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• Official site of Miles Davis' estate
• About Mr. Wilburn

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Tavis: On this fifteenth anniversary of the death of jazz legend Miles Davis, I'm pleased to be joined by a trio tonight. First up, the youngest son of Miles Davis, that would be Erin Davis. He, too, is a musician who worked on his father's touring road crew as a kid. Well, he's still a kid, but that was back in the eighties (laugh) Up next, Miles Davis' nephew, Vince Wilburn, Jr. Vince was the drummer on a number of world tours, beginning in 1984 and currently working on a hip hop tribute to his uncle.

And this guy, who is that guy? (laugh) Herbie Hancock. A disciple of Miles Davis, and one of the most influential musicians of our time. In 1963, he joined the Miles Davis quintet, even though he looks like he ain't even that old. (laugh) Spent five years playing on classic albums like 'ESP' and 'Sorcerer.' It is my pleasure to have you all here. Nice to see you.

Herbie Hancock: Good to be here.

Vince Wilburn, Jr.: Great to be here, yeah, thanks, Tavis.

Tavis: Last time you were here, we had n first of all, I'm gonna give you some love, man. The last time you were here, we had such a delightful conversation, and people still stop me around the country to talk about how much, how empowered they were by that conversation and your principles, and what was behind all this genius.

Hancock: It just had a great flow to it. You were able to ask me not just about my music, but about my life and what motivates me, and what my vision really is behind everything. And I actually have had a lot of people, too, mention that show several times, about how it made them feel encouraged somehow. I really wanna thank you for it.

Tavis: Oh, I'm glad to have you back.

Hancock: For that. Yeah, and we talked about Buddhism and a lot of things, yeah.

Tavis: Well, we're glad to have you back on the program. I thought if you n why would I not, when you think about doing a tribute and a conversation about Miles Davis? I wanted to ask you, there were some people who were a bit critical when Miles got inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, and you recall this conversation. Miles, a genius, some people thought that the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame was beneath him.

He's a jazz legend, that that wasn't the place for him. And again, some folk n not to cast aspersion on the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame n just didn't understand why, what the connect was, with Miles Davis and the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. I figure you felt a little differently, but you can share with me what your thought were about that.

Hancock: Well first of all, that kind of opinion that, that you just mentioned is a very judgmental opinion. Jazz isn't about being judgmental. It's totally the opposite. It's about being nonjudgmental. And Miles was a perfect example of that. Because he embraced, rather than excluded. That's what it was about. So not only that, but Miles has influenced so many musicians from so many genres.

What do you think rock and roll musicians listen to on their touring buses? (laugh) They don't listen to rock and roll. They listen to Miles. They listen to John Coltrane, and various jazz artists. And that's what inspires them.

Tavis: Yeah. You started with Miles when you were how young?

Hancock: Twenty-three.

Tavis: Twenty-three. I was gonna say 22. Twenty-three. Were you, at that time, intimidated by playing with this legend in the making?

Hancock: Absolutely. (laugh) I was scared to death, yeah.

Tavis: How'd you deal with that at 23?

Hancock: I didn't say very much. (laugh) Pretty quiet. And I trembled a lot. And I almost got fired because I did that. Well, one response to that was on the stage, I was intimidated. And so, I was so busy trying to do what I thought would make Miles comfortable, which is based off of what I heard on his records. I figured he's comfortable with the way Bill Evans played, or comfortable the way Red Garland played, and various piano players played on those records that I heard. His classic songs.

And so I tried to play like them. That was absolutely the opposite of what he wanted from me. He didn't hire me to play like them. He hired me to play like me. And I remember that because n the human spirit isn't comfortable in that kind of situation. And at some point, because there was something festering in me to get out, and I wasn't letting it out, I was so busy trying to copy other people.

And I remember one gig that we had in Chicago at the Sutherland Lounge, I just was so frustrated by then that I said, I'm just gonna have to play it tonight. And so I just played. I said, even if I kind of step all over Miles, I'm gonna play. So I played, we finished the set, and I just said to myself, well, I'm getting fired tonight. (laugh) And as we walked off the stage, Miles whispered in my ear.

He said, why didn't you play like that before? (laugh) And a light bulb went off in my head. I said, oh. And it finally, with that little statement, it finally came all together. Then I realized that that's what he wanted. He wanted me to do whatever it took for me to emerge. And he wasn't concerned about me stepping all over his solos. For him, that wasn't about it. For him, he always did everything he could to bring out the musicians that he hired.

Tavis: So Erin and Vince, any less intimidating playing with this guy, when you happen to be related to him?

