Why Jazz Still Matters Jazz Still Matters Why Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Journal of the American Academy

Home , Albert Heath, Arbour Zena, Autophysiopsychic, Bebop, Bheki Mseleku, Bill Crow

Spring 2019

Judith Tick · Carol A. Muller Carol · Wells Christopher J. · with Farah Jasmine Griffin Jasmine with Farah

Kelsey A. K. Klotz Krin Gabbard

Gabriel Solis

Why Jazz Still Matters Jazz Still Matters Why Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Journal of the American Academy

, guest Early & Ingrid Monson Gerald editors Dædalus

Dædalus Spring 2019 Why Jazz Still Matters

Dædalus Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

“Why Jazz Still Matters” Volume 148, Number 2; Spring 2019

Gerald Early & Ingrid Monson, Guest Editors Phyllis S. Bendell, Managing Editor and Director of Publications Peter Walton, Associate Editor Heather M. Struntz, Assistant Editor

Committee on Studies and Publications John Mark Hansen, Chair; Rosina Bierbaum, Johanna Drucker, Gerald Early, Carol Gluck, Linda Greenhouse, John Hildebrand, Philip Khoury, Arthur Kleinman, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Alan I. Leshner, Rose McDermott, Michael S. McPherson, Frances McCall Rosenbluth, Scott D. Sagan, Nancy C. Andrews (ex officio), David W. Oxtoby (ex officio), Diane P. Wood (ex officio)

Inside front cover: Pianist Geri Allen. Photograph by Arne Reimer, provided by Ora Harris. © by Ross Clayton Productions. Contents

5 Why Jazz Still Matters Gerald Early & Ingrid Monson

13 Following Geri’s Lead Farah Jasmine Griffin

23 Soul, Afrofuturism & the Timeliness of Contemporary Jazz Fusions Gabriel Solis

36 “You Can’t Dance to It”: Jazz Music and Its Choreographies of Listening Christopher J. Wells

52 Dave Brubeck’s Southern Strategy Kelsey A. K. Klotz

67 Keith Jarrett, Miscegenation & the Rise of the European Sensibility in Jazz in the 1970s Gerald Early

83 Ella Fitzgerald & “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” Berlin 1968: Paying Homage to & Signifying on Soul Music Judith Tick

92 La La Land Is a Hit, but Is It Good for Jazz? Krin Gabbard

104 Yusef Lateef’s Autophysiopsychic Quest Ingrid Monson

115 Why Jazz? South Africa 2019 Carol A. Muller Dædalus

Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

Design for the hedge maze is by Johan Vredeman de Vries, from Hortorum viridariorumque elegantes & multiplices formae: ad architectonicae artis normam affabre delineatae (Cologne, 1615).

Dædalus was founded in 1955 and established as a quarterly in 1958. The journal’s namesake was renowned in ancient Greece as an inventor, scientist, and unriddler of riddles. Its emblem, a maze seen from above, symbolizes the aspiration of its founders to “lift each of us above his cell in the labyrinth of learning in order that he may see the entire structure as if from above, where each separate part loses its comfortable separateness.” The American Academy of Arts & Sciences, like its journal, brings together distinguished individuals from every field of human endeavor. It was char- tered in 1780 as a forum “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honour, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” Now in its third century, the Academy, with its more than five thousand members, continues to provide intellectual leadership to meet the critical challenges facing our world. Dædalus Spring 2019 Claims for missing issues will be honored free Issued as Volume 148, Number 2 of charge if made within three months of the publication date of the issue. Claims may be © 2019 by the American Academy submitted to [email protected]. Members of of Arts & Sciences the American Academy please direct all ques- Editorial offices: Dædalus, American Academy of tions and claims to [email protected]. Arts & Sciences, 136 Irving Street, Cambridge ma Advertising and mailing-list inquiries may be 02138. Phone: 617 576 5085. Fax: 617 576 5088. addressed to Marketing Department, mit Press Email: [email protected]. Journals, One Rogers Street, Cambridge ma Library of Congress Catalog No. 12-30299. 02142-1209. Phone: 617 253 2866. Fax: 617 253 1709. Email: [email protected]. Dædalus publishes by invitation only and assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts. To request permission to photocopy or repro- The views expressed are those of the author(s) of duce content from Dædalus, please complete the each essay, and not necessarily of the American online request form at http://www.mitpress Academy of Arts & Sciences. journals.org/rights_permission, or contact the Permissions Manager at mit Press Journals, Dædalus (issn 0011-5266; e-issn 1548-6192) is One Rogers Street, Cambridge ma 02142-1209. published quarterly (winter, spring, summer, fall) Fax: 617 253 1709. Email: journals-rights@ by The mit Press, One Rogers Street, Cambridge mit.edu. ma 02142-1209, for the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. An electronic full-text version Corporations and academic institutions with of Dædalus is available from The mit Press. valid photocopying and/or digital licenses with Subscription and address changes should be ad the Copyright Clearance Center (ccc) may re dressed to mit Press Journals Customer Service, produce content from Dædalus under the terms One Rogers Street, Cambridge ma 02142-1209. of their license. Please go to www.copyright.com; Phone: 617 253 2889; U.S./Canada 800 207 8354. ccc, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers ma 01923. Fax: 617 577 1545. Email: [email protected]. Printed in the United States by The Sheridan Subscription rates: Electronic only for non- Press, 450 Fame Avenue, Hanover pa 17331. member individuals–$51; institutions–$168. Newsstand distribution by tng, 1955 Lake Park Canadians add 5% . Print and electronic gst Drive, Ste. 400, Smyrna ga 30080. for nonmember individuals–$57; institutions– $210. Canadians add 5% gst. Outside the United Postmaster: Send address changes to Dædalus, States and Canada add $24 for postage and han- One Rogers Street, Cambridge ma 02142-1209. dling. Prices subject to change without notice. Periodicals postage paid at Boston ma and at Institutional subscriptions are on a volume-year additional mailing offices. basis. All other subscriptions begin with the The typeface is Cycles, designed by Sumner next available issue. Stone at the Stone Type Foundry of Guinda ca. Single issues: $15 for individuals; $38 for insti- Each size of Cycles has been separately designed tutions. Outside the United States and Canada, in the tradition of metal types. add $6 per issue for postage and handling. Prices subject to change without notice. Why Jazz Still Matters

