Erin Davis (son of Miles) and Vince Wilburn, Jr. (nephew of Miles) were recently interviewed by Mike Ragogna for The Huffington Post. Here’s an excerpt from the interview below.
Mike Ragogna: Let’s start with the street. It’s about time that Miles Davis got a street named after him, but why now? What brought it on?
Vince Wilburn: What brought it on? There was a lady named Shirley Zafirau, she is a neighbor on West 77th street and she’s very politically driven. She thought it would be very honorable if the city would grant uncle Miles a street named in his honor. So one of Mayor Bloomberg’s last bills to be signed before he left office was to pass this ordinance to have the street named after uncle Miles. So Shirley Zafirau was the one who really spearheaded it. She’s going to be at the event, we were out hanging “No Parking” signs last night. I don’t want to tell her age, but she’s really spunky and feisty. The family applauds.
Erin Davis: We’re very grateful to her.
…MR: Vince, obviously you have a lot of stories about Miles, but do you have any that come to mind, something you watched him do or something about him?
VW: I always say this, but you’re talking about someone who was the first to wake up in the morning and last to go to sleep at night, driven by music. He would change close to five or six times a day, his mind just worked in very creative ways and he was always thinking about the music, advancing the music, exploring new horizons with the music, never looking back. We played together for four years and each night was different. We called it Miles Davis University, he was the captain. We called him “The Chief.”