Jazz
Does this form of free expression provide the secret to how we should live?
Part of the ongoing series on Transformation and Communication.
Last month, we took a close look at Japan and Art of Zen over four weeks. Some claim that without meditation (zazen), we would never have jazz as we know it:
As the story goes, John Coltrane was meditating one early morning when the form and motif of his album, A Love Supreme, arose fully formed in his mind. Similarly, jazz legend Wayne Shorter produced a late-career three-disc masterwork, Emanon, reflecting his practice of Nichiren Buddhism.
One form of writing we investigated was the haiku, including the American haiku that Jack Kerouac experimented with. When Kerouac writes of the famous jazz saxophonist, band leader, and composer Charlie Parker in the poem of the same title, he tells us his “expression on his face / Was as calm, beautiful, and profound / As the image of the Buddha.”
Jazz. Jazz! It reaches into your soul and catches you. It’s an understanding of music so deeply, you can move it inside-out. It’s an improvisation of life’s energy in vibrations of one’s instrument (or voice).
Jazz is difficult to define because a lot of its beauty lies in its ability to be unique; each artist finds a sound, a voice through jazz and each song can be played differently. It is an expression of emotion, an improvisation of ideas, and a radical form of freedom.
It is also ‘America’s classical music’ with roots in African American culture after the American Civil War and later grew and was cultivated during the Harlem Renaissance:
Following the Civil War (1865), musicians from African-American communities of New Orleans, originated a new style of music. An interpretation of American and European classical music entwined with African and slave folk songs and the influences of West African culture developed a new style of music called ragtime which gradually evolved into jazz.
From its humble and controversial beginnings, jazz became the first original, sophisticated, instrumental music in American history. At its height, jazz was said to have been one of the most innovative and original forms of African American cultural expression.
As it is also Black History Month in America, I wanted to do something with art that originates in African-American history and highlights several Black artists (though I hope this newsletter has thus far portrayed a diverse range of artistry; please continue to give me ideas to connect to our topics).
[Below is a Spotify playlist for this post, also available via this link if not visible.]
I played the clarinet in school but was just an observer of our renowned jazz band and admirer of famous musicians. I didn’t totally get it, but I liked that about it as well…something impressive and magical that remains elusive.
One of my best friends was a french horn player named Tom who came from a musical family. He taught me about Miles Davis and John Coltrane and others when we were hanging out, listening to their albums.
I was a decent enough concert clarinet player, but I just didn’t get how one could know the music so well you could turn it inside out. The idea of improvising on stage didn’t just scare me; I knew it was impossible for me. Music wasn’t in my blood the way it was in Tom’s and others in the award winning jazz band at my high school under the tutelage of Jeffrey Leonard, who was also our band and wind ensemble conductor. Many have compared him to Mr. Holland, but for us, Jeff was an enigma and gifted (jazz) saxophonist and caring teacher all at once.
‘Mr. Leonard’ surprised us with a visit from Joshua Redman one day. He just popped up on stage, played some songs, then had a chat with us all. I think a few of the jazz students played with him later. Our humble conductor had silently orchestrated an encounter with greatness.
But this was also something Jeff did on a daily basis at Lexington High School (Massachusetts). All the music was important, meaningful. He kept his standards exceptionally high but with kindness. It was as if he wanted each of us to discover music, like he had, and to do that, we had to go to our limits. We - but especially the jazz ensemble - were creating art.
Some students at our school went on to be professional jazz musicians. One of them is Luke Carlos O’Reilly who was a couple years younger than me. His wonderful father taught me physics (the textbook is boring: how to bungee jump safely & a great storyteller: sometimes during senior AP stress-out times, you just need to hear a good story), and I also got to know Luke on the cross country team. He’s now one of the best jazz pianists in the country.
O’Reilly speaks of the Black Lives Matter movement in relation to his recent album—I Too Sing America: A Black Mans Diary, sharing his music as a way to fight “an unjust system, all of those [a]ffected are ultimately represented in the music and movements.” I have a fond humorous memory of fourteen-year-old Luke bouncing up and down like Tigger at my parents’ back kitchen window to giddily warn me and our teammates: “The cops are here! The cops are here! Everybody hide!” during a cross country team spaghetti party. Of course, we had nothing to be afraid of…the police quickly realized the situation: a bunch of teens eating pasta with my parents home.
In America, you might expect the cops to come to your house in suburbia if you are a teenager with a few friends over. Fine. But this innocent experience is in stark contrast to the encounters Black teens and minorities of all ages have had with American police that sparked the whole BLM outrage. Jon Batiste, whom I discuss over the next couple of weeks, also speaks of his jazz music as an antidote to such narratives and a celebration of Black American culture (among other things).
Then there was Ken Ross in Lexington, but he was around when I was back teaching at the same school the first few years of my teaching journey. Ken remains one of my favorite students of all time. I recall him getting so into a debate about fate and free will whilst reading Macbeth that he stood up in class, arms animated, to fully express his point. It felt like jazz-English.
There was something in Ken bursting to pop, like the way Kerouac describes haiku. I could be wrong, but I think that his discovery of music, specifically jazz, helped him to express this inner truth and curiosity about the world, perhaps elusive of a typical school experience or typical life experience. Either that, or this part of himself could be expressed through music. Anyway, this is what I set out to discover with a conversation over Zoom a couple weeks ago.
I had planned to just use a few quotes from Ken here, but the conversation was so rich that I decided to give you a little more of it in a few weeks. It also inspired me to reach out to Jeff again. So…you’ll be getting some ideas about jazz from the musicians themselves. Here’s a photo of Ken from his Instagram page (also linked), where you can also see some experimental video performances and get updates about his gigs:
Jazz seems to stand in a category of music all by itself, not in opposition but in a cloud around or above, perhaps emerging from the invisible. Perhaps jazz is abstract music?I don’t just mean because of improvisation, although this is part of it, but in the way that it is part of a history of art and people, and yet it is something intangible and difficult to really define, created from many intersections of culture.
Does abstraction and experimentation make an art form more universal or esoteric? I’ll come back to this question in relation to jazz over the next few weeks.
The idea of this extra-beyond and indescribable truth reminds me of Dr. Victoria Powell’s investigation of abstract art and Julie Mehretu in The Gallery Companion on Substack:
If you enjoy considering art from political angles as well as their intersections with philosophy and current events, I suggest you subscribe to Victoria’s newsletter. Every week, she makes me think in new ways (including recent discussion of controversial collaboration between Yayoi Kusama x Louis Vuitton). Check it out!
This month, I’m going to explore jazz as an artistic concept. Specifically, we’ll be looking at the following topics:
Jazz conversations (Jeffrey Leonard & Ken Ross)
I look forward to continuing this investigation with you!
Dedicated readers: you may have noticed some changes to the format of this newsletter. I’m playing around with the best way to reach my audience and would, as always, love to hear from you about this.
My first explorations of jazz happened in my early 20s. My girlfriend at the time was really into jazz and we were living in London so we went to see lots of live gigs and explored different styles. It’s so varied, and the comparison with classical music is apt. Like classical music I only enjoy some of it. Really interesting post Kate, I’ve saved the Spotify list to listen to later (what a treat, love this idea!). Thanks for the shout out for The Gallery Companion!
What a great post, thank you. I've loved jazz from a very young age, being partially raised by my Grandad in a house where it was pretty much always played. Wonderful!