Encounter, Surprise, and Acceptance: Revisiting Miles Davis on and off stage in Portugal

This chapter explores the reception that the Portuguese press gave to African-American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Miles Davis during his visits to Portugal. Davis visited the country three times in a twenty-year period (1971–1991), first of all in November 1971 for the first International Cascais Jazz Festival at a time when the corporatist far-right Estado Novo (“New State”) regime held sway. Under Marcello Caetano’s leadership, Portugal was then one of the last European colonial empires and a target of extensive international pressure to decolonize. Fully aware of the political and social context of Portugal at that time – and of the expectations of the festival as a showcase not just for international contemporary jazz but also as a space in which anti-colonial attitudes could be expressed – Davis chose to make a stand. For reasons that can only have been fully understood by the artist himself, he refused to follow any of the other acts. Davis last appearance in Portugal was in March 1991 in a completely different social-political context. The country had by now embraced democracy and was a member of the European Union. He was received as a pop star, and his concerts were a huge success. Nevertheless, his presence in Portugal was always shrouded in controversy.