DISGRACELAND - Miles Davis Pt. 2: Mountains of Pills, Bitches Brew, and the Reinvention of the Original Motherf#%*er

Episode Date: May 17, 2022

When it came to music, Miles Davis wasn’t about no safe, tired yesterday bullsh*t. After kicking his heroin addiction, he traded bespoke suits for fringe jackets and spearheaded an experimental blur of jazz and rock, eclipsing his contemporaries with a complete reinvention of himself. But the second act of Miles’ life came fraught with failures and new fixes, including a wrecked Lambo, two broken legs, and a mountain of coke and pills so massive that Miles almost never made it down the other side. This episode contains themes that may be disturbing to some listeners and includes descriptions of domestic violence. To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at www.disgracelandpod.com. This episode was originally published on May 17, 2022. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to a monthly exclusive episode, weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at disgracelandpod.com/membership. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - GET THE NEWSLETTER Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: Instagram YouTube X (formerly Twitter)  Facebook Fan Group TikTok  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners. Please check the show notes for more information. Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis. Miles Davis, his origins in St. Lewis, his ascent to Jazz Master and his turbulent relationship with drugs and women, is so complex that we needed two episodes to properly tell this story. If you're just tuning in now, I suggest you hit pause and go back to part one of the Miles Davis story, where we discuss Miles' violent home life as a child, his journey from bopping

on 52nd Street to living behind bars, and a heroin addiction so public that it nearly extinguished his career. In this episode, we get into Miles's reinvention of himself, a second act that features a wrecked Lamborghini, two broken legs and a mountain of Coke and pills, so massive that Miles almost never made it down the other side. We also, of course, get into the experimental music that Miles made. Great music.

Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called On a Daily Basin, M.K. 1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to the three bells by the Browns. And why would I play you that specific slice of little Jimmy Brown cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on August 25, 1959. And that was the day a bloodied Miles Davis left his own performance in handcuffs, simply because he was black, causing Miles Davis to reassess everything.

On this episode, two broken legs, more experimentation, mountains of Coke and pills, in the reassessment of the original motherfucker, Miles Davis. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. 1959, four years from Newport, 10 years from Paris, 15 years from Juilliard,

in the dizzy and creative high of Beard. Bob's advent. Miles Davis was standing outside Birdland on 44th Street smoking a cigarette. His name was on the marquee because, like Billy motherfucking Eckstein before him, Miles Davis was now the motherfucking headliner. Miles cut a cool figure on 44th Street, cigarette in hand, bespoke suit, made to measure shades at night, somehow not looking like an asshole. He was Miles, a true original, mostly clean and on top of his game. It had been that way largely since Newport. Columbia Records, the crown jewel of the record industry, came calling.

They wanted to sign Miles to an exclusive record deal, but there were conditions. Number one. No More Heroin. Miles kicked, mostly. His passion for boxing cultivated from an early age was his new source of discipline. It was hard, but he was strong. As tough as heroin was, Miles knew he was tougher. He also knew there were much more. tougher motherfuckers out there doing much tougher things. His friend, the boxer, Sugar Ray Robinson,

tough as nails. Sugar Ray jumped up a weight class to middleweight, stared down the bruiser Jake Lamata and kicked his ass all over the ring for 13 rounds to take the championship off of him. Prior to that, Shug savage Jimmy Doyle, knocking him unconscious in the eighth. Doyle never got up. He died later that night in the hospital. Matt Gill was a motherfucker, but it didn't keep Sugar Ray down. He was tough as nails. Miles would be too. Condition number two. Put a band together and keep it together.

No more half-ass pickup bullshit. Columbia wanted consistency. Columbia wanted to hear what Miles could do without having to worry if the wind was tight at his back. Columbia wanted Miles backed up solid. Miles recruited Paul Chambers on bass, Philly Joe Jones on drums, Red Garland on piano and on tenor saxophone,

a young dude who'd worked with Bird and Diz in the past and was hustling down in Philly at the time. Whoever one called Train. Train was short for John Cole Train. He got around, found it hard to stick on to one group or get much of his own thing going, but Miles believed in him, and so his band was complete. Condition number three,

Miles had to get out of his Rinky Dink prestige record contract he'd signed back in 1951 for a lousy $750. Miles owed prestige five records for that $750. and couldn't go to Columbia where the real money was until he fulfilled his contractual obligation to prestige. So Miles, and his new quintet, got down to work. In less than a handful of recording sessions, Miles led the recording of five interconnected long-playing albums that were unmatched in modern jazz at the time and that sound as fresh today as they did upon their various release dates back in the mid to late 50s. Miles, cooking, relax and working and steaming,

crackle with romance and intensity. Each album is filled with jazz and pop standards with bebop's inimitable approach stylizing each song. Miles' ever-present romantic point of view shines throughout with John Coltrane leveling up to the occasion on nearly every track. Coltrane comes alive on these albums as if given wings by the master, permission to soar like bird and to smolder like Miles. There isn't a lick of filler on any of the five prestige albums.

