“wind and crying blue rain tearing me up”

–Jimi Hendrix

*

I.

Listen, the first time I saw Miles Davis play live was at the Chicago Coliseum in 1981. Miles had just come out of retirement after six years of doing little more than snorting coke. Good to have him back. Great to have him back. I’m not sure if it was my first time hearing live jazz. Possibly so. Probably so. Anything before not worth thinking about since this was the performance that stuck with me, the one that blew me away and turned me into a jazz fiend. I was nineteen years old.

What I remember, many of Chicago’s luminaries had come out to see and hear Miles, including horn man Eddie Harris.…