Wilburn: Well, it was pretty intense being the drummer, and legacy of drummers before me. (laugh) And it's definitely the hot seat. So. But I wanted to take it on. I didn't look at it like n I was intimidated, scared, but it was a challenge, but it was I wanted to do it. I wanted to give him my best. So every night, we tried n every band member, and I'm sure Herbie can agree, we just tried to give him what he wanted. And we didn't know what he wanted, we just n he'd say play, man, play. Reach for it. So we took chances.

Tavis: I know some offspring, Erin, of legends, of iconic figures, want to try to, as Vince said, make the mother, make the father, make the legend, the icon, happy by giving him or her your best. There are other folk who say I don't wanna go nowhere near trying to do what my mama and them, or my daddy and them tried to do. I'm too smart to even go in that direction, 'cause I know I have nothing to contribute.

I know I don't measure up. I don't wanna live a life where I get compared to Daddy. So I'm gonna go love Daddy, but I'm gonna go in a whole different direction. Love Mama, but I don't want none of that, 'cause it's just too much to even try to live up to. How did you process being the child of Miles Davis, and in this regard, playing with him?

Erin Davis: Well, it didn't really occur to me what kind of scale of, what kind of persona I was really dealing with. How he was perceived by other people, and things like that. But when I was 14, he had me come on the road with him, just to see what it was like. And we were in Berkeley, I think. And Vince was playing drums, and I was, like, oh, that's what I wanna do. Just, I had no qualms at all.

I was like, that's what I wanna do, I wanna play drums. That looks like exactly what I should be doing. And I never thought oh, I'll play trumpet, or anything like that. he never said, you should try trumpet. He was like, no n when I was 10, he made me take an instrument. He was like, you gotta learn something. So I took guitar. But I probably should have taken drums. (laugh) But...

Tavis: That's a nice way to say you stunk on the guitar.

Davis: Yeah, I still do. (laugh)

Tavis: And still do, you say, huh? (laugh)

Davis: But I never really tried to measure myself up to him. I just tried to learn from him. So my experience playing with him live was a little different than Herbie. I don't think he hired me for my talents. I think he was like, let's see what you got. (laugh) Herbie and Vince had it a little different than me. I got drafted out of high school. (laugh)

Tavis: Nonetheless, though, how many people can say that they spent time playing with Miles Davis? So, it all works out.

Davis: That's true.

Tavis: I was fascinated, Vince, when I saw that you were working on a project that is a hip hop tribute to Miles Davis. And I'm thinking, back to Herbie's point, Miles was about inclusion, not exclusion, and if anybody could take something and twist it and make it new and fresh and pleasing to the ear, Miles could do it. But I'm trying to, in my mind, figure out what does a hip hop tribute to Miles Davis sound like? How do you create that?

Wilburn: Well first of all, not to get off the subject, I saw Herbie at the Bowl last week, right? And my cousin and I went to the show. And it was something that you never expected. Herbie had a violinist, a whole nother band, and he played, it was just, like, wow. So when you go see Herbie, you don't know what n you just go and you're going to see Herbie, and Herbie's gonna take you where he wants to take you.

And it was awesome, it was fascinating. And so when I talk to people like Q-Tip and I did a record called 'The Evolution Of The Groove' that's gonna be released with Nas, and Nas' dad's, Olu Dara's, trumpeter. There's no separation in hip hop or jazz. It's all music. And Quincy even said that we were rapping back in the Cab Calloway days. So there's no, it's just fusing it all together and talking to people like Q-Tip and Nas.

And like man, we're gonna do beats, and we're going to go into the vault and kind of listen to the tracks and reshape them or rework them, and have you cats express how you felt about Miles or whatever. I can't tell them what to do. Like Herbie said, we just go out and just create, and let the tapes roll. Like Miles used to do. So all I wanna do is give him, like, a foundation based on the rhythms that these guys recorded for us, and just go from there.

Like we do in 'It's About That Time' on the 'Cool & Collected,' and Santana came and blew on it, and talking to Q-Tip every day, we're just forming something with the base of what these guys set for us.

Tavis: This might be an impossible question, Herbie, but if anybody can do any justice to this ridiculous question, it would be you. There are a lot of jazz greats, there are a lot of jazz masters. There are fewer, obviously, iconic figures in this field. What was that thing that made him different? He was different than everybody else. He was cooler than everybody else. He was more innovative than anybody else.

That's how he becomes an iconic figure, not just a jazz master or a jazz great. Not to cast aspersion on those folks. What was that thing that made him so uniquely different than all the other folk who come this way in this genre called jazz?

Hancock: It's hard to pinpoint a single thing, but I could tell you some things that are kind of key clues to it.

