Sunday Music: Miles Asked Dizzy "Why Can't I Play Like You" And The Answer Is Perfect

I asked Dizzy one day, “Man, why can’t I play like you?” He said, “You do play like me, but you play it down an octave lower. You play the chords.” Dizzy is self-taught, but he knows everything about music. So when he told me that I heard everything down lower, in the middle register, it just made sense to me, because I didn’t hear anything up, you know? Now I can, but not then. And one time a little after this conversation with Dizzy, he came up to me after I had played a solo and said, “Miles, you’re stronger now; your chops are better than they were when I first heard you.” What he meant was that I was playing higher and stronger than I was before.

In order for me to play a note it has to sound good to me. I’ve always been that way. And a note has to be in the same register that the chord was in when I played it back, at least then it did. Back in bebop, everybody used to play real fast. But I didn’t ever like playing a bunch of scales and s***. I always tried to play the most important notes in the chord, to break it up. I used to hear all them musicians playing all them scales and notes and never nothing you could remember.

See, music is about style. Like if i were to play with Frank Sinatra, I would play the way he sings, or do something complementary to the way he sings. But I wouldn’t go and play with Frank Sinatra at breakneck speed. I learned a lot about phrasing back then listening to the way Frank, Nat “King” Cole, and even Orson Welles phrased. I mean all those people are m***********s in the way they shape a musical line or sentence or phrase with their voice. Eddie Randle used to tell me to play a phrase and then breathe, or play the way you breathed. So, the way you play behind a singer is like the way Harry “Sweets” Edison did with Frank. When Frank stopped singing, then Harry played. A little before and a little afterwards, but not ever over him; you never play over a singer. You play between. And if you play the blues you just have to play a feeling; you have to feel it.

I learned all that back in St. Louis, so I always wanted to playing something different than the way most trumpet players played. Still, I wanted to play high and fast like Dizzy just to prove to myself that I could do it. A lot of cats used to be putting me down back in the bebop days because their ears could only pick up what Dizzy was doing. That’s what they thought playing the trumpet was all about. And when somebody like me came along, trying something different, he ran the risk of being put down.

But Bird wanted something different after Dizzy quit the band. He wanted a different trumpet approach, another concept and sound. He wanted just the opposite of what Dizzy had done, somebody to complement his sound, to set it off. That’s why he chose me. He and Dizzy were a lot alike in their playing, fast as a m**********, up and down the scales so fast sometimes you almost couldn’t tell one from the other. But when Bird started playing with me there was all this space for him to do his s*** in without worrying about Dizzy being all up in there wit him. Dizzy didn’t give him no space. They were brilliant together, maybe the best ever at what they did together. But I gave Bird space and after Dizzy, that’s what he wanted. A little while after we opened up at the Three Deuces, some people still wanted to hear Diz instead of me. I could understand that.