Each record was part of the lead-up to Miles Davis' first creative masterstroke, his Columbia breakthrough, kind of blue. Change was necessary for this new creation. Miles wasn't about to rely on standards for his Columbia coming out party. Miles was going to be Miles, which was to say he needed to bring something fresh, something cooler than before. He tweaked his quintet, kept Coltrane, and slid cannonball Adderly into the chair next to, train on alto sacks. Miles then replaced Red Garland with pianist Bill Evans, who Miles had worked

with Pryor and brought in Jimmy Cobb to replace Philly Joe Jones on drums. Paul Chambers remained on bass. The band Miles assembled for Kind of Blue produced one of jazz's greatest achievements, one of music's greatest achievements, one of arts greatest achievements. Kind of Blue is as much of a masterpiece as any music in popular culture before or since, like the Beatles, Sergeant Peppers, or Picasso's Giannika. There was nothing before like these works and nothing after these works that would ever be the same. Miles took a new approach to composing the songs for kind of blue. He employed the modal method, which meant abandoning chords and relying instead on scales and just sketches of scales at that, not full compositions. This forced himself and the other

musicians to be more inventive with their playing, gave them more space, more freedom. The result was a greater emphasis on melody, and in turn, an intense, inventive romance shines through on the album. A new kind of romance to go along with Miles' already established new kind of cool, hence kind of blue. The album was an instant smash, and to this day is one, if not the most successful jazz album of all time. Miles was quickly elevated to me. extreme success. He was now getting paid, and he reinvested in his cool, more bespoke suits, fast cars, and beautiful, famous women. He had Elizabeth Taylor and Ava Gardner coming to Birdland every night. Ava was even slipping into his dressing room, sneaking kisses and asking him out to parties.

Miles Davis was jazz music's first and only rock star, sophisticated, cool, hip, ultra-clean, black, all-man, and he took no shit off no motherfucker. Like his music as a man, there was no one like Miles at the time. In a 1959, in America, being Miles Davis, living loud and proud while black, was nothing short of daring, risky. Again, just like the music he played. Miles wasn't averse to risk. He knew that's where the rewards were in the dirty shadows.

But not everyone saw it that way. Especially not the cops milling about outside Birdland that night on August 25, 1959. Miles was cool, leaning up against the wall outside the club, dragging on a smoke, trying to beat the humid nighttime August air smoldering inside the venue. A friend of his, white woman, started to come through the outdoor. Miles held it open for her and then kept stride with her to her waiting taxi. He opened the cab door, let her in, saw her on her way, back stepped it to the curb and turned toward his post outside the club. Then there in front of him, a big white, uniformed cop.

Move along. The cop didn't say it, but Miles could hear the word, the N-word, ring out at the end of the sentence. Move along. Miles knew enough about phrasing in space to know that oftentimes what wasn't said was just as important as what was said. Motherfucker said it even though he didn't say it. Move on for what? I'm working downstairs. That's my name up there. Miles pointed to the Birdland Marquis. The cop didn't give a shit.

I don't care where you were. If you don't move along, I'm going to arrest you. Miles just stared, and the cop stared back. The tension quickly enveloped both of them. Miles wasn't moving along anywhere. That was clear. The cop called it. You're under arrest and reached for his cuffs.

Miles had seen enough Sugar Ray Robinson fights to know that distance can kill. Distance can give your opponent the requisite space needed to drive power for their punch to knock you the fuck out. So Miles leaned in toward the cop. while the cop fumbled for his cuffs. The cop stumbled backwards, fell onto the sidewalk, out to the pavement, spilled his cuffs, his billet club, his keys. Now a crowd was gathering, audience members from inside the club, Miles' friends, fans, other folks, white folks just walking down the street, curious at this scene, a dapper black man standing above a uniform white cop on the ground grappling for his cuss. And then, out of nowhere.

