We Want Miles @ Musee des Beaux Arts, Montreal 7/6/10

There was no way I was leaving town without seeing this. It was fantastic. I learned so much. There was great music playing throughout. Pictures, artwork, instruments, clothing, letters, notes, etc. It was wonderful.

The exhibition brought us through every era of Miles. I knew some things, but really forgot. I was as if I was learning for the first time that he played with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. It was so long ago that I was buying jazz albums to learn. I have some of those CDs in my collection, I just don't listen to them much.

I learned that that muffler thing horn players use is called a mute. There was a Harmon mute used by Miles in the exhibition.

That film with the improvised score was released in North America with the title "Frantic".

I watched part of a concert on 5/7/67 in Europe with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter and Tony Williams. It was awesome and way cool that I just saw 3 of them the week before at Carnegie Hall.

They had a little documentary "Miles in the Studio 1972". Sometimes we heard him playing while the screen showed him driving in his ferrari. It also had footage of him leading his band in rehearsal. It was fun to have right there in front of me, but nothing that great. No wonder it was never released.

There was a page out of the sales book for Columbia. I'm not sure what year and what length of time it covered. The top portion showed part of the sales for a band that totaled over $2M. The next section was for over $3M for Santana. At the bottom were coded records for Miles totaling $380k.

They had an excerpt from the Isle of Wight Concert. I had the pleasure of seeing that DVD one year at the JVC Jazzfest in NYC. That was the electric era: Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Gary Bartz, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, and Airto Moreira.

They also had an excerpt from that Montreal show I got to see the day before.

There were a bunch of his jackets from the 80s. Looked like a cooler version of Michael Jackson. I say that because after The Jackson 5, I was never a big fan. I was listening to Classic Rock back then.

I can't wait to listen to all of my Miles Davis CDs in chronological order! I think I have many of the most important, but we'll see.

Here's an AAJ article from a similar exhibit in Paris:
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=46324

Here's some articles on the exhibit in Montreal. It is well worth a trip up there this summer. It's also such a great city with wonderful food.
http://jazztimes.com/articles/26009-we-want-miles-exhibit-opens-in-montreal

http://www.rfi.fr/actuen/articles/119/article_5952.asp

http://markphilipvenema.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/music-meets-visual-art-in-we-want-miles-miles-davis-exhibition-at-montreal-museum-of-fine-art/

http://porkpiejazz.com/?p=838