Jack Johnson is a studio album and soundtrack by the American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Miles Davis. It was released on February 24, 1971, by Columbia Records.
Original LP (Columbia S 30455)
Subsequent reissues
Jack Johnson (right) fighting Tommy Burns for the World Heavyweight Championship in 1908
According to Robert Christgau, the recording was the "definitive showcase" for guitarist John McLaughlin (photographed in 1978).
John Arthur Johnson, nicknamed the "Galveston Giant", was an American boxer who, at the height of the Jim Crow era, became the first black world heavyweight boxing champion (1908–1915). His 1910 fight against James J. Jeffries was dubbed the "fight of the century". Johnson defeated Jeffries, who was white, triggering dozens of race riots across the U.S. According to filmmaker Ken Burns, "for more than thirteen years, Jack Johnson was the most famous and the most notorious African American on Earth". He is widely regarded as one of the most influential boxers in history. Transcending boxing, he became part of the culture and history of racism in the United States.
Johnson in 1915
Johnson standing behind Choynski in Chicago in 1909
Jack Johnson, Sydney, c. 1908
Johnson in 1908 (photograph by Otto Sarony)