Miles Ahead – Movie Review
aaamusic | On 03, May 2016
American jazz composer, artist and bandleader Miles Davis is well known as a creative and enigmatic musical genius of the 20th century, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz. In 2006 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as “one of the key figures in the history of jazz”. He’s established as an iconic figure and as a pioneer of breathtaking and innovative music.
Miles Ahead, the film released on 22nd April 2016 in the UK, is wild, daring and lively. Part fiction and part fact, it looks at a low point in the personal life of Miles Davis during the late 1970’s when he was burnt out, living in isolation and suffering from artistic block. The idea for the title came from the Miles Davis 1957 album Miles Ahead, remembered by many as a quiet masterpiece with great soul and insight.
Don Cheadle, who co-wrote the project with Steven Baigelman, directs and stars as the revolutionary and unconventional Miles, whilst Ewen McGregor plays pushy Rolling Stone journalist Dave Braden. Dave arrives at Miles’s Manhattan apartment seeking a story about a musical comeback and Miles responds firmly with a husky voice: “If you’re gonna tell a story, come with some attitude”.
A whirlwind adventure unfolds, focusing on a stolen recording of unreleased music, and we enter a world of drugs, gunfire, car chases, fights and greedy music bosses. Included in this electrifying story is the legendary incident in 1959 where Miles was beaten by a police officer outside the Birdland Nightclub in New York where he was relaxing during a break.
Miles’s first wife Frances Taylor, played here by the inspiring Emayatzy Corinealdi, was a gifted and ambitious dancer who gave up her career in return for a troubled and turbulent marriage and sadly her resentment grows as the film develops. Miles, her womanising husband, is depicted as a flawed, irritable and violent man, tortured and tormented by memories of the past.
Unlike full cinematic biographies like Ray (Ray Charles), Miles Ahead is an impressionistic film, bold, chaotic and imaginative, which excludes much of Miles’s life and influential music. It’s said that some musicians play fewer notes than you actually hear, intentionally leaving spaces that the listener can fill in and, to Miles, jazz was something found “between the notes”. Miles Ahead is enjoyable entertainment and, as the final credits rolled in, it was clear that the audience didn’t want to leave early and risk missing something important.
