Miles Davis and Me

When I moved to Hong Kong in my mid-twenties, I had the good fortune to work with a guy named Jim Shaw who was the editor of the magazine where I was the marketing manager. Jim was about 30 years my senior and had lived all over southeast Asia as a correspondent for the Stars & Stripes newspaper, a publication for U.S. military personnel which has been in print since the Civil War.

Jim was a raconteur and quick with a quip. He didn't hand out compliments easily nor suffer fools gladly. He had a limitless supply of stories, and he'd laugh at your jokes if they were funny. He was the kinda guy you wished was your uncle.

Jim and I got to be friends, and on several occasions I had the pleasure of being invited to his home where we'd sit in the living room with our shoes off under the slowly revolving ceiling fan which was painted with zebra stripes and listen to hours of jazz on Jim's reel-to-reel tape deck. His wife, Kaoru, would bring us bottle after bottle of beer, while Jim regaled me with stories of life in Japan and Vietnam.

When he heard that Miles Davis was coming to town, along with Herbie Hancock, you'd have thought they had announced an encore performance of the Last Supper with the original cast. Jim insisted I buy a ticket to see one of the all time jazz greats, and because the legendary trumpeter was a notorious heroin addict, there was a good chance this might be my last chance to see him perform. The concert was great...and Jim, who had seen Miles play before, remarked that he had been uncharacteristically generous...facing the audience instead of performing with his back to them!

After the show was over, I was standing on the sidewalk in front of the concert venue, when I noticed a subterranean garage door opening, and a long, sleek, shiny stretch limo pulling up the steep driveway. I don't know what possessed me, but I held up my hand, motioning for the car to stop. When it did, the rear passenger window silently rolled down, and there, in the pitch black interior of the limo was the expressionless, ebony mask of Miles Davis, a guy even the Devil himself would be scared of.

What does one say to Miles Davis? I think what came out of my mouth was something completely inane like "Great show, Miles! Thanks for coming!" 

Without changing expression, or saying a word, he held up the palm of his hand...whether in silent benediction or as a gesture for me to shut the hell up, I'll never know for certain...then rolled up the window and disappeared into the night.