Davis' idea of freedom in the music world (quotation)

Miles - The Autobiography
Miles Davis and Quincy Troupe
1-80 pgs

Moving to New York and attending Juliard School Of Music allowed for Miles to meet a lot of very influential musicians as well as gain a lot of knowledge. The knowledge that Miles gained was from both the musicians that he was around as well as his access too the music libraries in NY. Shortly after moving to New York, Miles expresses shock as he finds out that a lot of the top jazz musicians believed that if you went to school for music as well as learnt music theory that you would end up playing as if you were white, as he describes it. In other words, playing without feeling. When expressing this shock, Miles states something that is extremely universal and powerful.

"Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery, and I just couldn't believe someone could be that close to freedom and not take advantage of all the shit that they can" (Miles 61)

Miles' background was heavily routed in civil rights with his father being a very rich pro-black activist. Growing up, Miles experienced all sorts of racism, especially in New York. With music being such a free form of art, he made the connection between racism and music. He personally took advantage of every freedom that music had to offer, which included the libraries and museums that housed millions of copies of different songs for him to study. When he found out that a lot of the other jazz musicians around him did not want to take advantage of the knowledge that was free for them to take, he saw it as ignorance. Years before, those musicians would have never had the access to those libraries and museums due to the harsh racism that would have excluded them. Now that they have it, they don't use it!

This relates to me when it comes to school. As much as I don't enjoy the long hard hours that go into attending and doing well in school, I highly appreciate school and understand its significance to my life. Each day I see someone who does not take advantage of the education that school provides. I see these people as missing out on a lot of opportunities. Having knowledge is one of the most important things that a person can have. Knowledge allows one to be self sufficient and successful. This is quite largely proven by Miles Davis as his name is the one name out of all the jazz musicians who made 52nd street famous that everyone knows today. For me, when it comes to music, I try to take in as much knowledge that I can. Especially from older musicians and books. Simply reading this Autobiography is giving me a huge amount of knowledge and understanding towards the genre of jazz and the music of Miles Davis.