It’s odd that of all the nuances of expression jazz can convey, the thrill of victory and celebration of success is hard to find among the music’s classics. Barack Obama’s heartening win of the presidency prompts me to search out joyous music, but I can’t think of a movement akin to the bells ringing in Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” in the repertoire of Miles, Ornette, Cecil or Coltrane, Mingus, Monk, Bird and Diz, or Ellington, Basie and Goodman. The crowning last chorus of Armstrong’s “Tight LIke This” comes to mind, though the satisfaction bespoke in the trumpeter’s final ringing notes seems to reflect gratification that’s more personal than socio-political. Where’s jazz’s happy party music?
hail Studs Terkel, Jazz Age Chicagoan
A talker and listener, actor-dj-writer-oral historian, good humored realist and pragmatic idealist, Studs Terkel (1912 – 2008) stands as an American cultural patriot, who enjoyed as rich if not untroubled a life as genuinely democratic artist might hope for over the course of the 20th century — earning Roger Ebert’s thumbs up as greatest Chicagoan. Studs was hugely enthusiastic about music, loving blues as well as jazz, gospel, rootsy folk, the Great American Songbook, the soundtrack of the labor and Civil Rights movement, classical stuff too — taste way above and beyond genre. May we sometime soon see his like again.
Presidential politics and jazz: Show of hands
Google “Obama” and “jazz” and this Jazz Beyond Jazz post comes up second! The search engine flatters, so here’s more research on the connection/support of the jazz world for the candidates, and the candidates of jazz (as a fundamental American cultural phenomenon).
This concert seems indicative of most jazz musicians’ preference:
(gen’l admission: $100; vip seats and post-show reception: $250; students/seniors, $50).
Comparable events last week in Cincinnati, Ohio and Oct. 12 in Kansas City MO, with Dick Gregory as keynote speaker on the occasion of his 76th birthday. This afternoon in Brooklyn, Jazz Passenger alto saxophonist/storyteller Roy Nathanson hosts a party at which attendees supporting Obama will call voters in swing-states, making the case. Further such jazz activism seems likely.
Not to be unfair to the other side: Google “McCain” and “jazz” and the top relevant result: the Senator flashing jazz hands.
Jazz, secure, shrugs off “joke” threat
“We’re doing everything we can to eliminate jazz from American culture,” a promoter for Live Nation Artists, the world’s dominant pop music production and marketing firm “joked” to Florida councilmen considering a proposed upcoming music festival. Jazz responds with a can’t-be-bothered shrug.Â
Too hip to be rattled by ignorant, idle, defensive — and of course, revealing – threats, the greatest living musicians are basking in hard-earned recognition and producing inspiringly energized, not necessarily mellow music. Undeterred by Live Nation-like commercial disdain, jazz festivals are thriving throughout North America under nominally non-profit organizations run by a coterie of canny impresarios. Jazz clubs — not only in NYC, I saw it in Chicago, too — are hosting eager audiences, maybe because the cheap buck has lured international tourists. But the buck’s not cheap Canada, which is also promoting jazz. Jazz is always endangered, but right now it’s in high bloom.Â