Red, White and Blue Jazz

Most quickly recognize Jazz as a unique American (US) art form, but did you know that for many Jazz is also the sound of freedom and democracy?

"Jazz is a democratic sound because it mixes races and because that mixing make no difference." - Arthur Knight

Statement like this are often used to present a "colorblind" attitude of Jazz and Jazz musicians, but it is in my opinion completely a misread.  I would propose that Jazz is a democratic sound because of the difference is in the sycretizations of multiples ideas and concepts of people of different races, ethnicities, nationalities, ages, genders, economics...and the list goes on.  The "mixing" does make a difference and the difference is wonderful!

It is not necessary to turn a "blind eye" to difference. This is almost as deadly as despising difference. What Jazz does is celebrate difference, incorporate differences.But it incorporates it in such a way as to allow the hearing of all of the differences. We hear the difference in timbre. We hear the difference in technique and volume, tempo and rhythm; but it is all presented as portions of the whole.

The democratic process comes into play when everyone gives up a little to "hear" the "other." The democratic process is at its best whether in Jazz, religion or politics when we recognize difference as a positive and we each give up a little to ensure the equality of all.

From Jazz's very beginnings, musicians were coming together from disparate musical and idealogical backgrounds. what unified them was a dedication, perhaps a determination to the music. The music provided a "level playing field" where the disparate parts could become one. I am thinking of the combining of the European-bred light skin Creoles and the ear-trained dark-skinned Creoles who were forced into collaborating and competing with one another for jobs in Storyville.

While Hitler would have us believe that the only reason he didn't like Jazz and so banned it in his Nazi empire was because it was the music of Jews and blacks, I think it was more the captivating nature of a democratic music that needs everyone's voice in order for it to sound "right" that was really his annoyance. Fidel Castro in like manner would like us to believe that it was just because the music was so uniquely American (US) and therefore capitalistic, that he forbade the playing of Jazz in Cuba. I again, would propose it was because of its democratic nature, one that allows the drummer to be just as important as the horn player, that was really his problem with the music.

Perhaps for both of them it was the ways in which Jazz gave voice to the "underdog," the disenfranchised; or the way in which Jazz had a tendency to "overthrow" previous social norms of music, language and lifestyle without violence, without threat and without outward shows of power.

Whatever the reason, Jazz, this music once thought to be garbage and a quirk; not only survived, it thrived. It became the music of disenfranchised, oppressed people all over the world, and for some still provides that service, especially considering how many new expressions of Jazz are showing up on the continent of Africa and in East Asia. Wherever there is a need for a musical democracy, Jazz will be there.

Happy 4th of July everyone.  Let freedom swing!