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Comment by Avshalom | Hacker News Reader

'course, he beat women too...

http://connectnyc.globat.com/documents/Mad%20At%20Miles%20by...

It doesn't prevent me from enjoying his music though. I'm a proponent of decoupling the person and the ouvre. I can delight in his music and at the same time think he is a violent shitbag. It's not mutually exclusive.

If you appropriate the music you shouldn't call it his. And I agree to the extent that it was never his to begin with, standing on the shoulder of giants etc.

> It's not mutually exclusive.

Some would think it is. Death of the Author is a modern perspective. And again I agree, because concrete music is not as ephemeral as history, if that's the right word. I mean, history is unreliable, vague, abstracted, imaginary, indirect, something like that.

"In Cheadle’s portrayal, Davis emerges as a sort of Don Draper of jazz: brooding, seductive, and radiantly opaque, a charismatic loner whose sometimes terrifying behavior, especially toward women, can be rationalized, if not forgiven, because it seems rooted in a history of suffering, and somehow connected to his mysterious powers as an innovator."

There's some implication of a relationship between genius, mystique, and abuse, that seems to let it slide somehow. "Rationalized".

I wonder, if we were talking about Miles Davis being a particularly gifted accountant, would the same behaviour be written off so poetically?

I listen to Miles Davis a lot but was not aware of that part of his history. Should it change anything? I'm not sure.

For me, personally, it doesn't take anything away from the music, but it certainly takes plenty from the man. And if we're going to discuss the history, it's just as important as any other trivia that colors the story.

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