I’ve often talked on this blog about the synergy between bipolar and creativity. It seems as if legendary jazz musician Miles Davis just may have been bipolar, according to Don Cheadle, who plays the triumphant trumpeter in a new biopic he directed titled Miles Ahead, in theaters now.
“If you had him on the couch today, he might be diagnosed as being bipolar,” Cheadle told the BBC. “But it also is the spring from whence all this incredible work happens.”
Throughout the ‘60s, ‘70s and beyond, he was traipsing across the spectrum of jazz, from traditional to hard-bop to rock fusion. Miles’ 1959 quadruple-platinum masterpiece, Kind of Blue, is still the best-selling jazz record of all time.
On what is surely one of the strangest albums for any genre, the 1970 double LP Bitches Brew found Davis under the influence of rock and, from the ambling, choppy sounds, and erratic segues, maybe under the influence of a manic episode. He improvised nearly the entire album in the studio. And be prepared: It’s weird. Bitches Brew sounds like dispatches from outer space. And Miles is no stranger to the 20-minutes-plus “song” — because these aren’t exactly songs, per se, but rather more like auditory expeditions. There are no themes or choruses. Like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon or Jimi Hendrix’s Axis: Bold As Love, it’s the kind of album that would be great to listen to stoned, but I don’t condone that.
Miles once said that music was like a “curse” because he thought about it every waking hour. These could’ve been obsessive thoughts that are a hallmark of being bipolar.
“Everyone seems to agree that Miles Davis was habitually unpleasant, which may have been due to aloof narcissism, defiance inspired by the civil rights movement, or some other factor,” an editorial in the British Journal of Psychiatry says.
Miles Ahead mostly follows five years, from 1975-1980, a period in which Davis wasn’t making music. It’s a snapshot of that time, and not a conventional, comprehensive biopic. There aren’t scenes of his glorious performances and it doesn’t follow his recording career. It’s a deep dive into the jazz musician’s personality.
According to BBC, Cheadle wanted “[to] not do something that felt like cookie cutter, but do something that was innovative and impressionistic and felt like cinematic jazz.”
Davis wrote in his autobiography about the time in which the film takes place: “I would walk by [my trumpet] and look at it, then think about trying to play.” But he wouldn’t.
Instead, he developed some bad habits, snorting five grams of coke a day and smoking four packs of cigarettes.
Cheadle told Rolling Stone: “We’re doing all this research the whole time things keep starting up and falling apart, and we suddenly begin to realize that one of the most interesting parts of his life isn’t when he’s reinventing music several times over; it’s when he’s not making music,” Cheadle said. “He’s sitting in this house by himself, he’s recovering from this hip injury, he’s indulging in self-destructive behavior and he might be dying. What’s going on in his head?”
The actor said the jazz great’s volatility was “not dissimilar to many artists of that ilk who are creating at a high level.” People like Jackson Pollock, Amy Winehouse or Brian Wilson.
Cheadle put his own money into the project and used crowdsourcing to help boost the budget.
The actor/director balanced his trumpet lessons with his roles in The Avengers and Iron Man vehicles.
“I took the horn everywhere,” he said. “If I was on the set and I had a break, I’d go to the trailer and I’d play. I’d be in hotel rooms, getting calls from the desk saying ‘is your stereo on?'”
Balancing the indie with the quotidian, Cheadle released Miles Ahead at the same time as Captain America: Civil War, in which he stars as Col. James Rhodes.
There’s no doubt that Miles Davis was a prolific musical genius, releasing a whopping 51 LPs. He died at the age of 65 in 1991 in Santa Monica, California. The cause of death was a stroke, respiratory failure, and pneumonia.
Watch the trailer for Miles Ahead below.
