Goofs

A scene in the film depicts the events of 26th August 1959, when Miles Davis was viciously beaten by two policemen outside the Birdland club in Manhattan. Davis was at Birdland as the leader of the Miles Davis Sextet, consisting of Davis (trumpet), John Coltrane (tenor saxophone), Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley (alto saxophone), Wynton Kelly (piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Jimmy Cobb (drums). The scene inside the club shows Davis performing the song Blue in Green with a sextet, but the pianist is apparently Bill Evans rather than Wynton Kelly - he is white, unlike Kelly, and is addressed by Davis as 'Bill'. He is also depicted performing Evans' recorded solo at the end of Blue in Green (a song on which the full sextet does not play, and which Davis is not known to have ever performed live). However, when Davis is shown outside the club moments later, he stands in front of a poster advertising the Miles Davis Quintet, featuring Davis, Coltrane, Chambers, Red Garland (piano) and Philly Joe Jones (drums). This quintet was disbanded in April 1957, almost two years before Davis and Evans co-wrote Blue in Green, and almost two and a half years before the incident outside Birdland. (The five musicians did briefly reform as a sextet, with the addition of Adderley, from January to March or April 1958.) Additionally, like Wynton Kelly, Red Garland was black, meaning the pianist shown playing in the club could not have been him either. See more