Actor Don Cheadle, who directed and stars in the upcoming Miles Davis film, Miles Ahead, was interviewed recently about the movie by The New York Times and JazzTimes. Here are excerpts from both pieces:

…When Miles Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, his nephew Vincent Wilburn, Jr. (who had played drums in his uncle’s band during the comeback period) announced at a news conference that the family was moving forward with a film about Davis, and that Mr. Cheadle was going to play the role.

No one, however, had approached Mr. Cheadle about the idea. But the actor — a music fan who played saxophone as a teenager and had seen Davis in concert in 1981 — sent word that he was interested. He began meeting with Davis’s youngest son, Erin. Over time, the idea of concentrating on the musician’s silent years, rather than his triumphs, began to emerge.

“I was initially a little puzzled by the idea,” Erin Davis said. “But we were also trying to think in terms of what Miles would have liked, something he would want to see or be a part of. He didn’t like ‘Bird’ ” — Clint Eastwood’s 1988 Charlie Parker biopic — “so we might as well try an original concept instead of doing it the same kind of way.”

Read more at The New York Times.

Read more at JazzTimes.