing in here last week:
|
| https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/the-art-of-leadership-le...
|
| But he was Miles. He did it his way. No disrespect at all from me
| on that. He probably launched as many big stars as Blakey, if not
| more.
| ddq wrote:
| I was enjoying this article but when you got to the importance
| of character, asking ChatGPT to define it seemed - at least to
| me - a bit of a cop-out. Would have liked more personal
| perspective there.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Increasingly, when I ask someone for their opinion, they just
| tell me they've put that question into ChatGPT and this is
| what it said.
|
| Well, okay, but if I wanted to hear that I would have asked
| ChatGPT directly, no?
| baggy_trough wrote:
| A great conversation. Some actual honesty. Would like to see more
| of that these days.
| pavlov wrote:
| This 1962 interview was published in Playboy Magazine. Somebody
| simply needs to convince Pornhub that they should spice things
| up with interviews of jazz musicians.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Am I the only one that visits PornHub for the articles?
| actinium226 wrote:
| I'm going to use this should I ever let Pornhub into my
| history and get caught.
|
| "I go there for the articles"
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Why yes. I believe you ARE the only one.
|
| PornHub has articles? Why didn't I hear about this? Next
| thing you'll be telling me: they do reviews of Scotch,
| cigars, and cool Scandinavian furniture.
| macintux wrote:
| Apropos of nothing, I just walked out of the Leepa-Rattner Museum
| of Art in St. Petersburg, and Herb Snitzer has a few photos on
| the wall of jazz greats, including this shot of Miles shortly
| before his passing.
|
| https://herbsnitzer.com/miles_davis3.htm
|
| The museum is well worth a visit for anyone in the Tampa, Florida
| area.
| johnea wrote:
| Really a shame it's got that big watermark across it...
| enneff wrote:
| If you found this interesting then check out Davis'
| autobiography. It is absolutely fascinating and with a music
| streaming service you can listen to all the music he talks about
| as you read. One of my favourite books.
| megmogandog wrote:
| There's a lot of great stuff in this interview, but what really
| floored me was the question, after Miles had talked so much and
| so eloquently about race in America and his experiences, "Have
| you always been so sensitive about being a N**?" Like nothing
| Miles said entered the reporter's skull.
|
| It's also interesting to see how much he talks about the
| importance of representation in the media. Given that's something
| we've only started to see change much in the last 10 years or so,
| I wonder how his remarks were received then. Would it have seemed
| totally out of left field, like 'what is this guy even talking
| about'?
| gwern wrote:
| > Like nothing Miles said entered the reporter's skull.
|
| > I know this interview is from 1962, but are you fucking
| kidding me?
|
| Commenters might be interested to know that the interviewer in
| question was Alex Haley. I don't know why OP's version leaves
| that out.
|
| (Haley did several Playboy interviews, including that with the
| Klansman; all that I have read thus far have been worth
| reading.)
| slibhb wrote:
| It's 1962. "Negro" was the polite word, you don't have to
| asterisk it.
| burnished wrote:
| Oh, that changes the meaning of the sentence significantly.
| actinium226 wrote:
| Seems like a fair question. He wasn't suggesting that it was
| wrong to be sensitive, he's just trying to learn about a man's
| history and whether it was a lifelong thing or if some
| particular incident had made him sensitive to it.
| johnea wrote:
| I fuckin love Miles Davis!
| sambapa wrote:
| Miles Davis is the personification of the term "cool"
| [deleted]
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