Don Cheadle’s Miles Davis Biopic ‘Miles Ahead’ will premier at New York Film Festival
Last summer I participated in the filming of a Miles Davis biopic entitled Miles Ahead directed by and starring Don Cheadle. I portrayed Ron Carter, the bassist in Miles’ Second Great Quintet. It was a pretty awesome experience. I spent about 3 days on set and got to work directly with Cheadle and Robert Glasper, who created the film score and was on set to make help sure the music performance scenes would sync correctly with the soundtrack. Both of them were very down to earth and really fun to work with.
Glasper had us all cracking up the whole time. He was also super knowledgeable about the music of the time period and had a wealth of great advice. Don Cheadle has to be the coolest brother in Hollywood. I was really impressed with how everyday at break time he would chill and eat all of his meals with the extras and musicians instead of staying in his trailer. He was also really cool toward me and the other musicians and made sure we all knew how much he appreciated us being in the movie. Also If you didn’t know, Don Cheadle is a beast on trumpet. Doing those scenes with him was surreal. It was like I was really playing with Miles at times.
Over the weekend I found out that Mr. Cheadle has landed a very high profile debut for the film. It will be presented on closing night of this year’s New York Film Festival. The festival will be held September 25th through October 11th. Even though I only worked on two scenes I’m just as excited as if I created the entire movie. This is definitely one of the biggest things I’ve ever been involved in. Check out this quote from Cheadle about the film’s acceptance to the New York Film Festival below. I’ll be sure to post on this blog when I found out when Miles Ahead will be released in theaters.
“I am happy that the selection committee saw fit to invite us to the dance. It’s very gratifying that all the hard work that went into the making of this film, from every person on the team, has brought us here. Miles’ music is all-encompassing, forward-leaning, and expansive. He changed the game time after time, and New York is really where it all took off for him.”
