Miles Davis' Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson, and Doo-Bop: Resistance By Any Other Name Is Still Resistance

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis study investigated the extent to which Miles Davis’s recordings Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson, and Doo-Bop were 1) reflective of a Black aesthetic, 2) reflective of Davis’s resistance to a Eurocentric aesthetic, and 3) reflective of tenets of Afrofuturism. This study also critiqued literature related to jazz historiography from the music’s earlier formation to assess the extent to which that literature was written from an Afrocentric or Eurocentric perspective. The methodology for this study utilized the Afrocentric paradigm to examine and analyze data from structured interviews, archived interviews, archival data such as album cover liner notes, and album cover artwork. Findings supported my hypotheses that recordings were reflective of a Black aesthetic and reflective of tenets of Afrofuturism, but did not support my hypothesis that Davis was resisting a Eurocentric aesthetic. Instead, findings indicated that Davis was unconcerned with a Eurocentric aesthetic and was only concerned with creating his own aesthetic. Implications of this study consists of educators, historiographers, and music critics constructing an Afrocentric narrative of jazz historiography that places Black people at the center of analysis as active agents rather than passive spectators. The result will yield a historiography that corrects a historically Eurocentric narrative that marginalized Black musicians’ role in jazz history. Another key implication of this study is to demonstrate the importance of oral history projects where the stories of Black people are told from their perspective, which is critically needed.