Gerald Early & Ingrid Monson

I’d rather play something that you can learn and like that you don’t know. I don’t want people to know what I am.

–Miles Davis, 19851

Perhaps, like Miles Davis, jazz itself is a mystique wrapped in an enigma, an essential or inescapable unknowingness that makes this music attractive for its audience. But if jazz is partly–through its chal- gerald early, a Fellow of the lenging demands as a musical form, through the American Academy since 1997, various changes through which it has sustained it- is the Merle Kling Professor of self over the twentieth century and into the twenty- Modern Letters and Editor of first, and through its aspirations to both embody The Common Reader at Washing- and transform modernity–a music of clear and re- ton University in St. Louis. He is vealed intentions, it remains an art that many, even the author of A Level Playing Field: African American Athletes and the many of its devotees, do not fully understand. Even Republic of Sports (2011), One Na- the word “jazz” itself is wrapped in mystery. How tion Under a Groove: Motown and did the music come to be called this and what does American Culture (rev. ed., 2004), this word mean? Jazz bassist Bill Crow points out and This is Where I Came In: Black that some have thought the word comes the French America in the 1960s (2003). verb jaser, or to chatter. Others say that the word ingrid monson is the Quin- “arose from corruptions of the abbreviations of the cy Jones Professor of African first names of early musicians: ‘Charles’ (Chas.) or American Music at Harvard Uni- ‘James’ (Jas).” Some have thought it came from the versity. She is the author of Free- slang word for semen or that it came from “jazz- dom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out ing,” a slang word for fornication.2 Anthropologist to Jazz and Africa (2007), The Af- rican Diaspora: A Musical Per- Alan Merriam notes that there are also Hausa and spective (2000), and Saying Some- Arabic words that may be related to the term: jaiza, thing: Jazz Improvisation and Inter- the rumbling of distant drums, and jazb, allure- action (1996). ment or attraction.3

