I wasn't tempted to sing with Miles: why try to do badly, or less well,
something that other people do so well? I'm not going to start singing
jazz standards: it's not in my blood or my culture. Mind you, I have a
deep affection and huge admiration for Ella Fitzgerald and a few others.
It's interesting how US blacks would come to France and experience freedom. Joesphine Baker sang that she had two loves, her home country and Paris. And for good reason.
The reason this relationship ended was:
At four o'clock in the morning I got a call from Miles, who was in tears. "I couldn't come by myself," he said. "I don't ever want to see you again here, in a country where this kind of relationship is impossible." I suddenly understood that I'd made a terrible mistake, from which came a strange feeling of humiliation that I'll never forget. In America his colour was made blatantly obvious to me, whereas in Paris I didn't even notice that he was black.
Although, it may never have truly ended:
Between Miles and me there was a great love affair, the kind you'd want everybody to experience. Throughout our lives, we were never lost to each other. Whenever he could, he would leave messages for me in the places I travelled in Europe: "I was here, you weren't."Source: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/may/25/jazz
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