As an essay-length piece for a publication like THE ATLANTIC or THE NEW YORKER, this unnecessary book might be bearable enough if it at least managed to generate curiosity among readers, prompting them to experience the work of the featured artists on their own terms.Unfortunately, the repetitive writing reads like an author who is desperate to justify a thesis worthy of the approval of his academic gatekeepers. As a fan of Miles Davis and musician, the last thing I want to do is to place him into some narrow cultural "scheme" that is convenient enough to allow writers to compose endless pages of abstract jargon, the unfortunate detritus of passe postmodernist gibberish.Consider the following:The worlds of music and film, the author claims, "exhibit a ...dynamic of hegemonic masculinity," something that in "the world of music and film" certain artists are "compelled to perform." Davis and Scorcese, the author maintains, "attest in uncontestable [sic] ways to the power of hypermasculinity."One would think an intellectual would challenge instead of accept such abstract terminology; the fact that he accepts it as a given betrays his shallow thoughts. He is firmly committed to furthering the tired labels of politically correct academia. Unlike someone like Zizek, say, who ventures unique readings of films (and even if one disagrees, his observations are still risky and fresh), this author cobbles together academic terminology designed to look impressive while offering, in some sparse instances, obvious insights.His focus on identifying "schemes" and "communities" are conveniently general. Everything can easily be boiled down to some theoretical historical or artistic trend, absolving the author of identifying and examining the real individual contributions by genuine artists who transcend gender and labels like "hypermasculinity." Real history is complex and nuanced, and it resists easy reductions--especially with terms that could mean anything.There is ample proof that Lopes does not really understand an artist of Davis's caliber: he claims, in passing, after quoting Leonard Feather on Davis (perhaps without realizing he's even doing it), that Wynton Marsalis is "equally gifted." I can assure all readers that serious jazz fans will guffaw at such a naive assertion. Davis was a musical genius who more than once transformed the art of jazz--and this is not a "public story" coming from a fan in a "genre community." The author loves such categories because it allows him to make his point manageable. Besides, he needs these terms to act as bridges to conflate disparate artists like Davis and Scorcese under the aegis of some "heroic, avant garde" trend or definition of masculinity.Since he doesn't really have a profound point, he must come up with something that justifies publication. But back to my point about the audacity needed to compare Davis's and Marsalis' respective talents: anyone who has taken the time to actually listen to what Davis has produced realizes that neither belongs in the same sentence. Davis was a visionary--not only with the music he played himself--but with his many collaborative efforts. Look up what Wayne Shorter had to say about him, or Herbie Hancock, or Bill Evans. Forget one-dimensional notions of "hypermasculinity" and let the actual art and artists guide your ruminations. Look beyond commentary about gender and race designed to fit some identity paradigm. There are stereotypes in academia as well, by the way, and the least they encourage is actual thinking--no matter how cleverly they may be phrased.Wynton Marsalis has always stood in painful contrast to Davis. He wants to be Duke Ellington. We've had Ellington's superb work for decades, thank you very much. Though talented, as far as the history of innovators in jazz is concerned, he is superfluous at best. Marsalis is a gifted classical trumpeter--but there's nothing visionary about him.Did you notice I did not have to mention race or gender to make this point? Davis's music made him a rebel--not some long-winded analysis decades after his death. Moreover, shouldn't intellectuals be careful with their phrasing to avoid reckless comparisons? Not when one is married to labels.Here's a taste of the type of lifeless, convoluted observations Lopes makes. These sentences are strewn like corpses in his book:"...the ideological power of media texts involves understanding them as discursively 'transcending' different discursive fields such as the interpretive schemes found in everyday social life or social institutions." There are "various narratives and meanings spanning various discursive fields." There's is also a "collective, public conversation."Had enough?Let me conclude on a positive note with a modest recommendation. Read Davis' autobiography and listen to his work instead of attempting to label everything with the aim of stuffing it into some stale and barely informed academic theory. I love and am open to all sorts of cultural commentary, but it has to be good. Standards of analysis have to be upheld. The author needs to be informed and specific to meet the rigorous challenges of the full implications of these artists' work. Engage directly with the music of Miles Davis, and you will get much more out of that experience than you will from this book.As to Scorcese, the same thing can be done. I don't care what his "public story" is or whether or not I belong to a "genre community" that is having a "conversation." This is utter nonsense. It negates my agency as an individual capable of reflection. I can view Scorcese's films and judge for myself. Now that he's become a parody of himself, it's all too easy to recall the quality of his earlier work.I saw this book advertised in HARPER'S and assumed it would impart the same level of analytic rigor I often encounter in its pages. Instead, I bought a tome that bludgeons readers with empty, transparent jargon that adds nothing to the understanding of these two artists.Gertrude Himmelfarb once pointed out that certain critics implicitly put themselves above the work of artists, thinking they can reduce cultural masterpieces to a "text" or a "narrative" and thereby reside comfortably in some presumably unassailable relativistic interpretation of the art they are discussing. This robs fans of the true experience of the art and smuggles an ideology that should not be accepted--that the critic/ academic is the ultimate judge of the historical significance of such artists and their work. Not so by a long shot.If this is all the academy has, then it has nothing at all. You would think intellectuals would set a higher bar for themselves.Isn't a wonderful irony in the end, though? Davis--the man who was bored at Juilliard and promptly left to actually perform--created some of the best music of the 20th century. Whatever his "public story" or "hypermasculine narrative" was, his art is indisputably timeless and transcendent. Marasalis, a clear product of the academy--to say the least--has only accomplished (the art of?) imitation.I give this book three stars if it gets people interested in the artists it claims to analyze. Otherwise, I trust people are savvy enough to think for themselves and reflect upon unique artistic works without the short-sighted categorizations of needy academic writers who cultivate barely viable, verbose, and nauseating jargon masquerading as an actual thesis.