Soundtrack to a Movement

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Amid the social changes of the civil rights and Black Power movements, tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp recorded a tribute to Malcolm X's political consciousness, drawing parallels between Malcolm X and influential jazz musician John Coltrane. Esteemed trumpeter Miles Davis later echoed Shepp's sentiment, recognizing Coltrane's music as embodying the passion, rage, rebellion, and love that Malcolm X preached. This exploration examines the connection between the revolutionary Black Islam of the post-WWII generation and jazz music, arguing that from the late 1940s through the 1970s, Islam gained prominence among African Americans partly due to its embrace by jazz musicians. The shared values of Black affirmation, freedom, and self-determination were pivotal in the growth of African American Islamic communities, with jazz musicians at the forefront of shaping encounters with Islam. They developed a Black Atlantic "cool" that influenced both Black religion and jazz styles. The narrative illustrates how jazz musicians and Black Muslims expressed their values by rejecting systemic racism, constructing Black notions of masculinity and femininity, and fostering an African American religious internationalism, thereby engaging with a global Black consciousness and interconnected resistance movements within the African diaspora and Africa.