5 Why One of the reasons that the early music Jazz improvisation celebrates the hero- Jazz in New Orleans and after was so disap- ic genius improviser, but, as musicians Still Matters proved of by the bourgeoisie was because know, that brilliance often depends on of the association with sex. The same re- the collective magic of the right band: in- action would occur roughly thirty-five or dividuals who compliment, anticipate, in- so years later with the advent of rock and spire, and upset each other into a commu- roll, another rebellious form of music nal whole greater than the sum of its parts. with a name associated with sex. Because Indeed, two of the most influential heroes jazz in its early days before World War I in jazz–Miles Davis and John Coltrane– was performed in brothels, as well as at are known by the brilliance of their quar- picnics and parades, an association with tets and quintets, which became the most sex and the erotic is not surprising. As revered models of group interplay. These Gerald Early observed about Miles Davis, collective musical relationships became the black male body came to define a kind generalized into idealized concepts of of black male existentialism functioning community that pervade our contempo- as “a symbol of engagement and detach- rary understanding of jazz. For Wynton ment, of punishing discipline and plush Marsalis, the jazz ensemble is democracy pleasure that operated cooperatively, not in action: participatory, inclusive, chal- in conflict, if rightly understood.” Fur- lenging, competitive, and collective.7 For thermore, this new kind of sexuality, first the interracial musical scene of the forties associated with jazz and the margins, be- and fifties, jazz improvisation was often came, over time, idealized in mainstream viewed as the ultimate integrated music, culture.4 crossing the color line and social catego- Many jazz musicians never liked the ries with aplomb.8 For others, black mu- word “jazz,” among the most notable sicians created idealized and woke com- being Duke Ellington, drummer Max munities of color, which inspired the de- Roach, saxophonist Rashaan Roland velopment of progressive black social and Kirk, composer Muhal Richard Abrams, spiritual movements. Freedom links the trumpeter Nicholas Payton, and Miles musical aesthetics of jazz and its sociopo- Davis, who said to his interlocutor in litical ambitions: associated with impro- 1985: “You know I don’t like the word visation and desperately needed for racial jazz, right? You’ve heard that? I hope justice and inclusion. For some, the polit- that’s one of the things you’ve heard.”5 ical and cultural associations of jazz are Many African American musicians primary, indeed, above the music itself, viewed the word as a music industry la- which can make jazz seem like a branch bel created by whites that demeaned, ste- of social theory. Ralph Ellison criticized reotyped, and limited them artistical- this tendency by wryly critiquing Amiri ly. Bill Crow ends his meditation on the Baraka’s (LeRoi Jones) Blues People by not- word jazz by noting: “As we enter the ing that “the tremendous burden of so- 1990s the sexual connotation of the word ciology which Jones would place upon has almost completely faded away. ‘Jazz’ this body of music is enough to give even is now used to identify musical forms, as the blues the blues.”9 For others, the mu- well as a style of Broadway theater danc- sic must be addressed to the exclusion of ing, a patented exercise regimen, a toilet the social and cultural. Music theorists water, a basketball team, a brand of com- are more comfortable on this terrain, but puter software.”6 Within this metamor- the most interesting recent work on jazz phosis lies a tale. has emphasized the sound of the music,

6 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences the embodied experience of listening and are considered its most important inno- Gerald performing as the link between the musi- vators. Because most of the great singers Early & 10 Ingrid cal and the social. were women–from Billie Holiday, Sar- Monson Jazz is a complex, highly blended, ah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, and Peggy sometimes contradictory music and, in- Lee to Cassandra Wilson and Dianne deed, since its inception, it has been hot- Reeves–male bias on the part of both ly debated exactly what forms or styles the musicians themselves and of critics constitute this music. Is it music theory (most of whom were and are male) likely or a technique that is applied to music? skewed our sense of this music.11 Is it one music or several loosely grouped Jazz has always sought a popular audi- forms of music that deal with improvi- ence with varying success but, since its sation? Its roots are African and Euro- earliest days, it has been a music that is pean, classical and popular, dance music often performed by musicians for musi- and art music. It has been called both cool cians. This has made many listeners im- and hot, earthy and avant-garde, intellec- patient with it, feeling that if one needs tual and primitive. It has been influenced practically a degree in music theory to by Latin American and Afro-Cuban mu- appreciate it, its practitioners should sic, by Middle Eastern, Indian, and oth- not expect untrained or casual audienc- er forms of Asian music, by African mu- es to be bothered with it. But on the oth- sic, and by varieties of religious music er hand, its technical pretensions have including gospel and the Protestant hym- made jazz a kind of status music with nal. Jazz also has roots in the American some audiences. popular song (which makes up a good Early sound technology such as pho- deal of its repertoire), the blues, hokum nograph records and radio spread jazz and circus music, marching band music, around the world, and the speed with and popular dance music. It is known for which it spread frightened many people being improvised and touted for the free- in its early days, especially because the dom it permits its players, but jazz in its music in its inception appealed so pow- heyday of swing was largely composed erfully to the young. Jazz emerged in the and tightly arranged; although many twentieth century, the Age of Music, jazz players have soloed, relatively few, when people not only heard more music as might be expected, were exceptional, than ever before but consumed it more memorial, or highly influential soloists. voraciously than ever before in human In any case, why did so-called free mu- history, largely attracted to music for its sic generated on the spot by the player be- emotional and psychological effects. Jazz come more highly valued by jazz players became the first, though not the last, pop- and audiences than notated music that, ular music to be trapped by its intellec- by its very nature, is presumed to have a tual pretensions, on the one hand, and greater range of expressiveness? Impro- its anti-intellectual appeal, on the other. vised music goes back to Western classi- Jazz has been condemned and promoted cal composers like Bach, Beethoven, and by various political ideologies and gov- Mozart, who were superb improvisers, ernments: Nazis called it “Nigger-Juden” but has also existed elsewhere around the music;12 the Soviets thought of it as mu- world for millennia. What makes jazz im- sic of the workers and the dispossessed, provisation different? Singers made jazz on the one hand, and a sensationalized, popular, but the music is mostly instru- bourgeois art, on the other; in the United mental, and the great instrumentalists States, it was once considered low-class,

