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Miles
By Lee Meitzen Grue I got so I like his back.
Few people
and some animals, elephants for
instance,
prepare us for the appearance of
aliens.
We get used to them . . . their
difference,
their living in another place.
At the River Tent one year,
my son backstage
got us in to hear Miles free,
but he was so loud
everybody ran outside
to listen.
he was into some kind of
electronic-fusion
funk. It hurts our ears, our def
vision of ourselves.
Miles had moved on.
We swallowed it, didn't
gag much on the livers or the
lights.
Walter Payton,
no mean jazz man himself,
was grateful to get his autograph.
Now how many autographs does
Walter want?
And that auto-biopic:
self-proclaimed
cocaine head, woman basher.
What arrogance. What bullshit,
What a life!
Imagine
playing with Charlie Parker and
Dizzy at eighteen,
and saying a few years back,
young Wynton hadn't paid his dues.
Don't expect artists to be nice,
but didn't I feel the lights
flicker,
get low,
an electric power drain
when Miles died.
"Miles" appeared in
Brilliant Corners |