Jack Johnson

Boxing promoter Bill Cayton asked Davis in 1970 for music for his documentary on the heavyweight champion Jack Johnson. Davis wrote in the liner notes of Johnson's mastery as a boxer and his unreconstructed blackness. It was his second film score after Ascenseur pour l'echafaud. The two tracks, Right Off and Yesternow, were drawn mainly from a session on 7 April 1970, which Teo Macero edited with material from February 1970. The line-up included John McLaughlin and Sonny Sharrock on guitars, Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea on keyboards, Steve Grossman, Bennie Maupin, Michael Henderson, Jack DeJohnette and Billy Cobham.

Much of Yesternow is built on a slightly modified bassline from James Brown's Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud, and it ends with a voiceover by the actor Brock Peters. Right Off contains a riff based on Sly and the Family Stone's Sing a Simple Song. The album reached number four on the Billboard jazz chart and 47 on the R&B chart. Robert Christgau gave it an A-plus in the Village Voice in 1971. The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions box set followed in 2003.