148 (2) Spring 2019 7 Why dance hall music, on the one hand, and English, history, American studies, musi- Jazz the music of democracy, the Only Orig- cology, African American studies, studies Still Matters inal American Music, on the other. So of the Americas, and culture studies. In- powerful was the presence of jazz when it deed, jazz studies as an interdisciplinary first emerged that it is the only music that field of research and pedagogy formal- has a social epoch named in its honor: the ly exists and has its own journal, Jazz Per- Jazz Age (1920s). spectives. What is this all about, anyway? Jazz is, of course, about race in America And why should those with no interest in not only because African American mu- jazz care about any of this? sicians were so central in its creation and African American audiences so import- This issue of Dædalus gathers noted writ- ant in their creative responses to it, but ers, artists, and scholars to explore the va- because whites played such a dominant lidity of three basic contentions about the role in its dissemination through records “life” and “death” of jazz, which is, with- and performance venues and its owner- out question, the “deepest,” most techni- ship as intellectual and artistic property. cally difficult “popular music” ever cre- (Whites also played jazz music from its ated:14 first, that jazz was never simply a earliest days and always constituted a ma- form of music or a congeries of musical jor portion of its audience. Whites, both styles, but was in fact a larger modern- in the United States and in Europe, were ist artistic movement both in the United leading critical interpreters of and writers States and internationally that was a re- about jazz as well.)13 It is a music that has bellious response against and, contrarily, always attracted intellectuals and artists, a powerfully evocative intensification and thus the music’s influence can be felt of the new mass consumer culture that far from the bandstand or the dance floor signified twentieth-century urban life; or the recording studio. Jazz has spawned second, that jazz’s transformation from an influential, international lifestyle, an dance to art music, which occurred during attitude toward life–the hot, the hip, and and immediately after World War II, the cool–that is secular, obsessed with was one of the profoundly cataclysmic youth, fixated on the marginalized, and changes to occur in American popular detached yet passionately self-centered, culture that both reflected and affected and that has attached itself to other forms larger social (race and gender), political of popular music, like rock and hip hop, (liberal reformism), and cultural (the im- as jazz has become, for many young mu- pulse for liberation versus technical elit- sic lovers, passé. This attitude of the cool ism) shifts that were swirling in the Unit- and the hip has influenced literature, ined States at the time; third, that jazz cluding the production of the so-called was, to a great extent, a pluralistic music jazz novel and jazz poetry, as well as art, during the years of its greatest popularity speech, dress, and antibourgeois habits of in the United States and that it has since indulgence such as using illegal drugs like become a vibrantly global art form, not marijuana and heroin. Even interracial only in Europe and Asia, but also in Pana- sex, considered rebellious by some and ma, South Africa, and Ghana. Whether its deviant by others, was associated with the future lies as a high-culture, transnation- demi-monde of jazz. al, privileged form of taste and practice Every dimension of jazz outlined above or in a new synthesis joining jazz artistry is the subject of academic and criti- with global hip hop and the popular is an cal study in a variety of fields including open question. In either case, jazz today is