A second cop, a detective sprung from behind Miles and bashed him over the head with his fist. quickly putting an end to the confrontation. Miles was arrested and booked incredibly for resisting arrest. Clearly, he didn't resist in the slightest. He was arrested for being black and for not immediately submitting to the bullshit demand of a white cop. His head gushed blood, his khaki suit took most of him. The newspapers were on the scene at the 54th precinct for Miles' discharge. The photo was brutal, a bloody black man leaving the station in the arms of his beautiful girlfriend.

a clear victim of some kind of brutality, unclear in that moment, but later confirmed by the court's dismissal of his quote-unquote resisting arrest charge, that it was police brutality. While on trial, Miles lost his cabaret license and couldn't perform. It was a brutal lesson. Didn't matter how tight you got your shit. Didn't matter how much shine was on your name. This was America, 1959.

To some, you were still just that black boy. Country as fuck. Zero sophistication, lesser than. The other. It was enough to make a man's blood boil with rage. It was enough to make Miles Davis reassess everything. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield. And in this new season of the girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man.

A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves.

Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever, my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me. Making karate noises. And here's the entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying

to grab my arms and screaming. And I immediately know that I've been at sleepwalking. David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts.

Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country, was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over?

Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena, manjou, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the Trouble. true crime writers behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters. He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face, and he knows

something happened. His father just grabs him and says, she's gone, she's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them changed forever. Working in national television, it'll be able to be. push you to your limits and you'll end up doing things you never thought you do. You know, you look back at it and you're like, I can't believe that really happened. Join me and step inside the investigation.

New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Young Miles Davis was back in the woods in East St. Louis, 13 years old, listening to birds, hearing their call. providing his response on the horn his father bought him. It was a distraction. He was far enough away. He couldn't hear his father's erupting temper, his mother screams from the pain, from the horror, from the abuse.

These memories never went away. They were formative and as such always there, lying in weight like a snake trauma just under the surface, skin deep, peering out through his current drug haze years later. 1965, two hip surgeries, one bad, the other the fix. Both hurt like a motherfucker. Miles was laid up, bedridden, booze, pills, cocaine to dull the pain. His wife, world-renowned dancer Francis Taylor, had retired to Miles's kitchen from the stage.

Prior to the operation on his insistence, was where she belonged, he said. Fucker career, he said. He was a musician, after all, he said. Leggy ballerinas didn't compare. He needed the support. His creativity drained him. It knew no bounds. After kind of blue, Miles followed up his Columbia breakthrough with another groundbreaking long player, sketches of Spain.

At the top of his game in 65, but stretched out on a mattress dependent on the debilitating cocktail of coke and pills to fight the pain, Miles Davis was depressed. When he did manage to make it out, he was paranoid, jealous. Quincy Jones was a friend, but slippery as he was slick. Out in the clubs, Francis paid Q too much attention. handsome motherfucker like Quincy Jones is liable to smile at you coming in through the front door and escort your wife out the back. So went Miles as thinking anyway.

Francis is too. Why else would you tell Miles Quincy was handsome? That did it. Miles whacked Francis around. Francis could tolerate a lot and leaving behind her successful career to support the genius of a man she loved, sure, but take the back of his hand even once. Fuck that. Francis took those long legs and walked.

Train walked too, took a giant step toward his own myth-making. Left Miles's group. Miles picked himself up, put together another quintet, Herbie Hancock on piano, Wayne Shorter on sax, Ron Carter on bass and Tony Williams on drums. Motherfuckers, all. 65 turned to 66 and in 67 the Summer of Love speed of the decade and tie-dye technicolor straight past 68 and into 69.

Miles looked up from his bandstand, and it was as if the entire world had changed and the quick flutter of notes ringing from his last run. What the fuck was this? White kids were on some other trip. Long-ass hair, ass for days, fucking in the mud, fucking in the streets, into his music.

Not directly, but all this noodley rock improv nonsense was pulled direct from his toolkit, and it was filling stadiums at a time when Miles was having a hard time filling club. loves. Rock was in the scent. Jazz was going the other way. As a result, Miles wasn't making the bread he needed. When in contrast, rock artists on Columbia, blood, sweat, and tears in Chicago, were getting paid. Miles Storm, president of Columbia Records, Clive Davis's office, and demanded

money. A fuck ton of it. Where the fuck is my money, motherfucker? You and your so-called artists are ripping my shit off. Miles demanded to be released from his contract. Clive Davis wouldn't have it. Clive offered instead to get Miles dates on the club circuit performing with rock bands and four rock fans. Miles took it as the best solution he was going to get and went at it at first. Sly Stone knew where it was at. He and his band could play, an audience has rewarded them for it, showing up in droves. Sly got paid. So too then did Miles.

