Feb. 13, 2002

This is a synopsis of a proposed big Broadway musical.

MILES SMILES AND OTHER LOVERS:  A JAZZ MUSICAL IN FOUR SETS

SET ONE:  1954  "Straight No Chaser"

    The setting is a seedy, half-empty New York jazz club.  Onstage MILES DAVIS leads his band through a hard bop version of "Straight No Chaser."  The music is hard, fast and complex.  MILES is on fire ripping through solo after solo.

    Young SAMMY KLATZKIN enters dressed in a work shirt.  He re-stocks the cigarette machines in a flurry of activity.  He is a tough white kid from the Lower East Side working nights to put himself through law school.  He pauses to watch MILES.  A beautiful, affluent beatnik girl in a black beret asks SAMMY for a light.  She is LORRAINE.

    The band eases into a sultry, swinging version of "Bye Bye Blackbird," and the couple rise together and dance.  MILES looks down from the bandstand and smiles.

    The set ends and SAMMY and LORRAINE are smoking cigarettes outside on the curb and falling in love.  Backstage we see MILES tying off a vein, shooting up heroin, and slumping forward unconscious.  The white club owner rifles through his pockets for money and steals his horn.

SET TWO:  1964  "My Funny Valentine"

    The setting is a ritzy New York jazz club.  The place is packed, and the Miles Davis Quintet is onstage.  MILES, dressed in an impeccable black tux, leads the band through a challenging, exploratory version of "E.S.P."

     At a big table in the audience, a dozen affluent couples are gathered for a celebration.  SAMMY sits at the head of the table and rejoices as an older man lights his cigar.  SAMMY has just made partner at his law firm.  The band starts to play "My Funny Valentine."  It is lush and romantic. SAMMY asks LORRAINE to dance.  She rises, radiantly beautiful, dressed in red, and heavily pregnant with their third child.  From the stage, MILES looks down and smiles.

    During the intermission, SAMMY's party is in full swing as magnums of champagne are opened.  MILES stands in front of the club smoking a cigarette and is viciously beaten by a pair of cops for talking back to them.

SET THREE:  1972  "Bitches Brew"

    In the darkness, the sounds of "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down" rise, cacophonous, chaotic, and angry.  Lights come up on SAMMY's office.  It is huge, befitting the senior counsel of NASCRON, but it is in disarray.  SAMMY is surrounded by frenzied assistants sifting through cardboard boxes of documents.  Some SAMMY signs.  Others he throws in a shredder.  He surreptitiously eyes his pretty, young secretary.

    Stage left MILES DAVIS is onstage at the Filmore East dressed in a dashiki, leather pants, and huge sunglasses.  The show is out of control.  Drugs are being used.  As MILES plays, his young wife, all afro and tiny miniskirt, staggers onstage playing a tambourine.  She dances drunkenly and falls down.  She rises, pulls out divorce papers, and throws them at MILES.  She then starts to fondle the white, hippie bass player.  The wild music plays on.

    Simultaneously, LORRAINE storms into SAMMY's office and throws divorce papers at him as the secretary jumps off his lap.  SAMMY slumps forward on his desk.

    Onstage, MILES staggers backwards, collapsing dejectedly on a stack of amps.  His health fails him.

SET FOUR:  1991  "Time After Time"

    The setting is a huge, expensively decorated Tribeca apartment.  SAMMY and LORRAINE's 35th anniversary party is breaking up.  Attractive, wealthy couples finish off their glasses of chardonnay and leave.  A friend as he leaves tells SAMMY he heard on the radio that MILES DAVIS has died.  With their guests gone, SAMMY and LORRAINE bask in the glow of their wealth, love, and happiness.  LORRAINE kisses SAMMY and goes to the kitchen to clean up.

    Thoughtful, SAMMY finds an old LP and puts it on the record player.  As the sweet sounds of Miles Davis' "Someday My Prince Will Come" waft through the air, SAMMY sits back on the sofa, closes his eyes, and reminisces.

    Magically, the front door silently opens and in strolls the GHOST OF MILES DAVIS dressed in tuxedo and sunglasses, playing a golden trumpet.  SAMMY leans back in reverie as the music plays and the GHOST OF MILES hovers above him.  Then the GHOST OF MILES viciously beats SAMMY to death with his horn and leaves.

THE END