8 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences a form of cosmopolitanism. But perhaps of its fans and practitioners, it has now Gerald that was always what it was striving to become about preserving and conserv- Early & Ingrid be. As New York Times jazz critic Ben Rat- ing a tradition, an ideology, a set of stan- Monson liff put it: “There is no American popular dards, a form of practice. Today, jazz is music so well miscegenated as jazz.”15 an art that can satisfy the compulsions of Whatever jazz today has lost in the size the liberationist and the conservative, of of its audience as compared with forms of those who seek change and of those who popular music with bigger market shares, prefer stasis.16 it has gained in the high esteem in which Is jazz still a relevant form of artistic it is held in the business and art worlds expression, still a significant force in the as a sophisticated artistic expression (it world of popular music or the world of is frequently used as mood music in up- art music? In other words, is jazz so in- scale business establishments, in muse- sufficiently hip that its pretensions and ums and galleries, and in commercials its conceit no longer matter as either a promoting upscale products) and in the theory or a practice? Has it become, in institutionalization it has experienced as many respects, like mainline Protestant- a formal course of study at many colleges ism, a theory and a practice prized by its and universities. Indeed, if it were not for followers because of its limited and slow- colleges, universities, and high school ly declining appeal and its glorious his- jazz bands, and institutions such as Jazz tory as something that once did mat- at Lincoln Center and sf Jazz, it is quite ter? Is jazz simply a music trapped in the possible that few young people in the memory of itself, technically exhausted United States would be playing or hear- and imaginatively hampered, shadowed ing jazz today. and sabotaged by its pop and R&B com- As Ingrid Monson wrote, “The art mu- mercial doppelgänger, smooth jazz? Fif- sic known variously as jazz, swing, be- ty or one hundred years from now will bop, America’s classical music, and cre- more accessible and commercial jazzers ative music has been associated first and like saxophonist Kenny G and trumpet- foremost with freedom. Freedom of exer Chris Botti be more remembered than pression, human freedom, freedom of trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and pianist thought, and the freedom that results Brad Mehldau? To be sure, for many of from an ongoing pursuit of racial jus- its fans and followers, jazz has gone from tice.” One has only to read, for instance, being an anti-establishment to an estab- historian Michael H. Kater’s Different lishment art form, something that may Drummers: Jazz in the Culture of Nazi Ger- have drained the art form of its purpose many (1992) or author Josef Skvorecky’s and its emotional correlatives. If jazz has extraordinary novella The Bass Saxophone acquired a new power, a new appeal, then (1977) to know how profoundly true what precisely is it and what is the rela- Monson’s observation is–that jazz was a tionship of this new power, this new ap- beacon, an act, a trope of freedom, an ex- peal, to the power and appeal that jazz pression against repression that inspired once had when it was the dominant music many people around the world. But if jazz of the United States? Has jazz transcend- was, at one point in its history, about free- ed the marketplace or is it a music that ing oneself from artificial and arbitrary deserves to be protected from the dese- constraints in both popular and classical crations of the market as we try to protect music, about freeing society from its re- classical music? Protectionism, when it strictions and repressions, then, for many comes to the arts, has usually been a lost

148 (2) Spring 2019 9 Why cause. Jazz’s advocates and supporters Hester, as Fred Moten has put it, with Jazz say that jazz is more popular, more lis- the unconventional timbres and tones of Still 17 Matters tened to than ever despite its low market haunting jazz. Understanding what has ratings, and this may be true: it certain- happened to jazz can tell us a great deal ly shows up in unexpected places such as, about the nature and influence of popu- for instance, two unrelated Tom Cruise lar music as both a national and interna- movies, 1996’s Jerry Maguire (which fea- tional art form. tures a long sequence with an avant-garde This issue of Dædalus explores both the Charles Mingus tune) and 2004’s Col- legacies of jazz and its futures from the lateral (which features a trumpeter play- perspectives of artists and academics en- ing Bitches Brew–style Miles Davis jazz). gaged in multiple fields of study. The in- And there continues to be art-house films terdisciplinarity of the contributors em- about jazz, such as Don Cheadle’s Miles phasizes the fact that jazz, as stated Ahead (2016) about Miles Davis, Rob- above, was never only a music but rather ert Budreau’s Born to Be Blue (2016) about was a music that served as a muse for an jazz trumpeter Chet Baker, and Cynthia arts movement, enchanting and bewitch- Mort’s Nina (2016) about jazz/folk singing other creative artists to make and to er Nina Simone. critically examine their art: from nov- There is no question that jazz is still elists like Ralph Ellison, Albert Murray, present in the culture, but the larger ques- Jack Kerouac, and John Clellon Holmes tion is: does jazz still matter? We think it to poets like Amiri Baraka, Allen Gins- does in ways that are rather astonishing burg, and Michael Harper to painters like in their implications. Jazz artists like Rob- Romare Bearden and Jackson Pollock to ert Glasper and Kamasi Washington and dancers like Fred Astaire, Agnes de Mille, avant hip hop artists like Kendrick Lamar Norma Miller, and Savion Glover and to may forge a new synthesis of jazz, the hip hop and spoken-word artists like the avant-garde, and the popular that rivets Roots, Kendrick Lamar, and Beyoncé. The new audiences or may provide a radical- essays in this issue critically examine the ly new relationship between art and the achievements of jazz as an artistic move- popular. The Black Lives Matter movement through historical case studies, en- ment has inspired a florescence of so- gagement with contemporary jazz inno- cially engaged artistic expression in jazz vations, and projections of the art form’s (Terence Blanchard’s Breathless), popular future. A mixture of historical reckoning music (Beyoncé’s Lemonade), and hip hop and utopian possibility bracket the ever- (Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly) changing character of jazz now. that models itself on the artistic vision of This issue hopes to begin to answer jazz. We suggest that jazz improvisation for readers: What made and continues remains a compelling metaphor for inter- to make jazz different from other forms relationship, group creativity, and free- of music? Why did jazz happen? How dom that is both aesthetic and social. Im- did jazz, as popular music, gain and lose provisation transforms, one-ups, reinter- its popularity or, put another way, how prets, and synthesizes evolving human did it lose its status as a music for the or- experience and its sonic signatures re- dinary or casual musical palette? How gardless of their classical, popular, or cul- did jazz’s close association with the rep- tural origins. The most innovative popu- ertoire of the Broadway musical, a song lar musicians are returning to its acoustic form that itself ceased to dominate pop- power, representing the screams of Aunt ular music with the rise of rock and roll,

