This year, which would have seen him celebrate his 90th birthday, will see the release of the eagerly anticipated Miles Davis biopic “Miles Ahead.”
Don Cheadle, who co-wrote, directed and starred in the film, participated in a panel — which moderator Felix Contreras called more of a “jam session” — about the making of the film and the jazz icon’s legacy at South by Southwest on Thursday afternoon.
Joining the actor were jazz pianist Robert Glasper, who scored the movie, musician Keyon Harrold, who was Cheadle’s trumpet stand-in, sound designer Skip Lievsay, Davis’s son Erin Davis and his nephew Vince Wilburn Jr.
Cheadle, who first pitched the film to the family only intending to star in it, talked about the importance of creating a film that was as free-wheeling and dynamic as its subject.
“I wanted it to be something really innovative and crazy and kind of gangster,” the actor said. “I was more intersted in making a movie in the way that I believe Miles Davis would approach that medium. And doing a film that he would want to star as opposed to doing something that felt like a Cliffs Notes version of his life.”
He and co-writer Steven Baigelman tried to achieve this by focusing on some of the lesser-known parts of the trumpeter’s life — specifically his time in New York in the ’70s — rather than worrying about telling the whole story.
“I’m personally interested in when Miles met John Coltrane, when he left Juilliard, when he went from playing bebop to playing with the nonet. I was interested in all those elements but I didn’t want to write a movie that checked off all those boxes,” he said. “And Steven said, ‘I don’t want to do that either.'”
But in a movie like “Miles Ahead,” it’s not just the story that needs to be perfect — so does the music. Of course, following in Davis’ footsteps is a next-to-impossible task, but the actor knew that Glasper could do it.
“When he called me to do [the score], I was like, ‘Ummm, sure,'” the musician said with a laugh. “I was terrified as well. But then when they told me that they were going to put in some actual recordings of Miles, I was like, ‘Whew. Cool.’ But it was great, they allowed me to be myself.”
In the end, the film is one that Davis’ son and nephew feel is both a fitting portrayal and one that Davis himself would have been satisfied with.
“I think — we called him Chief — this is the way the Chief would have done it,” Wilburn said.
“Miles Ahead” arrives in theaters April 1.