{"id":98,"date":"2017-10-26T14:59:24","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T18:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/blacksineurope\/?p=98"},"modified":"2020-02-25T16:23:24","modified_gmt":"2020-02-25T21:23:24","slug":"miles-davis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/blacksineurope\/2017\/10\/26\/miles-davis\/","title":{"rendered":"Miles Davis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Paris is many things: a city of romance; a hotbed of culture, and the inspiration for countless artists, musicians and poets. It’s also a place that, for more than 40 years, had a special relationship with the jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. Paris was the first foreign city Davis ever visited, and it was one of the last major cities he played in, shortly before his death on 28 September 1991. Now the relationship between musician and city is celebrated in a new exhibition at the Mus\u00e9e de la Musique.
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\"\"<\/a>In 1949, a 22-year-old Davis travelled to Paris, as part of a quintet that included the pianist Tadd Dameron. The quintet was booked to play at the first Paris international jazz festival since the war ended. In the US, Davis was already a rising star in the jazz world, but while he was highly respected among his peers, in mainstream America he was seen as a second-class citizen. It was a time when segregation and discrimination were rife, and most US states enforced anti-miscegenation laws. But France was a different story, and nothing could have prepared Davis for the reception he would receive in Paris. “This was my first trip out of the country,” recalled Davis in his autobiography. “It changed the way I looked at things forever … I loved being in Paris and loved the way I was treated. Paris was where I understood that all white people were not the same; that some weren’t prejudiced.”<\/p>\n

“Miles often talked about Paris,” says the Australian film director Rolf de Heer, who worked with Davis in Paris in 1990. “The French were in love with Miles and treated him like a god. He liked that because it was a form of respect he didn’t get in his own country.” French jazz pianist Ren\u00e9 Urtreger adds: “Miles was proud and touched by the fact that in France, jazz was considered to be very important music.”<\/p>\n