10 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences affect its reception and reputation and its form of popular music like jazz? Can mu- Gerald future? How did and how do musicians sic without words, as most jazz is, con- Early & Ingrid in other countries change jazz and how tain any specific political meaning? Can a Monson much did that change affect how Ameri- music fade away and not fade away at the cans performed it? How have the chang- same time? es that affect the selling of music affected In moving toward answering these jazz? Did jazz transcend social construc- questions, the issue’s authors weave to- tions of race or did it reinscribe them? gether a narrative about jazz then and now How did jazz generate criticism of itself? to approach an understanding of why, in Who constructs the official history of a its many ways and forms, jazz still matters.

endnotes 1 Richard Cook, “Miles Davis: ‘Coltrane was a Very Greedy Man. Bird was, Too. He was a Big Hog’–A Classic Interview from the Vaults,” The Guardian, November 6, 2012, https://www .theguardian.com/music/2012/nov/06/miles-davis-interview-rocks-backpages. 2 Bill Crow, Jazz Anecdotes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 19. 3 Alan Merriam and Fradley Garner, “Jazz–The Word,” Ethnomusicology 12 (3) (1968): 382. 4 Gerald Early, Miles Davis and American Culture (St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press, 2001), 7, 16. 5 Cook, “Miles Davis.” 6 Crow, Jazz Anecdotes, 21–22. Most recently jazz has been lauded as a business strategy or as a model for group creativity and collaboration. Greg Satell, “How Jazz Can Transform Busi- ness,” Forbes, October 25, 2013, http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2013/10/25/how -jazz-can-transform-business/. See also Adrian Cho, The Jazz Process: Collaboration, Innova- tion, and Agility (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2010); Penelope Tobin, The Jazz of Business: Lead- ership in a New Groove (United Kingdom: Dodgem, 2012); Frank J. Barrett, Yes to the Mess: Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Business Review Press, 2012); and Keith Sawyer, Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration (New York: Ba- sic Books, 2007). See also Stephen Alexander, The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Mu- sic and the Structure of the Universe (New York: Basic Books, 2016) for an exploration of jazz’s implications as a creative art that can explain scientific theory. 7 Let Freedom Swing: Conversations between Sandra Day O’Connor and Wynton Marsalis on Jazz and Democracy, dvd, pr. Robe Imbriano (New York: Teachers College Press, 2010). 8 Gene Lees, Cats of Any Color: Jazz Black and White (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). 9 Ralph Ellison, Shadow and Act (New York: Vintage, 1964), 249. 10 Vijay Iyer, “Improvisation, Action Understanding, and Music Cognition with and without Bodies,” in The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, vol. 1, ed. George Lewis and Benjamin Piekut (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 74–90; and Georgina Born, “On Musical Mediation: Ontology, Technology, and Creativity,” Twentieth-Century Music 2 (1) (2005): 7–36. 11 Few jazz listeners are aware of the achievements of the most important female instrumentalists and composers: Mary Lou Williams, Melba Liston, Carla Bley, Maria Schneider, Geri Al- len, Terri Lyne Carrington, and Nicole Mitchell. 12 It should go without saying that Nazism intensified the racist inclinations of conservative German music and art critics and the N-word was frequently used. See Michael H. Kater, Different Drummers: Jazz in the Culture of Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford University Press,

