A Tribute to Jack Johnson

A Tribute to Jack Johnson
Studio album by Miles Davis
Released	February 24, 1971
Recorded	February 18 and April 7, 1970 30th Street Studio (New York, New York)
Genre	Fusion, jazz-funk
Length	52:26
Label	Columbia/Legacy
Producer	Teo Macero
Miles Davis chronology
Bitches Brew (1970) A Tribute to Jack Johnson (1971) Live-Evil (1971)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]
All About Jazz	favorable[2]
Blender	[3]
Boston Herald	[4]
Robert Christgau	A+[5]
Down Beat	[6]
The Guardian	[7]
Penguin Guide to Jazz	[8]
PopMatters	(7/10)[9]
Rolling Stone	[10]

A Tribute to Jack Johnson^[11] is a studio album by American jazz musician Miles Davis, released February 24, 1971 on Columbia Records.^[2] It also serves as the soundtrack for a documentary by Bill Cayton about the heavyweight world champion boxer Jack Johnson.

Music

The first major recording session for the album, which took place on April 7, 1970, was almost accidental: John McLaughlin, awaiting Miles's arrival, began improvising riffs on his guitar, and was shortly joined by Michael Henderson and Billy Cobham. Meanwhile, the producers brought in Herbie Hancock, who had been passing through the building on unrelated business, to play the Farfisa organ. Miles arrived at last and began his solo at about 2:19 on the first track.^{[citation needed]}

The album's two long tracks were assembled in the editing room by producer Teo Macero. "Right Off" is constructed from several takes and a solo by Davis recorded in November 1969.^{[citation needed]} It contains a riff from Sly and the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song"^{[citation needed]}. Much of the track "Yesternow" is built around a slightly modified version of the bassline from the James Brown song "Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud"; this may be a deliberate allusion to the song's Black Power theme as it relates to the film's subject. "Yesternow" also incorporates a brief excerpt of "Shhh/Peaceful" from Davis's 1969 album In a Silent Way and a 10-minute section comprising several takes of the tune "Willie Nelson" from a session on 18 February 1970.

Reception and legacy

Jack Johnson was less commercially successful than Davis's previous electric album, Bitches Brew, reaching only No. 159 on the Billboard 200 where Bitches Brew had risen as high as No. 35. Some fans and critics, however, consider Jack Johnson to be the musically superior album. In his consumer guide for The Village Voice, critic Robert Christgau gave the album an A+ rating,^[5] indicating "an organically conceived masterpiece that repays prolonged listening with new excitement and insight".^[12] Christgau dubbed it "a great one" and commented that "all the flash of Bitches Brew coalesces into one brilliant illumination".^[5] Down Beat critic John Ephland gave the album four-and-a-half out of five stars and described it as a "heavily edited mélange of musical forms".^[6] In a review of the album followings its reissue, John Fordham of The Guardian noted Davis's "whispering electric sound to some of the most trenchantly responsive straight-horn improvising he ever put on disc" and commented on its legacy, stating:

Considering that it began as a jam between three bored Miles Davis sidemen, and that the eventual 1971 release was stitched together from a variety of takes, it's a miracle that this album turned out to be one of the most remarkable jazz-rock discs of the era. Columbia didn't even realise what it had with these sessions, and the mid-decade Miles albums that followed – angled toward the pop audience – were far more aggressively marketed than the Jack Johnson set [...] Of course, it's a much starker, less subtly textured setting than Bitches Brew, but in the early jazz-rock hall of fame, it's up there on the top pedestal.^[7]

—John Fordham

Both The Penguin Guide to Jazz and Rolling Stone Album Guide gave A Tribute to Jack Johnson their maximum star-ratings.^[8][10] The Lexington Herald-Leader gave the album four out of four stars and commented that "The preceding In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew were more groundbreaking in that they heralded fusion's arrival. But Davis' playing on Jack Johnson surpasses both recordings".^[13] In a retrospective review of the album, Allmusic editor Thom Jurek complimented its "funky, dirty rock & roll jazz" and "chilling, overall high-energy rockist stance", stating "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".^[1]

Track listing

Side one

1. "Right Off"  – 26:53

Side two

1. "Yesternow"  – 25:34

Personnel

The first track and about half of the second track were recorded on April 7, 1970 by this sextet:

• Miles Davis – trumpet
• Steve Grossman – soprano saxophone
• John McLaughlin – electric guitar
• Herbie Hancock – organ
• Michael Henderson – electric bass
• Billy Cobham – drums

The "Willie Nelson" section of the second track (starting at about 13:55) was recorded on 18 February 1970 by a different and uncredited lineup:

• Miles Davis – trumpet
• Bennie Maupin – bass clarinet
• John McLaughlin – electric guitar
• Sonny Sharrock – electric guitar
• Chick Corea – electric piano
• Dave Holland – electric bass
• Jack DeJohnette – drums

At the end of the "Yesternow" there is a sound clip recorded by actor Brock Peters 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."

See also

• The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions
• Jazz fusion

References

External links

• A Tribute to Jack Johnson at Discogs
• The Making of Jack Johnson at Miles Beyond
• Sound, Mediation, and Meaning in Miles Davis's A Tribute to Jack Johnson — By Jeremy A. Smith (PhD Diss: Duke University, 2008)