Tavis: See, I told you it was a crazy question. (laugh)

Hancock: (laugh) No, no, it's a great question. Miles had a certain kind of honesty that was so real that it gave him a power that n giving him is actually the wrong word. It meant that he exuded a kind of power that is difficult and probably impossible to achieve unless you are that honest, and that real. He was always concerned about being who you are, and expressing who you are, no matter what. And standing up for what you believe in.

And he always did that. And he had this incredible respect for other people who exhibited a realness, too. And he always supported that. He always tried to bring that out. As a matter of fact, Miles used to say things to people that embarrassed me a lot. exhibited a realness, too. And he always supported that. He always tried to bring that out. As a matter of fact, Miles used to say things to people that embarrassed me a lot. (laugh) Because he would say things, and I'd go, oh, man.

Wilburn: Did he say that? (laugh)

Hancock: No, no. (laugh) Did he say that? And I'm thinking about how this person is gonna feel hearing this, how embarrassed they're gonna feel, or how shaken up they're gonna feel. And I used to try to clean things up. I used to go, afterwards, and I'd say, you know Miles didn't really mean it that way. And it took me a while. Miles is, like, a great teacher, right? It took me years to figure out wait a minute.

There's a purpose behind that. Miles making those kinds of statements. And me cleaning it up takes away the grand purpose that he had. And what he was doing was throwing jabs at people to get them to awaken to themselves. And to awaken to what gems they have inside themselves. He may not have been consciously thinking of that. I think it's just a great talent that he had. That he would throw things at people, and it would really jar them.

But sometimes, years later, the people would finally get it. And the only thing I was doing was standing in the way of them discovering more about themselves, when Miles was a catalyst toward them accomplishing that extremely positive part of their evolution.

Tavis: That said, speaking of obscure questions, I'm curious, Vince and Erin, how one discovers his own sense of cool, hanging around a cat like Miles. I think back to my own childhood, and I always thought that my dad had the coolest walk. (laugh) And it was really a funny story, because my dad was born with polio. And he's probably watching right now. One of my father's legs is shorter than the other.

Slightly, but shorter. But it gives him a cool little bounce when he walks that I always thought was so cool I used to try to imitate my dad's walk. And then years later I got to meet and know Sidney Poitier . Talk about a nice gait. The way Poitier walks into a room, strides across, it's that walk. Then you see Denzel in a movie, Denzel's got that.

There's a certain sense of cool that brothers have that we all wanna emulate, we all wanna get. Miles is, like, the coolest of the cool. Do you feel like a geek in this guy's presence? (laugh) Or do you pray that some of that cool just kind of rubs off? 'Cause he's the coolest of the cool.

Wilburn: I'm just in awe. Just in awe. When he walks into a room, we just follow him. It's just, like, all eyes on him. He's on stage, all eyes on him. We're in the grocery store, all eyes on him. If he's shopping for clothes, if he's buying a car. One day, we were looking at a Ferrari, and the salesman was so happy. Oh, Mr. Davis, and this is the glove compartment. He said, would you shut up and let me. (laugh)

'Cause he knew about the car. And all he wanted to do was test drive a car. And he said, shut up and let me drive this n (laugh). But just being around him, you can learn so much. We were on a flight once, and he told me to take the spoon away from the soup, when you eat soup, pull the spoon away, take it this way, and then bring it up to your mouth. Little things like that that you would, like, wow. (laugh)

Tavis: That's the way (unintelligible)?

Davis: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. But...

Hancock: You didn't know that, Vince? (laugh)

Tavis: I didn't know it till just now. (unintelligible) Is that why that soup always ends up on my shirt?

Hancock: Etiquette, man.

Tavis: I'm going the wrong way.

Hancock: Etiquette. (laugh)

Wilburn: But it's just...

Hancock: But he knew about food, though.

Wilburn: Oh yeah, he was a heck of a chef.

Tavis: And not just food, art. Not just food, art.

Wilburn: Clothes, cars, music, of course. But it was just, to be around him, you would just hope that you could n some of it would rub off. But it was just an awe. It was awe on stage, awe off the stage. Awe when we were just sitting watching boxing. 'Cause he would change clothes. He would, like, during the course of the day, right, Erin? He would change, like, three or four times a day. (laugh)

Davis: Yeah, yeah.

Tavis: In one day.

Wilburn: Yeah.

Hancock: Sure.

Wilburn: Like he was going out, and stay right at home. (laugh)

Hancock: And I was like whoa, man, his is heavy.

Tavis: What was that about, Erin?

