Pinheiro, Ricardo2020-12-112020-12-11202003515796http://hdl.handle.net/10400.21/12443ABSTRACT - Jazz, power and freedom are historically closely associated. The word Jazz carries »(...) numerous ‛messages’ containing many attitudes and principles, playing a crucial role as an instrument of dissemination of political viewpoints« (Pinheiro, 2015). With this article, I intend to discuss the association between the concepts of freedom in improvisation, social freedom, and the musical processes developed by Miles Davis and his quintet in he 1960s. The main goal of this paper, departing from Afro-Modernist and Afrological perspectives (Ramsey 2003, Lewis 2000, Magee 2007) that point out the relevance of social phenomena over musical style and aesthetics in the study of African-American improvisatory practices, is to identify the flexibility in the harmonic approach developed by the Miles Davis Quintet in the 1964 version of Stella by Starlight and to reveal associations between freedom in the improvisational process and freedom as a social relation (Steiner 1994).engJazzMiles DavisFreedomRaceStella By StarlightPerformancejournal article