Miles: The Autobiography

As Davis explores these issues, his passion for music underscores almost every observation. He is telling not the story of jazz, not the story of black culture, not the story of racism in the United States. He is telling the story of himself, and primarily of himself as a trumpet player. All other considerations flow from his image of himself as a jazz musician and perhaps the greatest, most innovative trumpet player of all time.

Davis emerges as a self-centered, often immature man, an innovator in the evolution of jazz to be sure, but an individual whose driving passion for his music prevents his development in other areas of life. Perhaps Dav

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en the respect of European classical music. Beethoven's been dead all these years and they're still talking about him . . . Why ain't they talking about Bird, or Trane, or Monk, or Duke, or Count, or . . . Louis Armstrong like they're talking about Beethoven? . . . We're all Americans now, and sooner or later whites are going to have to deal with that and with all the great things that black people have done here (361). Such complaints about racism are frequent in the book, but Davis is not in any way a social or political activist. He is a hard-nosed survivor of the racist system and has, in fact, triumphed over it creatively and professionally, if not emotionally or spiritually. For the most part, he grudgingly accepts that such racism will remain for a long time to come as part of American society. He certainly does not like it and would change it if he could, but he has no real hope for such change. He is also not about to back away from it wherever he finds it: America is such a racist place, so racist it's pitiful. It's just like South Africa only more sanitized today; it's not as out in front in its racism. Other than that, it's the same thing. But I have always had a built-in thing for racism. I can smell it. I can
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Davis Davis, African Eastern, Quincy Troupe, South Africa, Kids America's, Wynton Marsalis, We're Americans, Bird B's, Undoubtedly Davis, Miles Autobiography, american society, passion music, personal experience, american culture, narrative voice, musical genius, jazz american culture, 405 davis, , self-centered personality, trumpet player,
Approximate Word count = 2125
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)