A Tribute To Jack Johnson

Description :
Nicknamed the Galveston Giant, boxer John "Jack" Johnson (1878-1946) inspired the music for the album by Miles Davis' A Tribute To Jack Johnson. The boxer was the first African American world heavyweight boxing ... [Show more]

Description:
Nicknamed the Galveston Giant, boxer John "Jack" Johnson (1878-1946) inspired the music for the album by Miles Davis' A Tribute To Jack Johnson. The boxer was the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion (1908-1915). He was faced with controversy when charged with violating the Mann Act in 1912 even though there was an obvious lack of evidence and was largely racially based. In a documentary about Johnson's life, Ken Burns notes that "for more than thirteen years, Jack Johnson was the most famous and the most notorious African-American on Earth".

The end of the record features the actor Brock Peters (as Johnson) saying :
I'm Jack Johnson. Heavyweight champion of the world. I'm black. They never let me forget it. I'm black all right ! I'll never let them forget it !"

"None of Miles Davis' recordings has been more shrouded in mystery than Jack Johnson, yet none has better fulfilled Miles Davis' promise that he could form the "greatest rock band you ever heard". Containing only two tracks, the album was assembled out of no less than four recording sessions between February 18, 1970, and June 4, 1970, and was patched together by producer Teo Macero... The highly textured, nearly pastoral ambience at the end of the album is a fitting coda to the chilling, overall high-energy rockist stance of the album. Jack Johnson is the purest electric jazz record ever made because of the feeling of spontaneity and freedom it evokes in the listener, for the stellar and inspiring solos by McLaughlin and Davis that blur all edges between the two musics, and for the tireless perfection of the studio assemblage by Miles and producer Macero". - allmusic.com
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