He went at the rock audience full bore, switched up, changed up his band, Electric bass, electric guitar, four percussion players, two basses, multiple keyboard players, all dueling with each other simultaneously. They had permission to play whatever they heard, permission to delve into a new kind of improv. None of that quote-unquote pre-arranged shit. Miles' new band, creatively, it was a far cry from his early to mid-60s efforts. This wasn't just jazz or even pop. This was something entirely new.

Miles got it all down on record. Bidges Brew, a spell-binding free fall and headspers. spinning melting pot of an album. Kids loved it. Even jazz heads came around to love it. Like kind of blue, Bitchesbrook, bridged Miles, the jazz musician, to a much broader audience and sold like crazy. The album was wild. Miles's new fashion reflected the new wild, electrified, improvisational music he was making. Inspired by his new girlfriend, musician Betty Mabry, Miles traded bespoke suits for fringe jackets and flamboyant handkerchiefs. And in his album cover artwork, he traded in the sentimental for the psychedelic.

1962, Miles Davis was now a full-fledged rock star. Rockstars didn't take the A-train. Rockstars drove fast sports cars. Ferraris, Lamborghinis. Miles Davis wound his Lambeau north on Manhattan's west side highway. Midtown to Harlem, racing toward and resenting every red light in the process. Speed, motherfucker. Speed.

Miles drove like Charlie Parker played. fast, like lightning. Didn't matter if he was straight, didn't matter if he was high, which he most certainly was now, screaming up the three-way between lights. The Lambo moved so damn quick he'd get it to 60 in an instant

and then have to stop at the next red light. The further north he'd got, the fewer the lights and the more he could open it up. The sleeping pill he took earlier, it just kicked in, about 15 minutes too early, 15 minutes before he was to arrive at his destination, a Harlem after hours.

Miles thought about reaching into one of the best, of cocaine on the passenger seat next to him and fingering out a bump to keep his head right. Motherfucker, the exit, 125th Street. From the left lane, Miles cut hard right across three lanes of traffic. At 60 miles per hour, Miles and his lime green Lamborghini hit the stone wall on the off ramp with maximum force. The tiny sports car buckled. So too did both of Miles' legs, broke in an instant. His bones compound fractured through the leather of his tight pants. And the cocaine in the passenger seat balloon burrs confectionary plumes all over the interior. Miles was covered in white dust, high as a motherfucker but grounded in place.

He wasn't going anywhere at the moment. He was in bad shape. A white dude in another fast car rolled up on him quick to help. He instantly recognized Miles. He saw the bags of cocaine on the seat, grabbed them and stuffed them in the nearest sewer. Then he started scooping up rainwater out of the puddles and wiping down the interior of Miles' cocaine-dusted car. Miles sat in agony, two broken stems. The police made the scene in an instant just after the white dude completed his good Samaritan drug cover up.

He sat by looking dumb. The cops told him to scram he did. Miles was taken to the hospital and of course given more painkillers. It would be a long time before he'd recover from his injuries. In a long time before Miles Davis would take the stage or even think of making music again. We'll be right back after this world, word, word. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl.

You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends... Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a... truck. I thought how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters

into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people, come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me. Like making karate noises. And his entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going. And the air marshal is trying to grab my arm. and screaming. I immediately know that I've been at sleepwalk.

David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting.

I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Tana Monsu. Camilla Marone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters. He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face,

and he knows something happened. His father just grabs him and says she's gone. She's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them changed forever. Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits, and you'll end up doing things you never thought you'd do. You know, you look back at it, and you're like,

I can't believe that really happened. Join me and step inside the investigation. New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right network. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Coke kept you up. Even if you had nowhere to go besides to the Coke dealer, the painkillers knocked the Coke back and eventually knocked you out. Put you down. And then, in sleep, the Coke would come back full force, roused your subconscious.

