Uncle Toms, Massas, and Symbolic Violence: Miles Davis's Rhetoric of Moral Reconstitution

Abstract

Extending Albert Murray's presupposition that “performing artists are rhetoricians,” this study applies a rhetorical approach to Miles: the Autobiography. Davis's rhetoric of moral reconstitution utilizes the classical means of persuasion—ethos, pathos, and logos—within the epideictic, or ceremonial, genre. As such, Davis focuses his logos of invection on the Uncle Tom insult, where he displays his own, and incites in others, a pathos of insolence. Davis used these discourses to first, explain norms and introduce instability in the jazz community; second, create moral distance from particular figures and elevate himself; and finally, reconstitute the true jazz community around his own ethos of detachment. Based on Christopher Small's notion of musicking and Phillip Bohlman's ontological argument of “music as process,” this rhetorical approach extends Murray's “all performers are rhetoricians” presupposition suggesting, first, that jazz performers can use their musical performances as social criticism and social idealization. And second, the jazz community's use of logos reveals that musical performances are sites of ongoing struggle over the community's identity and values. Furthermore, Davis' rhetoric of moral reconstitution confirms that Miles: the Autobiography is a morally obsessed document but one that condones violent authoritarian rather than dialogic rhetorical strategies. These extensions suggest that jazz is a phenomenon where a rhetorical invention plays a pivotal role and where a rhetorical approach can offer productive insights for further research.