Miles Davis Blue Portrait by Joni Mitchell

Miles Davis Portrait

(Joni Mitchell, quoted from Miles Electric - A Different Kind Of Blue)
I spent the days after his death painting a portrait of him as I frequently do when I lose somebody that I cared for, and a... this... Wayne took a look at the painting and he said a... "Well you painted him a kinda blue", the skin tone 'cuz he had that magnificent mahogany colour y'know in my rendition of it was kinda blue.

(from: A Conversation with Joni Mitchell by Daniel Levitin © Grammy Magazine March 1997) JM: Yeah, he liked my painting and he'd seen this print that a mutual friend of ours had and he called me up, (whispers) 'Joni, I like that painting that you did. Nice colors. I want to come over and watch you paint.' So he would talk painting but he wouldn't talk music with me. He never would talk music.

DL: So you knew him?

JM: A little bit. I approached him on many occasions to play with me see, and he wouldn't play with me. When he died, his son inherited his record collection, and he said to me, "Joni, did you give Dad all your records?"

I said "no, on a couple of occasions I gave him just a tape that I wanted him to play on and an art print to bribe him, or something (laughs)..."

He said, "well he had all your records. And at the end he moved your print from the bathroom up to the side of his bed."

And I thought he must have just been getting ready play with me when he died.

I went to see him four days before he died, along with Wayne Shorter and a whole group of us. He was playing at the Hollywood Bowl, and I walked into the dressing room, and Miles had his hand on Wayne's shoulder and he was talking music to him.

This was unusual, because Miles never talked music; he ordinarily didn't give a lot of instruction. After the show I asked Wayne what they were talking about, and Wayne said that Miles was kind of passing the baton to him. He must have known he was gonna die ...