All That Democracy (Jazz)

Miles Davis

There’s an organization called Jazz At Lincoln Center. It’s a great resource for Jazz music. This is from their mission statement.

We believe Jazz is a metaphor for Democracy. Because jazz is improvisational, it celebrates personal freedom and encourages individual expression. Because jazz is swinging, it dedicates that freedom to finding and maintaining common ground with others. Because jazz is rooted in the blues, it inspires us to face adversity with persistent optimism.

As I heard someone say the other day, “Let’s break down that prose.”

from Pops journal

So there you have it. Maybe you already love Jazz, maybe you do and don’t know it. Or, maybe you haven’t really tried it yet. If you do, give it time. It’s an acquired taste. The Jazz At Lincoln Center is a great resource. Visit http://www.jazz.org

Here’s what I really wanted to tell you about—a project called “Recollect”. I love storytelling, remembering and recollecting. So this project fascinated me from the start.

Recollect is a project of short videos where a famous jazz musician goes into a record store to dig through the crates of jazz albums. While they do this they tell stories. (I'm adding to my bucket list to be present for the filming of one of these episodes). These are jazz stories and so they are also democratic stories. They are important because they can give us a context to understand more about ourselves.

Of course jazz is not the only musical genre that’s important in this way. Country music is also rooted in personal story. And, without a doubt, there is no more heart-felt music than the poetry of the early hymn writers. I can prove it. Read the lyrics to “It Is Well With My Soul”, or “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”, of “When I Survey The Wondrous Cross”. Here’s a sample:

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

Talk about remembering and recollecting; I’ve heard those words all my life and they move me like I’ve just heard them for the very first time.

Well, back to the Recollect project. What first caught my attention was a video episode of the project featuring a jazz pianist named Helen Sung. Helen was introduced to me by my dear friend Mako Fujimura. I heard her play with her band at the Jazz Standard in New York City. She is one of those who can tell a story with a piano.

That prompted me to watch other episodes of the project. My favorite to date is one that features Jimmy Cobb.

Jimmy Cobb was one of the drummers I tried to emulate back in the day. He played with Miles Davis on a album called Kind Of Blue, the album that first drew me to jazz. The band on that album is a who’s who of jazz: in addition to Miles Davis and Jimmy Cobb, there’s John Coltrane, Paul Chambers, Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly.

If you haven’t yet, give Jazz a try. This album is a great place to start. At least watch the Recollect videos on Jimmy Cobb and Helen Sung. Listen to their stories. Really, really listen.

In review: Jazz & Democracy. Improvisational=sometimes we have to make it up as we go. Freedom and expression. Swinging=there is a groove. Sometimes we march to the same beat, sometimes we don’t. Rooted in the Blues (stories)=It is important. It’s the thread of our common fabric.

Pianist Bill Evans

Take These

BEST I CAN REMEMBER, I was about 40 when my body began to repay me for the abuses I had wreaked upon it. Thankfully there are medications. But damn the side-effects.

I saw a lovely ad on TV, a happy looking, senior couple, pulling their new Airstream to a pastoral setting alongside a stream. Apparently the old guy was suffering from an arthritic hitch in his get-along and his doctor prescrbed a medication. It was an inspirational scene until the narrator began the fast talking litany of potential side-effects. I don’t remember them exactly but I think they included: loss of hearing and hair, foaming at the mouth, irritability, frequent going, abnormal urges, dizziness, your favorite NBA player betraying you to put on the enemies uniform, and death.

This morning, I was thinking about the state of things and listening to the promises of our political aspirants. So I turned to First Samuel Eight in The Message version of the scriptures (or as one political aspirant might say: "One Samuel".

When Samuel got to be an old man, he set his sons up as judges in Israel… But his sons didn’t take after him; they were out for what they could get for themselves, taking bribes, corrupting justice.

Fed up, all the elders of Israel got together and confronted Samuel at Ramah. They presented their case: “Look, you’re an old man, and your sons aren’t following in your footsteps. Here’s what we want you to do: Appoint a king to rule us, just like everybody else.”

When Samuel heard their demand—“Give us a king to rule us!”—he was crushed. How awful! Samuel prayed to God.

God answered Samuel, “Go ahead and do what they’re asking. They are not rejecting you. They’ve rejected me as their King. From the day I brought them out of Egypt until this very day they’ve been behaving like this, leaving me for other gods. And now they’re doing it to you. So let them have their own way. But warn them of what they’re in for. Tell them the way kings operate, just what they’re likely to get from a king.”

So Samuel told them, delivered God’s warning to the people who were asking him to give them a king. God said (the side-effects may include), “This is the way the kind of king you’re talking about operates. He’ll take your sons and make soldiers of them—chariotry, cavalry, infantry, regimented in battalions and squadrons. He’ll put some to forced labor on his farms, plowing and harvesting, and others to making either weapons of war or chariots in which he can ride in luxury. He’ll put your daughters to work as beauticians and waitresses and cooks. He’ll conscript your best fields, vineyards, and orchards and hand them over to his special friends. He’ll tax your harvests and vintage to support his extensive bureaucracy. Your prize workers and best animals he’ll take for his own use. He’ll lay a tax on your flocks and you’ll end up no better than slaves. The day will come when you will cry in desperation because of this king you so much want for yourselves. But don’t expect God to answer.”

But the people wouldn’t listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We will have a king to rule us! Then we’ll be just like all the other nations. Our king will rule us and lead us and fight our battles.”

Samuel took in what they said and rehearsed it with God. God told Samuel, “Do what they say. Make them a king.”

And some lifted their red hats in the air, the ones that read “Make Israel Great Again”, and beat their chests. Others yelled, “We want a Queen this time around”. And others looked at the ground and thought, “Oh dear God, is the cure sometimes worse than the illness?” (This paragraph is not actually in the scripture.)