The Nardis Music Logo

In 1986, while sitting on the deck of Miles Davis’ Malibu beach house, listening to the sound of the waves and the spellbinding voice of the legendary trumpet player, Ben Sidran asked Miles two key questions.

The first was, “Miles, I notice as we’re talking you are drawing. Have you always drawn or is this something you just started?” Davis looked down at the sketch pad in his lap and told Sidran a hair-raising story of being on a flight to Brazil several years before when the plane suddenly plunged thousands of feet in a matter of minutes. This near-death event was one of the precipitating reasons why he took up the sketch pad he said. Sidran commented that these drawings were similar in some ways to Davis’ music. “What it is,” said Miles, “is balance. If you make a drawing on a page, you have to balance it, you know. And that's the way most everything is. Art, music, composition, solos, clothes…” Balance.

The second question Sidran asked Davis, at the end of a long, lazy afternoon, referred to one of Miles’ classic compositions from the ‘50s. “The song “Nardis,” Sidran asked, “How did you happen to name it?” Davis looked up and said, “I can't remember…I think I just liked the name. Why? What does it mean?”
Sidran said, “I don't know, but it's my last name backwards.” Miles laughed, looked up from his drawing and said, “No kidding? No Kidding. I don't know, but that's a nice name, man.” Then he reached down and handed the sketch he was working on to Sidran. “Here,” he said, “this is for you.”

That sketch, the graceful, futuristic “man in balance,” is now the Nardis Music logo.