Davis: Well, he used to say when you get new clothes, you should just wear them around the house to get used to having them. Like if you have a new jacket, and you're like man, this is kind of flashy. I don't know about this. Just wear it at home for a while.

Tavis: See how you like it.

Davis: To get used to it.

Tavis: Yeah.

Davis: So that when you go out the first time, you won't be self-conscious, or anything like that.

Hancock: He's say rehearse it. I'm gonna rehearse this. (laugh) I'm gonna rehearse this jacket.

Tavis: I'm gonna rehearse this jacket.

Wilburn: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Tavis: That actually makes sense, 'cause you see folk who walk out, and you can tell they got something new on. (laugh) They ain't quite figured out how to walk in the sh...s...

Wilburn: Well, did you hear the story about with Marcus?

Tavis: No, what? (laugh)

Wilburn: When they were on stage playing, and so Miles walks over to Marcus Miller, right? And Marcus is playing, and Marcus is like uh-oh, oh, I guess he's gonna tell me to make a change or play something different. He reaches over to Marcus, leans over to Marcus and says, how you like my sh...s? (laugh) On stage.

Tavis: In the middle of the show?

Wilburn: Yeah. Yeah. So, you never knew, man. He was, he set it up.

Tavis: Tell me about this love for art. And not just love for it, but a talent for it, as well.

Davis: Well, I think it started out as more of a rehabilitary thing, where he was just kind of, like, taking a break from music, and he just started kind of sketching. And then after a while, he was just kind of sketching things he liked, like dancers, women, horses, himself. (laugh) Trumpets. Musicians. And then he started using brushes and painting, and using easels. And then he graduated to knocking out the dining room table with a full-blown canvas.

Wilburn: Full-blown canvas.

Davis: And then hanging it up from the ceilings, actually, to the floor. Like that size canvas. And when he wasn't physically playing music, he was usually painting or doing something like that. Vince and I made a lot of art runs.

Wilburn: Yeah, to the store. Paints.

Davis: Art supply runs. (laugh)

Tavis: That's fascinating for me, Herb, because it's like when you hear about these kinds of stories about a guy that had that much talent, if you ain't careful, you can almost get n and I wanna ask this seriously, even though it may sound funny n you could almost get a little jealous. A little mad. 'Cause you start asking yourself what is it that I didn't have, or that God didn't see in me, to give me this massive amount of talent?

And why is it this guy can play, and not just play, but innovate and paint and be cool. And it's like he got all of this, and you try to discover that one thing that you do well. I sometimes wonder why some guys, some sisters, get all of the talent, it seems.

Hancock: Well, first of all, because Miles listened to everybody in the band, and what he played couldn't have been played if you weren't there. If I wasn't there playing the piano, he wouldn't have played some of the things that he played. Because he fed off of things that I played, too. So in that sense, you feel like you're contributing somehow to the expression of his greatness. And so, there's no room for jealousy.

Tavis: I get that.

Hancock: Because he's elevating you to his level. I'm not saying I was elevated to his level, (laugh) but it was that gesture. And it wasn't a conscious n I think rather than it being a conscious gesture, it's that's the way he was. He had that kind of respect for people in his environment. For the environment. It's expressed in his paintings. And so, you wind up playing better with him than you would with anybody else.

Tavis: Vince and Erin, there seems to be no end to the good stuff that Miles Davis did. We got 'Cool & Collected,' we got the Miles Davis quintet box set, I hear there's other stuff coming out. Ya'll still got stuff that didn't get put out.

Wilburn: Oh yeah, long after we're gone.

Tavis: That long, even?

Wilburn: Oh, yes. It's like vaults. Herbie can tell you and Erin can tell you when they recorded, the tape ran. And he just let the tapes run. So there's vaults and vaults and vaults of music.

Davis: I remember when that started. (laugh)

Wilburn: I heard the quintet, and he asked Tony to try temple blocks. Did you remember that? When Tony was playing temple blocks.

Davis: Oh, yeah.

Wilburn: And it was, like, to hear Tony play these temple blocks, and (unintelligible) had made a comment like boy, that's different, Miles. And just to hear this, the quintet, and Tony's playing these rhythms, Tony Williams, he's playing these temple blocks. 'Cause they wanted to try something different.

Tavis: Well, Miles is gone, but Miles really isn't gone, 'cause his music is with us, and that lives forever. And there's a great deal more of that stuff to come. So we celebrate the life and legacy of one Miles Davis on this, the fifteenth anniversary of his passing. Erin, Vince, Herbie, as always, nice to see you. Thanks for coming on.

Hancock: Yes, thank you, Tavis.

Davis: Thank you. Great being here.