One of my professors in college just told me a funny story about meeting Miles on several occasions.

The first time he met Miles was in Detroit at a club called the Minor Key. He was about 15 at the time and was already playing saxophone. He went to a matinee show and afterwards he saw Miles standing alone and decided to approach him and ask for his autograph. He didn’t have a program or a record for him to sign with him so he reached in his pocket to see what he had. He pulled out his musician’s union card.

So he approaches Miles, introduces himself, and tells Miles that he plays saxophone. He then asked if Miles would sign his union card. Miles took the union card out of his hand, takes a look at it, ripped it in half, and gave it back to him.

Decades later, my professor was in Boston playing with a big band. The leader of the band happened to be good friends with Miles. Miles’ band was also in town and the big band had a night off during one of Miles’ performances. So the bandleader asked my professor is he would like to go and meet Miles. Trying to put the past behind him, he agreed.

So they arrive backstage at Miles’ show and Miles is sitting down on a huge black beanbag and the room is fairly full of people. The bandleader goes up to Miles, greets him, and then introduced Miles to my professor. By this time it’s pretty quiet in the room and all the attention is focused on the three of them.

Professor goes on to tell Miles the details about the first time they actually met back in Detroit at the Minor Key. To that, Miles responded, “I wouldn’t do no shit like that!!”