Give your dreams big Hollywood blockbuster budget-sized impact with Felini like twists. The car was always stuck. Find a machine like that, not going anywhere, was a motherfucking shame. Not up the west side highway, not south toward Philly, not over the GW to Jersey. Nowhere. Dead. On the side of the road. Clive Davis's head scurrying about on Ava Gardner's body, stashing your coke,

offering you blow jobs, but not trying as hard as he, she, if your dick was white. The Lambeau wrecked on the side of the highway. Then, the Ferrari years earlier down on Fifth Avenue, this shit was real. This shit happened. This shit haunted you. Motherfucking white cop couldn't cope with your black ass

winding through his city in a car that cost about four times his annual salary, so he fucked with you. Just because he could. Not because you were a vicious drug feed. Not because you were a vicious jazz man. Because you were black. There was no end to the rage that shit filled you with. It consumed you, like Ava Gardner consumed men.

Like Clive Davis consumed bagels with locks and ice cream for dessert. Fuck Columbia Records. Racist motherfuckers that they were. You told the press so yourself. Told them they didn't promote black artists the same as they did white artists. The proof was in how they fucked up your on the corner record. That shit was crazier than your Coke dream, but they tried selling it to straight jazz heads

when they should have been leaning into the white rock audience. But they had Herbie's new headhunter's record for that. Imagine that. Your side fucking. man making more noise and more money than you. That shit burned. Columbia Records. I guess you only got muscle for one black motherfucker at a time.

On the corner didn't make it to the fucking corner or anywhere else for that matter. That record bombed. Fuck first. On the corner never got out of park. Just like you down on fifth in your Ferrari. Stuck standing in a no standing zone. License and registration. Fuck is this?

In the glove box next to the registration. Brass knuckles. Mother fuck. Cuffed, booked, back in the who scout. Bullshit. In and out of jail, turnstile style style. What was jail anyway? It wasn't just 32 bars lined up to hem you in.

It was modal. A fucking concept. Society was jail. Columbia was jail. Music was jail. It was up to you to change your state of being to transcend what reigned you in, socially, professionally, creatively. Right now, there was a child.

was no change. Right now it was all jail. Right now, your desolate townhouse on West 77th Street was jail. You didn't play. You didn't write. You didn't leave. You used. It was a years-long hiatus. It was just coke, booze, pills, and horrors. You didn't run them. They ran you. Ran you down like that voodoo. For your money, for your fame, for their own benefit. Eva couldn't finish you off in your dream. You awoke, unsatisfied, looking to score. The West Side Highway, your white manager in the back of the chauffeured car with you, next to your date. You wanted a fucker. Everyone wanted a fucker, except you. You wanted to get high. Sex was like music these days, a non-fucking starter. You left him alone in the limo. You climbed the tenement stairs. You gave the man your

cash, took his drugs, now your drugs, hot back in the limo, accused your white manager of wanted to fuck your black girlfriend. You weren't wrong. You didn't care. You got ripped, you crashed, you dreamed, woke, scored, ripped, crashed, dreamed. woke, scored, ripped, crashed, dreamed. You woke up almost six years later and it was 19-fucking 80 and you were still Miles motherfucking Davis, thank God. Or more to the point. Thanks Cicely Tyson. Cicely Tyson was the real miracle worker.

The Oscar-nominated actress had been reappearing in Miles Davis's life since the mid-60s, first on his TV screen for East Side West Side, then in real life on the Upper West Side where they fell in love. Well before their marriage in 1981, she got him to quit smoking cigarettes and drinking hard liquor, for a few years anyway. Now she nursed him back to life on a diet full of fresh juices and vegetables, squared away in their own private piece of Malibu. But most importantly, she fed him the confidence to return to music, a reason to move forward, a reason to show those motherfuckers they still had a lot to learn.

Miles kicked. Then he put a band together, a new elizabeth. electric band and went and saw his old friend and concert promoter George Ween. He played George the tapes. George wrote out a check for 35 large for two concerts, 35 more after the gigs were through. Miles channeled Sugar Ray Robinson, swung that sweet science, trained, put in work, get his bag back together and tore the motherfucking stage up. The audience loved it, and the audience wanted more. More Miles, miles for days. Miles stretched out as far as he, the eye could see miles for miles and miles and miles. Miles took to his new claim fame with a fury.

He embraced modern music, that electric 80s feel, since, pre-recorded tracks, none of it scared Miles. He was all about that change, as always, like he was with Birth of the Cool, like he was with kind of blue, like he was with bitches brew. The same held true now. Miles wasn't about no safe, tired yesterday bullshit. For a constantly searching jazz man, Steve, Steve, an improvisation, and then the avant-garde. Pop music wasn't safe. Pop was the opposite. Pop was risk, and now Miles was pop.

