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Central Brooklyn Jazz Fest reiterates jazz/race divide

April 8, 2011 by Howard Mandel

The Central Brooklyn Jazz Festival, during what the Smithsonian Institution promotes as Jazz Appreciation Month, is a powerful statement of hard core, grass-roots support for the music Congress has ratified as “a rare and valuable American national treasure.” My City Arts column reports on how the fest and other Brooklyn jazz activities, despite best intentions, reprise the distances and suspicions people of diverse backgrounds hold about each other.


There’s probably no way out of the ethnic/racial conflicts that so hamper the United States, except for us to suffer through them. But maybe Jazz Appreciation Month should have a component of celebration of how citizens and residents of all backgrounds contribute to our culture, rich yet complicated and conflicted as it certainly is.

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Filed Under: main Tagged With: Central Brooklyn Jazz Festival, City Arts-New York, Jazz Appreciation Month, Smithsonian Institution

Comments

  1. Richard Mitnick says

    April 8, 2011 at 1:05 pm

    In the “Jazz Profiles” series at NPR/music, many musicians speak about touring around the country, Blacks being prohibited from restaurants, hotels, etc., and their White peers refusing to use those establishments.
    Too bad our citizenry is not up to the standards of the Jazz Community, e.g. MDD and Jerry Mulligan.

  2. Paul Lindemeyer says

    April 10, 2011 at 12:30 pm

    It’s damned difficult to sort out discrimination from privilege (I say as I reach into the Obvious Bag for a pertinent point).
    When you admit discrimination can go against the privileged…iyiyi, my head hurts.
    Too bad we can’t keep jazz alive in quieter, get-alongier places. It seems to coexist better with negative energy than positive.
    Great to get caught up on what Rob Garcia is doing, BTW. Fine drummer and a nice guy.
    HM: Paul, your pertinent point is not obvious — thanks for making it. I find the dimensions of all these interactions inherently contradictory, paradoxical and ironic, full of potential to cut through the Gordian knot with more consciously collaborative overall behavior by everyone. Like that will happen.

  3. Chris Jentsch says

    April 10, 2011 at 10:09 pm

    Some of these issues are briefly discussed on the fourth page of the most extensive email interview I’ve ever granted:
    http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=35431&pg=4
    HM: Thanks for sharing your thoughts here, Chris.

  4. Known as 332 says

    April 10, 2011 at 10:32 pm

    You know, sometimes jazz is just great music to create and appreciably listen to. What if the split is the political baggage that many insist on bringing to the party, that gives too many people pause before deciding not to hear something that might be a stretch, but interesting musically?
    HM: Hear the music, ignore the politics.

Howard Mandel

I'm a Chicago-born (and after 32 years in NYC, recently repatriated) writer, editor, author, arts reporter for National Public Radio, consultant and nascent videographer -- a veteran freelance journalist working on newspapers, magazines and websites, appearing on tv and radio, teaching at New York University and elsewhere, consulting on media, publishing and jazz-related issues. I'm president of the Jazz Journalists Association, a non-profit membership organization devoted to using all media to disseminate news and views about all kinds of jazz.
My books are Future Jazz (Oxford U Press, 1999) and Miles Ornette Cecil - Jazz Beyond Jazz (Routledge, 2008). I was general editor of the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz and Blues (Flame Tree 2005/Billboard Books 2006). Of course I'm working on something new. . . Read More…

About Jazz Beyond Jazz

What if there's more to jazz than you suppose? What if jazz demolishes suppositions and breaks all bounds? What if jazz - and the jazz beyond, behind, under and around jazz - could enrich your life? What if jazz is the subtle, insightful, stylish, … [Read More...]

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