Milestones I: The Music and Times of Miles Davis to 1960 by Jack Chambers, and: Milestones II: The Music and Times of Miles Davis since 1960 by Jack Chambers (review)

HUMANITIES 229 choices of what to include (or, more important, what to exclude) had to be made by the author. His discussion of even the more important developments is, unfortunately, brief, and fails to give the reader a complete picture. Devoting three short paragraphs to Harry Freedman and even fewer to Istvan Anhalt, for instance, seems quite inadequate. He has, nevertheless, carefully documented his sources of information through the efficacious use of footnotes, providing the serious student with access to further detail. McGee's judicious use of complementary illustrations adds to the attractive format of the volume, and his care in providing significant musical examples to amplify the text serves to enliven each topic for the reader. Each of the eight chapters of the first section is usefully subdivided into several subsections, providing easy access to specific information. An excellent bibliography is provided for each chapter, and it is refreshing to observe that McGee has not only consulted the major, well-known secondary sources but has also sought out many less-known but nonetheless valuable resources. Lists of recordings and films further enhance the usefulness of the bibliography and a comprehensive index is prOvided. (R. DALE MCINfOSH) Jack Chambers. Milestones I: The Music and Times ofMiles Davis to 1960 University of Toronto Press 1983. xii, 345· $24·95 Jack Chambers. Milestones II: The Music and Times of Miles Davis since 1960 University of Toronto Press 1985. viii, 416. $24.95 Jazz trumpeter, composer, and innovator Miles Davis has been, in the wordsofJack Chambers, his principal biographer to date, 'one of the most prominent musicians in the [modern] world.' He has also been one of the most recalcitrant with 'would-be chroniclers.' How to write a biography of one of the twentieth century's most prominent musical figures, and one who has been exasperatingly non-self-disclosive verbally, is the problem Chambers, a jazz critic and University of Toronto linguistiCS professor, chose to tackle when he embarked on the 761-page twovolume study under review here. Considering the obstacles, Chambers has been remarkably successful. The format Chambers has chosen for his study is one which could be termed 'bio-discography.' The centrepiece of Chambers's two volumes is the sound documents themselves - the 120-odd phonorecords that Davis had appeared on (usually as leader) by the time of Chambers's writingall of which Chambers discusses in some detail, and around which he weaves the story of Davis's musical life in its social and cultural context. (Hence the wording in Chambers's subtitle: 'the music and times ... ') No 230 LETTERS IN CANADA 1986 other jazz musician has been the subject of such a detailed and exhaustive bio-discography, with the exception of the early black jazz bandleader Fletcher Henderson, who was the subject of Walter C. Allen's monumental Hendersonia: The Musical Fletcher Henderson and His Musicians (Highland Park, NJ 1973). Chambers has replicated for Davis's career what Allen has done for Henderson's; but there is, strangely, no mention of the Allen study in the bibliography of either of Chambers's two volumes (a case of 'independent invention' of the 'exhaustive biodiscography ' genre of jazz literature, perhaps?). The study itself is organized chronologically, with the annotated discographical entries incorporated directly into the text rather than set off in a separate section. These entries follow a standard format (which can become somewhat numbing if one attempts too many pages at a single sitting). For every recording session Miles Davis participated in before October 1983 - whether in the studio or 'on location' - Chambers gives the date and place, along with a list of the personnel, the titles of the tunes recorded, and phonorecord release information. Following this information there are descriptions, of varying lengths, of the recorded tracks and of the recording situation, the latter culled in the main from published interviews with the participants. Chambers's discussion of the music itself is not very sophisticated musicologically ; but he is very good at conveying his passion and respect for it. More than once the immediacy of his accounts led me back to the recordings themselves - an important indicator, to this reviewer at least, of the success of any writing about music...