I cannot read “Seeking Air” as a novel. I can only see it as a supplement to Guest’s poetic work. A scene in which 19th century hoof prints are found in a front yard in Long Island: I think of a poem built around this same image in “Fair Realism.”

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Miles was part of at least five movements in jazz. Bebop (marginally). Cool jazz (centrally). Hard bop (masterfully). That whole pre-fusion, early sixties thing: the quintets with Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Herbie Hancock. Fusion itself! The Gil Evans collaborations form a separate category. He stood apart from “free jazz,” for the most part, and of course hated the neo-conservative revival of the 1980s.

Yet the early 60s work was avant-garde in its own way. Tony Williams had listened to Billy Higgins and developed an avant style as compelling as that of Elvin, if such a thing is possible.

That Philly Joe rim-click on beat four, creating a sense of space. Miles told Jimmy Cobb to play that too. An interview with Tony Williams in which he says that, once as a kid, he heard someone play the drums so stiffly, with so little feeling, that he started to cry. I always use that story to explain to people why I feel upset about someone writing ineptly about poetry. You can’t disrespect the Bing.

Every significant piano player and jazz guitarist of a certain period passed through Miles’ groups. Almost every white jazz player of significance also. Jarrett, Holland, Scofield...

To think about music is a way of not thinking about poetry 24 hours a day. Yet it is really another way of thinking about poetry.