The Riverside Press-Enterprise
Quincy Troupe is a hit
The author who nearly punched Miles Davis and other creative people will be honored during UC Riverside's Writers Week
of Happyness,” which was turned into a Will Smith film.
Now Troupe is taking a break from work on a memoir to return to Southern California as one of three recipients of the L.A. Review of Books — UCR Department of Creative Writing Lifetime Achievement Award.
“I’ve had many awards in the past, but this has made me really happy because it’s a lifetime achievement award,” Troupe says. “I used to live in California, so coming back out there, it’s very good.”
He and fellow honorees Dave Eggers and Rigoberto González will be honored during the 47th annual UCR Writers Week Festival, to be held Saturday and Feb. 12-16 at UC Riverside.
In an interview edited for length and clarity, Troupe talked about how he embraced poetry while playing basketball in France, befriended Davis, joined the Watts Writers Workshop in the ’60s, and more.
Back in the 1980s, Spin magazine asked Quincy Troupe who he’d like to write about, and the poet and journalist didn’t hesitate to answer.
“I said I’d like to write about Miles Davis,” Troupe, 83, says on a recent phone call from his home in New York City. “Because he’s from East St. Louis, I’m from St. Louis. He played in my cousin’s band in St. Louis. So I would really like to write about him.”
Soon after, Troupe found himself on the legendary jazz trumpeter’s doorstep.
“When I walked in, he looked at me and he said in that voice he had, ‘You know, you’re a strangelooking (fellow). Boy, you’re weird,’ ” Troupe says in an excellent impression of Davis’ hoarse whisper.
“I said, ‘You’re weirdlookin’ yourself.’ I told him just like that.
“He said … ‘Man, you better shut up. I’ll hit you in your mouth,’ ” Troupe continues. “And I said, ‘Miles, you look at yourself recently? I’m 6-2, I weigh 200 pounds. You’re 5-7, 5-8 and you weigh 150 pounds. I’ll
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hurt you. I’ll hit you in your My mother always mouth; you’ll never play had books around the again.’ house because she was a
“I said, ‘Don’t threaten big reader. My father was me, man. I’m from St. Louis, a great baseball player, so you’re from East St. Louis. I wasn’t thinking about being You should know better.’” a writer at first because
(For the record, this is I was an athlete. I went to neither standard nor recommended Grambling College on an interview practice athletic scholarship, a baseball in journalism.) and basketball scholarship.
Once Davis learned that Then I went into the Troupe was the cousin of a Army and played basketball former bandmate, all was in Europe on the Army team well, Troupe says. “He kind until I wrecked my knee. of smiled and said, ‘Don’t sit I started writing poems. there like a knot on a log. I went to France and I met Ask me a question.’ this young woman over
“I had all these questions there. She was at the Sorbonne. mapped out, including Then I started to about his style and write these poems. I don’t his clothes,” Troupe says. know why I started, because “He liked my shoes. I had I never thought about writing these great shoes. He said, poetry. It just happened. ‘Them’s some great shoes It’s hard to explain. you got on.’ And that’s how it started, just like that.”
Troupe asked a lot of questions, first for an indepth, two-part Spin article, and a few years later as
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co-writer of “Miles: The Autobiography,” Somehow when I was which won an over there I got a book American Book Award after by Pablo Neruda and (also
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its publication in 1989. Federico) Garcia Lorca. You know, he picked me.
Troupe was a member of They really, really influenced Everybody thought, he’s the Watts Writers Workshop me a lot. I didn’t gonna pick Leonard Feather in the mid-’60s, and taught know anything about Chile or some other jazz writer he at UC San Diego for a dozen and I had been to Spain knew. So when they asked years in the ’80s and early when I was playing basketball. him who he wanted to write ’00s. He was appointed California’s I just loved the way his book, he said, “I want first official poet the Latin poets wrote, and Quincy Troupe.” They said, laureate in 2002, resigning so I started to imitate them “But he’s a poet.” He said, when it came to light he when I was over there. And “You didn’t ask me what he had attended, but not graduated, T.S. Eliot, because I found was. You asked me who I from Grambling College out he was from St. Louis. wanted to write my book,” in Louisiana. In 2006, and the guy says, “Oh, yeah,
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he collaborated with Chris Talk about the influence OK, OK.”
