 That of course slighted the contributions of others with whom he had developed the music over the preceding years.His show style, influenced by black vaudeville circuit entertainers, seemed like a throwback to some and offended some purists ("too much grinning" according to Miles Davis), but it was laced with a subversive sense of humor that gave a glimpse of attitudes on racial matters that black musicians had previously kept away from the public at large.Before the Civil Rights Movement, Gillespie was confronting the racial divide by lampooning it.