How Miles Davis hired John Coltrane

A few lessons from this: First, intense passion, endless practice and infinite persistence are all prerequisites. They are the bare minimum of artistic greatness. They don't guarantee greatness, but you won't find any greats who didn't have these attributes.

Secondly, it's remarkable that you can languish for half a decade as a barely functional junkie in a second city and still make a comeback. We should all hold this dearly to our hearts. You are going to take major losses in life. Maybe you get fired, don't get hired, don't get funding, your startup goes bankrupt, or whatever flavor of personal problems you can imagine. If you can regain your health and your discipline you can still make a comeback.

Finally, Coltrane, Davis and Evans were all polar opposites in terms of personality. Coltrane was very religious, Davis seemed to always have a raincloud following him around, and Evans was known for being what we might today call emo. But when they could put these personal differences aside and focus on the art they were collaborating on the result was lightning in a bottle. We should remember this the next time we find someone with immense talent or reputation who at first glance seems to be of little use as a friend. If you're not getting along with someone, keep your focus on the end goal and that usually smoothes all the little problems over.

If you're interested in more John Coltrane lore I recommend this interview of Ben Ratliff who wrote the book on Coltrane.[0] He goes over his mercurial early days in detail, and plays all of the tracks that Coltrane would have been listening to during his formative years.

[0] https://www.nts.live/shows/coltrane-day/episodes/coltrane-da...

Miles sounded like a tough dude to work for. I’m surprised none of these comments mention that.

I totally agree with his bandleader philosophy: hire good people, and give them space in the music to play. But his constant bad attitude must have been really impactful to folks in his band.

I suppose, in some ways, that helped his overall success, and those of his sidemen. Everyone who played with him eventually moved on. That got new blood in his band to play off of, while the alumni went on to start new projects.

Either way: I don’t think anything could have brought me back to the fold after a week of lousy rehearsals with a tough bandleader. Guess that’s what separates me from John Coltrane, lol

Also, Miles Davis had an outstanding taste for pianists. Every piano player that joined Miles was a force of nature.