The first look at Damson Idris as jazz legend Miles Davis has reignited a conversation about the musician's complicated history with women, particularly the Black women he married.
Idris is portraying Davis in Miles & Juliette, an upcoming film centered on his romance with Juliette Gréco, a white French singer and actress. But some viewers have criticized the film's focus on Gréco, arguing Davis' marriages to Black women deserve the spotlight.
Davis was married to dancer Frances Taylor, singer Betty Davis and legendary actress Cicely Tyson. His relationships with women were often tumultuous, and the musician acknowledged physically abusing women in his 1989 autobiography.
“Miles Davis had three Black wives, btw,” one person wrote on X. “But this is what Hollyweird chooses to focus on…”
Another commenter pointed to Davis' relationship with Tyson as a better subject for a film.
“Miles Davis had a 22-year-long relationship with Cicely Tyson, including 7 years of marriage, and this is what they decided to make a movie about,” the commenter wrote.
Tyson and Davis married in 1981 and divorced in 1989. Their relationship included periods of separation, Davis' struggles with addiction and Tyson's efforts to help him rebuild his health and career.
Still, the romance at the center of Miles & Juliette holds its own place in Davis' history.
In 1949, the 22-year-old trumpeter traveled to France for the Paris International Jazz Festival, where he met Gréco. Their relationship developed during a period when interracial relationships faced significant discrimination in the United States, where many states still prohibited interracial marriage.
For Davis, Paris offered something he had rarely experienced at home: the freedom to move through society without the same racial restrictions imposed on Black Americans.
Davis later wrote in his autobiography that the trip “changed the way I looked at things forever,” per Complex.
The upcoming film revisits that period of his life, years before his marriages to Taylor, Betty Davis and Tyson.
According to Deadline, filming is underway in Paris, with Anamaria Vartolomei starring opposite Idris as Gréco. Bill Pohlad is directing from a screenplay by Pulitzer Prize finalist Zora Howard, and Grammy-winning musician Robert Glasper is handling the music.
The cast also includes J. Alphonse Nicholson as Kenny Clarke, Terrace Martin as Charlie Parker, Lodric D. Collins as Max Roach, and Hubert Point-Du Jour as John Coltrane.
The film is expected to premiere in 2027, per Deadline, though an official release date has not been announced.
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