Miles Davis

[GeorgeGist]

Miles Davis was a man of few words. When he did speak, his words often had a similar effect to a hand grenade being lobbed into the room. In 1987, he was invited to a White House dinner by Ronald Reagan. Few of the guests appeared to know who he was. During dinner, Nancy Reagan turned to him and asked what he'd done with his life to merit an invitation. Straight-faced, Davis replied: "Well, I've changed the course of music five or six times. What have you done except fuck the president?

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2011/sep/28/miles-davis-20-years

[valerief]

1. What a great line! nt

[LWolf]

2. A thread about Miles Davis

is not complete without some music.

[First Speaker]

3. I really, really hope this story is true...

...it has an apocryphal feel to it, though God knows Davis *could* have said it. He was not one to suffer fools...

[antiquie]

4. Snopes says not true...

In that 1990 autobiography, Davis mentioned nothing about his making a cutting remark to Mrs. Reagan; in fact, he had nothing but kind words to say about meeting her:

[President] Reagan was nice to us, respectful and everything. But Nancy is the one who has the charm between those two. She seemed like a warm person. She greeted me warmly and I kissed her hand. She liked that.

Davis then described an encounter he had with an unnamed politician's wife at a dinner given by Secretary of State George P. Shultz later in the day, during which he claimed to have responded to her comments about jazz with a form of the "what's so important about you?" put-down:

At the table where I was sitting, a politician's wife said some silly shit about jazz, like "Are we supporting this art form just because it's here in this country, and is it art in its truest form, or are we just being blasé and ignoring jazz because it comes from here and not from Europe, and it comes from black people?"

Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/milesdavis.asp