148 (2) Spring 2019 11 Why 1992), 19. But in American literary criticism, for instance, think how common the phrase Jazz “Nigger Jim” was in discussing the slave character from Twain’s The Adventures of Huckle- Still berry Finn. (The character’s name was simply Jim.) Critics ranging from T. S. Eliot to Ernest Matters Hemingway used the expression. Indeed, despite how much he deplored the characteriza- tion, even Ralph Ellison used it. See Ralph Ellison, “Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke,” in Shadow and Act (New York: Vintage Books, 1972), 50, 58. This is only to point out how much the N-word, far from being just a lower-class obscenity, penetrated the reaches of high culture. This realization only underscores the impact of the word on the Western world and how powerful its stigmatizing reach. It is important to recognize this. 13 For an interesting discussion of race and jazz among contemporary jazz critics, see Yuval Tay- lor and Will Friedwald, eds., The Future of Jazz (Chicago: A Cappella Books, 2002), 23–41. 14 James Lincoln Collier, in his biography Benny Goodman and the Swing Era, referred to the music of his youth, swing, the most popular form that jazz ever took, as “better–more sophisticated, more genuinely musical–than virtually any popular music before or since.” James Lin- coln Collier, Benny Goodman and the Swing Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 5. In his book, Why Classical Music Still Matters, Lawrence Kramer makes a point of saying that he was not aiming for his audience to “appreciate” classical music. As he writes, it is not his purpose to persuade his readers that “if people would only absorb some technical information, follow the instructions of an expert, and listen for some formal routines, they could come to understand this music and discover that it is not only ‘great’ but also good for them.” Lawrence Kramer, Why Classical Music Still Matters (Berkeley: University of Califor- nia Press, 2007), 4. It is not our purpose here to do so either, although a certain amount of music appreciation is unavoidable in some of these essays because the writers love the music and inevitably wish for others to recognize its virtues as well as its importance. (Of course, Kramer, inadvertently, winds up doing his share of “music appreciation” outreach in his book.) But “music appreciation” is not a goal because it is, as Kramer notes, “condescending and authoritarian.” Kramer, Why Classical Music Still Matters, 4. It bears all the earmarks of middlebrow school lessons and the quest for bourgeois respectability. And it is, in the end, not persuasive because it diminishes the art it is trying to promote. The true goal here with these essays is to remind readers that the culture we have and the society we live in owe a great many of its admirable aspects to the monumental achievement of jazz as both a music and an art movement. Langston Hughes, in responding to the question of why he was not a member of the Communist Party, defended the need for the artist to be independent and for art to be free of political coercion from the state. He said memorably, “I wouldn’t give up jazz for a world revolution.” Langston Hughes, I Wonder as I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993), 122. In some vital ways, the essays in this volume, as is this introduction, are arguing that jazz itself was a world revolution. 15 Taylor and Friedwald, eds., The Future of Jazz, 23. 16 Jazz critic and novelist Albert Murray often scoffed at the notion that jazz represented freedom, saying that Ellington, for instance, was not interested in musicians being free but playing his music in the way he wanted it played. This, he asserted, was true for any bandleader. In Ian Carr’s Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music, the pianist talks about how difficult it was to write music for his 1970s American quartet of saxophonist Dewey Redman, bassist Char- lie Haden, and drummer Paul Motian. “That group was the hardest group in the world to write for. I had to write in everybody’s attitudes and still write what I heard, and still play what I wanted to hear.” So, in jazz, as in all music, neither the players nor the composer are truly free to do whatever they want. Each is constrained by the other. Ian Carr, Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music (New York: Da Capo Press, 1992), 80. Murray’s comments were made at a consultants’ meeting for the Ken Burns’s documentary Jazz and at a conference on Ralph Ellison at New York University, both of which Gerald Early attended. 17 Fred Moten, In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 19, 22, 32.

12 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Following Geri’s Lead

Farah Jasmine Griffin

Abstract: Drawn from a keynote delivered for Timeless Portraits and Dreams: A Festival in Honor of Geri Allen (Harvard University, February 16–17, 2018), this personal essay shares observations about Allen’s intellectual and artistic leadership in diverse roles including bandleader, teacher, curator, and artistic visionary. In addition to discussions of Allen’s music and recordings, this essay also focuses on her collaboration with the author and actor/director S. Epatha Merkerson, which resulted in two musical theater projects, Great Jazz Women of the Apollo (2013) and A Conversation with Mary Lou (2014).

I followed Geri Allen’s career for almost twenty years before I met her, going to hear her in clubs, festivals, and concert halls; purchasing records and then cds; and reading any interview I could find. Surprisingly, our first meeting as friends, colleagues, and collaborators happened on the campuses of some of our nation’s greatest institutions of higher learning. Geri was both an artistic and intellectual leader whose life-long project was to en- sure the ongoing relevance of the music to which farah jasmine griffin is she’d devoted herself. She especially wanted it to the inaugural Chair of the Afri- be relevant to African American audiences. This can American and African Dias- informed her reading, her performance, and her pora Studies Department and the pedagogical practices. William E. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Litera- Geri’s relationship to institutions of higher learn- ture at Columbia University. She ing was not only as a performer, but also as a teacher, is the author of “Who Set You Flow- administrator, and someone deeply engaged with in’?”: The African-American Migra- ideas. She was a voracious reader who kept up with tion Narrative (1995), If You Can’t Be new developments in the field of jazz studies and Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie served on the faculties of the University of Michi- Holiday (2002), Clawing at the Lim- gan and the University of Pittsburgh. Our mutual its of Cool: Miles Davis, John Col- trane, and the Greatest Jazz Collabora- friend the historian Robin Kelley and I were imme- tion Ever (2008), and Harlem Noc- diately struck by her brilliance and depth of knowl- ture: Women Artists and Progressive edge when she visited the jazz study group at Co- Politics During World War II (2013). lumbia University. She would go on to collaborate

