jazzinbooks:

 Henry Rollins on Miles Davis-

“There’s nothing more American than jazz music, there’s nothing more American than Miles Davis…If you think for a moment all the different ways he changed his music with his career behind him and his artistic integrity in front of him, at all times, what some people would think is a risk, for Miles Davis was just another day of his creative muse.

And a long time ago when Miles Davis started playing music, this country had an awful disfunction: which we’re working past, we’re getting better all the time, and bebop music is one of the most important and most powerful nails in the coffin of racism and inequality in America.

And the great players like Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gilespie, Miles Davis and many others, they got right in the teeth. Amazing players playing amazing music and being told they can’t walk over a certain line painted on the floor of the dance club because they were the wrong color.

As you know, famously, Miles Davis would often walk over the painted line on the floor, find the club owner, and glare at him, defining him to do something about it. By doing that, by that brave act, that is how you effect change in this country.”