DOUBLE FEATURE 07.30.20
Betty + Miles Davis: 2 Cool 4 School
In his 1989 autobiography Miles, Miles Davis wrote of his ex-wife, Betty Davis, an overlooked funk pioneer and style icon, “If Betty were singing today she’d be something like Madonna, something like Prince, only as a woman. She was the beginning of all that when she was singing as Betty Davis. She was just ahead of her time.” While her influence resounds in current artists, including Erykah Badu, Lenny Kravitz, Beyonce and Janelle Monae, she was under-appreciated in her active years — recording three funky albums between 1973 and 1975. During those peak years she was banned from television appearances and barred from radio because of her sexually provocative performances and lyrics, which resulted in limited exposure. She is now getting her due in Betty Davis: They Say I’m Different, a 2017 documentary now streaming on Amazon Prime.
Davis (nee Mawbry) had an enormous impact on Miles Davis during their yearlong marriage, which he openly acknowledges in his book. She changed his style, getting him to trade his Italian suits (“I filled them with trash,” she cheekily says in the doc) for suede and leather. Davis also had an immediate and direct influence on his sound (quite a statement from one of the most influential musicians of all time). She turned him onto rock and funk and introduced him to her friends Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone.
They Say I’m Different affords a rare, poignant look at Davis, who all but vanished from the world in 1980, after the death of her father, whom she loved deeply and credits for her strength and fierce independence. The film features her voiceover narration, threaded together from extensive interviews she gave the filmmakers, who tracked her down in Philadelphia, where she currently lives a quiet life.
The most recent entry to the cannon of Miles Davis films, PBS’s Birth of the Cool, streaming on Netflix, offers a comprehensive overview of the trumpeter’s life and career through previously unseen archival footage and photographs from the Miles Davis Estate. The doc presents a reasonably balanced portrait of Davis: it celebrates his musical genius, inimitable career and contributions to modern music but doesn’t shy away from the more troubling aspects of his life, particularly his abusive treatment of women. An extensive interview with Frances Davis (nee Taylor), Davis’ first wife, gives a frank account of her ten-year marriage to the notoriously mercurial, possessive, at-times violent musician. For those looking for an entrée into Davis’ life and music, Birth of the Cool will serve as a sound introduction. For the already initiated, the rare performance video and audio recordings will scratch that itch, at least for the time being.