Miles was everywhere. Miles hit the talk show circuit, Letterman, Arsenio. Miles was on Miami Vice with Donne motherfucking Johnson and that other dude. Miles ate up the 80s like a man making up for lost time. Miles was embraced, mainstreamed. Miles was a new man, a living legend, an icon. Miles was stuck. on the side of the Pacific Coast Highway in his Ferrari

with a white motherfucking cop in his face because some things never change. The California son beat down on Miles Davis in his sports car. The cop wanted to know of Miles seen him in his rear view. Hell no. Miles told him I wasn't looking behind me watching you. You watching me. Miles's new girl was asleep in the passenger seat. Miles was clean. Cop wanted to know if he was drunk. Hell no, motherfucker. The shit was old. Every single time it happened, it further singed Miles. He carried the shit, the anger, the rage. He used it and channeled it into his music, even the pop stuff.

That's what the album you were under arrest was about. Clearly. The numerous injustices were fuel. They were for him just like they were for his old friend, Sugar Ray Robinson. Sugar Ray was a purifier, one of the best. He was long gone, and Miles was on his way out too. He knew it. He was tired, not long for this world. It was 1991 when Miles was sick, a stroke, pneumonia, and respiratory failure.

He was in bed in the hospital. Change was coming now, motherfucker or not in a good way. Miles accepted it. Turns out change was not only a necessity, it was also inevitable. He lay back, his woman at his side in the bed, fuck those doctors, fuck the way things were done. His girl could stay. He was the one going someplace. He closed his eyes. He could hear the crowd, and they roared. Sugar Ray danced in the ring. Miles sparred with him, friendly but fierce. Ray bounced. In between the ropes came as detractors. One final final four. fight, one after another.

First, his father, a big motherfucking swing. The one he kept coiled for Miles' mama. Miles leaned back. He knew at a lean. Did it on stage all the time, perfected that trumpet player lean. Then he perfected that junkie lean. His old man's haymaker didn't stand a chance, swung himself out of the ring. In his place, the bird sang out.

Then, Byrd himself, his punches were different, verbal, big brother abusive type shit. Bird had no control over his mouth, over his appetite. Miles blasted back with his horn. Bird ran rings around his journeyman, Jive, master that he was, but Miles was strong. Bird was flying south on his way out. Next came the critics, fucking morons every last one. Miles made quick work of them, dance, jab, shuck, jive, toyed with them, and then knocked them the fuck out. Then came the horse. Big, strong, a beast. It corralled him.

It knocked him down, standing eight-counted down, but not out. Miles was strong, too. He heard Sugaray's voice. It propelled him. He overcame, ran that horse out of his ring for good. And then came Captain Cocaine, aka La Cocoroca, aka Boomboom Bumcini, flashing fast. He tired Miles out into three endless rounds, but Miles kept pace, reserving a little extra energy for later when he knew the captain would let his guard down.

And when he did, Miles would punish him. When he knocked out Captain Cocaine, they carried him out of the ring on a stretcher, Jimmy Doyle-style. Sugar Ray cringed, Miles shrugged, fucker had it coming. Came the cops. One after they all wanted a piece. They surrounded Miles. Miles swung. This way.

Then that. He pulled from deep down with every punch. He summoned all that rage, all that pain, all the hate they made him try to swallow, and pummeled them. One after another. Down, down, down, down. Miles Davis saw himself emerge, victorious. He exited to the auditor.

through the wild applause of the crowd. He didn't give a fuck. Applaus was cheap, like dancers. There, then gone. That cool air hit his sweat-soaked skin. He hopped into his new Lamborghini, the one he ordered special for this final drive, the one with the rag top.

He peeled out in that lamp on, up the Pacific Coast Highway, topped down. He raised his fist defiantly to the sky and extended his bony middle finger high into the air. Later, motherfuckers, Miles Davis was gone, dead on September 28, 1991, and forever changed. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com.

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at YouTube.com slash at disgraceland pod. Rock a roll. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this.

He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girl friends. friends. Trust me, babe, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever, and my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in.

Do that. David O'Yellow-O. I love this podcast, whether it's or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Movies can make you feel, make you dream. Sometimes they even make you appreciate architecture. Is there anybody?

who's been hotter in a doorway than Elizabeth Taylor. That's the kind of analysis you'll find every week on Dear Movies I Love You, the new podcast from the Exactly Right Network. Every Tuesday, we break down the films we're crushing on, from blockbusters to deep cuts. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.