Poet's Success Story : Writing: Co-authorship of Miles Davis autobiography helped lift black writer Quincy Troupe to celebrity and to a professorship at UCSD.

By DIRK SUTRO

June 20, 1991 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

SAN DIEGO —

First and foremost, Quincy Troupe considers himself a poet, but any piece of writing he touches becomes music. With an uncanny ear for the language, he combines mere words into phrases and paragraphs that sing the range of life’s raw emotions, from the elation of a Magic Johnson slam-dunk to the melancholy of a Miles Davis trumpet solo.

Troupe’s reputation as a writer was solidified during the 1970s and early 1980s with three volumes of poetry, including “Snake-Back Solos,” which won the 1980 American Book Award for Poetry. He extended his range and reputation during the late 1980s with articles for national magazines ranging from Elle to Vanity Fair and Spin, all the while keeping busy as an educator and editor of assorted literary journals and poetry anthologies.

But it was Davis’ autobiography, which Troupe co-authored, that brought international renown and Troupe’s first major commercial success. Released in 1989, the book, which tells Davis’ raw, raunchy story in a voice so authentic you can practically hear the trumpeter’s signature whispery rasp, has sold more than 1 million copies worldwide.

On the heels of this success, Troupe made a radical career shift in January. He left New York City and teaching posts at the College of Staten Island and Columbia University to assume a full professorship in the literature department at UC San Diego, where he is teaching a variety of courses in prose, poetry and literature.

At UCSD, Troupe’s addition is being hailed as a major event.

“We think it’s a great coup,” said Susan Kirkpatrick, chair of the literature department, with a faculty that includes fiction writers Sherley Anne Williams, Fanny Howe and William Murray. “Quincy rounds out our program in a lot of different ways. For one thing, we wanted a published poet on our permanent staff. Also, Quincy does a lot of other kinds of writing--the Miles Davis book, other nonfiction.

“And another good aspect of Quincy is that in the early 1970s, he co-edited a book of Third World poetry (“Giant Talk”). He fills a real need here, as more and more universities begin offering courses in non-European literature. When he teaches poetry, it’s not just American or in English. There’s a whole wonderful universe of poetry out there. He knows a lot of Caribbean, Latin and African writers.”

Troupe, 51, is quickly settling in at UCSD. This spring, he taught two classes--one in Caribbean literature, the other in creative writing--and he has been working with Howe to develop a new literary journal the two would edit, tentatively titled “Interventions.”

There was a time when Troupe thought he would never leave New York City. After all, the city was his base of operations, and the charged atmosphere stoked his creative fires. But when San Diego came calling with an offer of a tenured professorship two years ago, its timing was good.

“I’d been in New York for 20 years,” he said, relaxing in the sunny kitchen of the ocean-view La Jolla home he shares with his wife, Margaret, and son Porter, 8. It’s a setting quite different from the large Harlem apartment where he lived for the past 11 years. Troupe wears his hair in dreadlocks, and his powerful 6-foot, 2-inch body was draped in loose-fitting designer threads made of silk.

“I’d been at the center of a lot of stuff with some other writers that I knew. After a while, you get worn out. I’m talking about writing and creating and organizing events and editing literary journals, doing readings, giving lectures, teaching at universities.

“The other thing was, New York, aesthetically, in terms of living conditions. The city began to kind of press in on you. The homeless, the beggars, the crime started to get devastating. I didn’t want my son to grow up in that kind of stuff.”

Clearly, Troupe is enamored of San Diego--the weather, the ocean, the comfortable La Jolla neighborhood with its many parks where his son can play baseball. Away from the hustle and bustle of New York, and with all the attention accorded the Davis autobiography and seven-part public radio series Troupe co-produced (now airing on KPBS-FM) subsiding, Troupe is immersed in many other projects.

With the spring quarter finished, he has his days free for writing in his home office, where the walls are covered with paintings by young African-American and Haitian artists.

A new essay on Davis appears in “Conjunctions 16,” a literary journal released in May. A public television documentary on jazz pianist Thelonious Monk, scripted by Troupe, airs this fall. An audiocassette of Troupe reading his poetry, titled “The Shaman Man,” arrived in bookstores this month.

He is planning an autobiography of South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela. Over eight years of off-and-on writing, he has produced 600 pages of “The Footmans,” a novel of epic proportions about a black American family’s coming of age, set against a parallel secondary story line involving a white family.

“I’m not a novelist, but I want it to be good,” Troupe said, indicating that he plans to take his time. “I want to finish it when it’s finished.”

Last week, Troupe was proofing the galleys for “Weather Reports,” a collection of his poetry due in October, which includes his ripping, rapping tribute to basketball star Johnson.

And Random House has just asked Troupe to author a book of sketches of interesting people. Troupe is developing a list, which so far includes Davis, Michael Jackson, Jimmy Carter, aspiring politician and former Ku Klux Klan member David Duke, controversial black leader Louis Farrakhan, painter Elizabeth Murray, writer Toni Morrison, Haitian President John Bertram Aristede, filmmaker Spike Lee, writers Margaret Atwood and Louise Erdrich and singer Billy Eckstine.

