Both musicians participate in a wider conversation through music, which Miles Davis preceded as one of the most influential figures within one of the most iconic American musical movements. Throughout the total of forty-two years that he was active, he continuously innovated upon musical forms, often pioneering the now-iconic backbone of several derivative musical genres that branched out from jazz, which is itself “the culmination of a lot of influences that represent the cultural history of a people” (Obstfeld 198). Music is one of the chief outlets of expression for those whose voices are most often oppressed in our society; the roots of jazz stem from adapting under oppression, and by integrating social commentary into their work, these …show more content…
The book details how Scott Joplin, the son of recently freed slaves, revolutionized American music. He “began pushing the limits” of ragtime, steering it “in a new direction, cross-pollinating with other musical genres” (210). According to the book, Joplin “provided some broad shoulders for future generations to climb aboard” (209). This statement proves true not only for Miles Davis but for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar himself; he learned from Miles Davis, and by extension, Scott Joplin and jazz, “how to be cool, or at least to think [he] was cool” (239). He also acknowledges the history of jazz as “like a musical slideshow of four hundred years of everything that black people have had to endure and overcome and celebrate” (240). On a personal level, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wished to “emulate” the “King of Cool” (244). He wrote that Miles Davis “was the touchstone at the center of nearly every movement in modern jazz: bebop, ‘cool’ jazz, hard bop, orchestral jazz, fusion, and on and on”