Gardner on “The Pursuit that music — jazz I was sitting in my apartment,
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I want to ask you about when you started taking your first steps toward becoming a writer.
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What kinds of poems were they? Do you remember the first poems you wrote?
and Miles Davis in particular — had on you as a writer.
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My mother really liked jazz. She was married to a musician and she always had music around the house. And so I started listening to Miles Davis’ music, and I really loved the music. I had no idea he was going to influence me as a poet. I also didn’t know I was ever going to meet him. I just loved his music.
At one time, I wanted to learn how to play trumpet. My brother was a drummer, played drums for Lou Rawls. So I was in kind of a musical situation, being with my brother and listening to music all the time.
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Let’s jump ahead to the late ’80s: How did the Spin magazine articles lead you to writing “Miles: The Autobiography”?
phone call came in. I can’t think of his name now, because I’m getting older and I’m forgetting names. He said, “Miles Davis just gave you first” — he was from Simon & Schuster, the editor — “first right of refusal to write his life story.”
I said, “Are you kidding? He asked for me to write his life story?” and they said yeah. I said, “Of course, I’d like to write his life story. How much money is it, man? I have kids.” And he laughed, he laughed. He said, “That’s funny.” I said, “Sure, I’d love to.”
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That must have taken a lot of conversations to get all the stories for the autobiography.
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Well, it was a remarkable At the time, Miles was thing. When I living in Malibu. So I moved to California, I was flew out there, got a car and with this lady from St. drove out to his house. He Louis. We broke up at a certain was sitting — I’ll never forget point and I joined the it — he was sitting on his Watts Writers Workshop veranda, and his house was because I wanted to get in looking right at the ocean. with a group of writers. And His butler let me in and I they all lived out there in walked out there. I remember this house called the House when I walked in, he of Respect. When I went looked at me and he says, out there, there was Ojenke, “Yeah, yeah, I got you a gig, Cleveland Sims and this (mister). A real good gig.” woman I was going with at
I said, “Yeah, well, the time, Pamela Donegan. thanks, man; thank you So I asked Ojenke, “You very much.” He said, “Sit think I can move out here?” down, sit down. What you And they said yeah. I lived wanna know?” I had all in this one room, right behind these questions ready. He the driveway. Cleveland
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said, “Why’d you ask me that?” I said, ‘Because you picked me to write the book. I gotta know all this stuff.” And he just laughed.
And so we just hit it off. I guess it was that I was from St. Louis and he was from East St. Louis and he trusted me. He liked the way I wrote, and I didn’t take anything off of him. As much as I loved him, I wasn’t gonna let him mess me over. He knew that I was gonna tell him the truth about everything.
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I want to ask about the Watts Writers Workshop, which must have been a fertile creative community of writers in L.A. in the ’60s.
Sims had the biggest room. Ojenke had a room, but he also stayed with his parents. Leumas Sirrah came by, whose name was Samuel Harris spelled backwards. He would sit up on the roof and write poems and I just thought he was the weirdest person I had ever seen.
It was really interesting to walk around Watts and run into everybody there and just hang out. Then we would have these conversations at night, and everybody would critique everybody’s poetry. My friend Cleveland Sims, I read this poem, and he said, “Let me see it.” So I gave it to him, and Cleveland — he was a tall, dark guy, crazy as hell — he threw my poem out the window.
I said, “What? What did you do?” He said, “This is a ridiculous poem.” And I jumped up. I said, “Man, hey, don’t mess me with like that.” He said, “What are you gonna do?” I said, “We can go down. I don’t be taking no stupid stuff off nobody, man.” He just laughed. He said, “Aw, sit down, man, we don’t have to fight over the thing.” I said, “I wasn’t thinking about fighting. I was thinking about hurting you, man.”
He just laughed. Ojenke started laughing; everybody was laughing.