In person, Troupe appears relaxed and gregarious, but claims he is shy and introspective and has few close friends, although he knows hundreds of famous people. Writers Allan Ginsburg and Amiri Baraka and actor Danny Glover are among the artists he considers friends.

Although he said he stays home most nights and goes to bed early, he is far from a recluse. Since moving to La Jolla, he has exercised his interest in jazz with visits to Elario’s, the La Jolla jazz club. He raved about a May performance by his friend, avant-garde saxophonist Henry Threadgill.

Beneath the placid surface, though, is a bitterness that flares quickly when Troupe considers the way black artists are treated in America. He said Simon and Schuster, publisher of the Davis book, put up little money to promote it; Troupe and Davis spent their own money for Troupe’s publicity tour.

“They thought it would sell 40,000, and they didn’t do ads,” Troupe said. “They wouldn’t have done that with some other major writers, some other major American artists. They wanted to keep the book under $25 (the editors trimmed 300 pages from Troupe’s manuscript to cut production costs). Picasso’s book (the new biography, Life of Picasso) cost $37 (it actually retailed for $45). With a black person, they don’t think it’s going to sell. They’re continually shocked that it’s selling.”

There have been other encounters with color barriers. “Snake Back Solos,” for example, has sold more than 20,000 copies, a significant number for a poetry collection, but Troupe said the media still don’t seem very interested in his poetry.

“I talk to friends who are white poets, who people write about continually in the New York Times, in other papers, in critical journals, and they sell 1,000 or 2,000 books.

“I did this reading last September, me and Maxine Kumin, a white poet, and a few other poets, at a poetry festival in New Jersey, in front of 8,000 people, and it was written up in the New York Times. These white kids--probably 7,500 people were white--got up and gave me a standing ovation. I had about 300 books in the tent next door, and there were none left within an hour.

“They put my photo in the paper and Maxine’s, and the writer mentioned me, but most of the story was about Maxine. Even she said, ‘I don’t see why they didn’t talk about you more.’ The writer called what I did ‘jive,’ and he called what she did ‘verse.’

“He was the barometer, reporting in the New York Times. It can be frustrating, but the United States is like it is, it’s a racist place.”

Troupe was Davis’ first choice to co-author the autobiography, but Simon and Schuster resisted at first, according to Troupe.

“They wanted a white writer, but Miles insisted on me,” he said. “He didn’t want a music critic. Miles liked my writing, I’m black and we’re both from St. Louis.”

While he was still at work on the book, the Miles Davis radio project began. Troupe had narrated a 1986 public radio documentary on jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, produced by Steve Rowland. In 1988, Rowland, who also produced the Davis radio series, invited Troupe to co-produce.

The program is totally engaging, probing deep beneath the surface gossip to get at the roots of Davis and his music through the interviews Troupe and Rowland conducted with those who knew him. It has been airing for the second time on KPBS-FM (89.5), and the final installment can be heard this Saturday afternoon at 2.

Troupe is a devoted music buff. Though 600 of his albums were stolen several years ago, he still has a collection of hundreds of records and CDs, ranging from a variety of jazz to Peter Gabriel, Culture Club and Elvis Costello.

In New York, he often gave poetry readings accompanied by musicians such as avant-garde jazz saxophonist Hamiett Bluiett. He hasn’t given a reading in San Diego yet, but said he may read some poems July 20 at Esmeralda bookstore in Del Mar, when he joins Brad Morrow, the editor of “Conjunctions,” for a celebration of the new volume, including Troupe’s essay on Davis.

Troupe is well-versed in many types of writing, but he considers poetry the root of his creativity. After a knee injury forced him to abandon pro basketball aspirations in the early 1960s, Troupe was hanging out in Paris among artists, toying with writing.

“I had tried to write a novel, but it was awesomely bad,” he said. Then he met the French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, who suggested that Troupe hone his writing skills with poetry.

“I started writing poetry, and it was like quicksand,” Troupe recalled. “Once I got in I didn’t come out for a long time.”

No matter what form his writing takes these days, he enjoys exploring the richness of American language.

“I’ve gotten looser and looser,” he said of his poetry. “I’ve been expressing myself in an American way because I’m proud of being an American. There are some things I don’t like about America, but a lot of things I’m proud of, and one is the robustness of the American language. Even the European poets want to write in the American language.

“The American language is a fusion. It has everything: African, Irish, Jewish, Latino, Asian--we’re talking about a fusion of all kinds of languages coming together.

“This whole idea of high and low art, mongrelizing the language--that’s those academics who are European oriented. I don’t find that so much on the West Coast. People are not so much looking to Europe, but looking inward, looking to the (Far) East, the South, other places. What we’re dealing with is the evolution of a new language, and poets like myself are trying to mine that language.”

A Tribute to ‘Magic’

take it to the hoop, “magic” johnson

take the ball dazzling down the open lane

herk & jerk & raise your six-foot nine-inch

frame into air sweating screams of your neon name

“magic” johnson, nicknamed “windex” way back in high school

‘cause you wiped glass backboards so clean

where you first juked & shook

& wiled your way to glory

a new styled fusion of shake & bake energy

using everything possible you created your own space

to fly through--any moment now we expect your wings