He listens to Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Max Roach, hip-hop, blues and Latin and African music. One day he finds out that Billie Holiday does not have a gravestone on her grave and he can think of nothing else. He calls Diego Cortez. Cortez is one of Jean-Michel and Suzanne’s first friends. He is an art curator and dealer who knows everything about the club scene and the art world. He is always impeccably dressed with a European air of elegance about him. Jean-Michel and Suzanne adore him. Jean-Michel says he is a “queen—but you would never know it.” From Saturday to Monday Jean-Michel and Diego Cortez spend hours designing Billie Holiday’s gravestone. Every day Suzanne is sent out to buy them coke. “Boom for real!” Jean-Michel says when they finish. Jean-Michel says his paintings are jazz on canvas. He makes his own music also. One day he buys himself a TEAC reel-to-reel recording machine and composes experimental, improvised music and poetry. He makes tape loops that he then records one over the other as if they were musical instruments.
