The SoulBounce Q&A: Don Cheadle Opens Up About Becoming Miles Davis & Bringing His Story To The Big Screen In 'Miles Ahead'

BP: I noted in the opening credits Robert Glasper. What was the decision to use him as a composer?

DC: At first, we were trying to work with Herbie Hancock, and Herbie was doing lectures at Harvard and writing books and doing four albums. He was really too busy to be our composer. Vince Wilburn, Miles’ nephew, said do you know Robert Glasper? I was like no, I know his stuff from Black Radio, but what does he know about jazz and about the roots. Vince was like, ah no, dude’s bad. I called Herbie and asked him, “What do you know about Rob Glasper?” He was like, aw, I want to do something with Rob Glasper. I went, okay, we’re good.

I met with Rob. Actually, Rob was on tour, and I got on the phone with him and we just started talking music. He’d put the phone down and play stuff, and then I would go wait a minute and put the phone down and play something, play him a tune. We just really built in that way. Then, once he got to New York and we could actually get in the studio with each other, we composed the movie in about a week.

SB: Wow. That’s fascinating. You played the saxophone growing up. Now for this role, you had to play the trumpet.

DC: Yes. That’s right.

SB: How did you switch gears? Having not played the trumpet before this role, correct?

DC: Well no, I had had some experience with it. I’ve been in bands my whole life and having the brass section sit behind me, by osmosis, you’re picking up something, you know. But then you have to pick that thing up, and you’re like, oh I don’t actually know s**t, I just heard it. [laughter] I couldn’t make sound out of it. When I did The Rat Pack, Sammy Davis, Jr. played trumpet, so I really wanted to nail the fingering and that’s when I started learning like three valves and 52 notes. Once I knew I was going to do this movie, I picked it up and started practicing and playing. I still play it today. I played with The Roots a couple of nights ago.

SB: I saw you on Jimmy Fallon. That was awesome.

DC: It’s something that now, if I don’t play for a couple of days, I miss it. I didn’t think I was going to have this sort of attachment to the instrument, but I really love it. It’s just a very unforgiving, very demanding, very challenging instrument, but I did not want to go into this movie and not have a real relationship with this horn.

We’ve all seen movies where there are actors and you see them on the guitar, and they’re going down when the notes are going up. Or, playing piano and they’re going up and the notes are going down. I just couldn’t do that. I didn’t want to see that. So, I wanted in my development to be at some point where Miles was in his development. Maybe I only got to where he was when he was 10 or 12 [laughter], but it still mattered to me to be in process in the way that he was in process at some point.

SB: Well, we couldn’t tell. You looked like a natural.

DC: Well, I’m playing in the movie. We hear Miles when it’s Miles, obviously, but I’m playing those solos and underneath that, if you were to turn down the Miles sound, it’s Don under there doing it.