{"id":3384,"date":"2025-01-15T16:59:17","date_gmt":"2025-01-15T21:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=3384"},"modified":"2025-01-16T13:30:09","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T18:30:09","slug":"the-answer-is-blowin-in-the-wind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2025\/01\/the-answer-is-blowin-in-the-wind.html","title":{"rendered":"The Answer Is “Blowin’ in the Wind”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In my most recent NPR \u201cMore than Music\u201d show \u2013 \u201c\u2019Blowin\u2019 in the Wind\u2019 \u2013 Music and American Identity\u201d<\/a> — the conductor JoAnn Falletta asks, \u201c\u2018How can we grow as human beings without the arts?\u201d She continues: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t learn through the arts as a child, you can\u2019t open yourself up easily. I read once when I was very young that the arts help us deal with our mortality. That struck me, and it still strikes me. The only way you can have these feelings is if someone opens the door to you as a child, whether it\u2019s taking you to a play which has an uncertain ending, or to a museum and looking at a painting that you can\u2019t understand, or even a piece of music that might seem frightening but may be interesting.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of Bob Dylan, she says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not afraid to force us to listen. Even ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ — it\u2019s terrifying, that nothing changes for the better. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything like that today. There are love stories. There are stories of anger, but nothing that forces us to look at ourselves, that makes us feel uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The topic at hand is music that embodies the American experience today. I asked JoAnn and four others to pick a piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—John McWhorter <\/strong>chose a song from Jerome Kern\u2019s Show Boat<\/em> that mediates between Black and white;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—Michael Dease<\/strong> chose John Coltrane\u2019s Blue Train<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—Allen Guelzo<\/strong> chose Charles Ives\u2019s tribute to a Black Civil War regiment<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—Timothy Long<\/strong> chose music that speaks to him as a Native American living in multiple worlds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I chose George Gershwin\u2019s Rhapsody in Blue<\/em>: \u201cIt\u2019s polyglot \u2013 it\u2019s classical, it\u2019s jazz, it\u2019s Broadway, it\u2019s Black, it\u2019s Jewish. . . . And it\u2019s always been controversial \u2013 patronized and deployed by generations of commentators as derivative and appropriative. And that controversy, in itself, surely tell us something about ourselves. . . . In fact it sounds like a work in progress \u2013 and what could be more \u2018American\u2019 than that?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also call\u00a0Rhapsody in Blue<\/em>\u00a0\u201cunfinished\u201d \u2013 there isn\u2019t even a definitive version of the score. \u201cI would call that a defining attribute of America \u2013 a characteristic of the self-made American genius. . . . And then there is a matter of unfinished\u00a0business\u00a0<\/em>— what W. E. B. Du Bois was talking about when he famously called \u2018the problem of the color line\u2019 the \u2019problem of the twentieth century.\u2019 Gershwin put it all together \u2013 and if the outcome isn\u2019t integrated, neither are we.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To hear the show, click here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more on Rhapsody in Blue<\/em>, click here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more on Ives and Colonel Shaw\u2019s Black regiment, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a Listening Guide, keep reading:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

00:00 — JoAnn Falletta on Bob Dylan<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9:00 — Michael Dease on John Coltrane<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15:30 — John McWhorter on Show Boat<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

21:00 — TImothy Long on Earl Kim<\/p>\n\n\n\n

30:00 — Allen Guelzo on Charles Ives<\/p>\n\n\n\n

39:00 — JH on Gershwin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my most recent NPR \u201cMore than Music\u201d show \u2013 \u201c\u2019Blowin\u2019 in the Wind\u2019 \u2013 Music and American Identity\u201d — the conductor JoAnn Falletta asks, \u201c\u2018How can we grow as human beings without the arts?\u201d She continues:  \u201cIf you don\u2019t learn through the arts as a child, you can\u2019t open yourself up easily. I read […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3384","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-SA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3384"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3394,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3384\/revisions\/3394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}