13 Following with that group for the next decade. How- both within and outside the profession. I Geri’s Lead ever, it was an encounter with her at Em- dedicated If You Can’t Be Free, Be a Mystery ory University in March 2005 that would to my parents and to “black artists every- profoundly influence the direction of my where.”2 And here was one of the most im- own work. Musician, composer, and min- portant artists, an ideal reader, affirming ister Dwight Andrews had organized a it and me. Recently, musicologist Guthrie three-day series of panels and concerts Ramsey reminded me of the complicated celebrating the life and music of compos- reception of the book and I told him quite er and music educator William Dawson. honestly that I don’t recall being aware of The conference “explored the role of race that. I explained that once Geri responded and ethnicity in the creation of music and in the way she did and because of the long other art forms, the intersection between conversations with her that followed, I concert and vernacular traditions; the felt that the work had been received in the cross-fertilization of artistic genres; and way that I wanted it to, and that I want- the impact of new modes of music cre- ed it to be part of a larger body of writing, ation and dissemination.”1 In many ways, some but not all of which would be aca- this description fits the multidimension- demic. Geri helped make that possible, al nature of Geri’s work. Always interest- not only through literal opportunities, ed in the role of race and ethnicity, she be- but also because she, along with Robin, came even more interested in gender. She Guthrie, and musician Salim Washington worked closely with artists across form became my major interlocutors. I realize and genre, continued to create new music, now that in many ways, I was following and sought new modes of dissemination. Geri’s lead. For an all-too-brief moment On the second day of the Dawson confer- in time, we accompanied each other as we ence, before my presentation, I walked attempted to experience a deeper intellec- into the hall and saw Geri sitting there tual, political, aesthetic, and spiritual re- by herself. I had a brief fan girl moment: lationship to and through the music we I didn’t want to disturb her, but I did want loved. In the pages that follow, I will not to say hello. As I walked tentatively to argue that Geri Allen was a genius. I take her, she looked up, smiled, and said, “Oh that for granted. She was. Instead, I hope my goodness, you’re the lady who wrote to share the multitude of ways that genius that book,” and reached into her bag and manifested itself, especially in her quiet, pulled out my book on Billie Holiday. We steady leadership. hugged each other; I sat down, and there “Following Geri’s Lead” takes on mul- began one of the most important friend- tiple meanings: ships and collaborations of my life. It was First, if we follow the shape and arc of a transformative moment. I had been a her career, what does it tell us about the bit of an interloper into the field of music history and cultures of jazz? How will with that book. I had not been trained as a it reshape the histories we write? Here I musicologist or ethnomusicologist; I was mean not only what we write about wom- not a musician, though I read and listened en and jazz, but also about the broad and widely. Encouraged by my beloved com- deep narratives we write about the music munity in the jazz study group at Colum- itself and her place in it. bia University, I took a chance and started Second, she is both collaborator and writing. Although I hoped my colleagues leader in many capacities. As a band- in the academy would read the book, my leader, she was an innovator and a vision- ideal readers were lovers of the music ary who created opportunities for others

14 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences through her inclusive and broad outlook. Geri includes the lyrics in the liner Farah As a leader in the field of jazz education, notes. This is no “by and by in the after Jasmine Griffin she had distinct ideas about jazz pedago- life” song. It is a song of resistance sung gy, and with the assistance of her broth- by generations of freedom fighters. With er Mount, she pioneered the use of tech- this opening, she is making an offering to nology in presenting the music and mak- the tradition and a promise to the future. ing possible performance collaborations The spiritual flows into “Melchezedik,” not bound by shared location. For in- which Geri says is written for the King stance, as part of our tribute to Mary Lou of Peace. But the name means the “king Williams in March 2013, Geri helped to of righteousness” and it appears in the organize a cyber symposium with Inter- fourteenth chapter of the Book of Gene- net2 technology to engage musicians and sis.5 He is both king and priest. In bring- scholars in five venues simultaneously. ing the two songs together, she reveals her Finally, we might think about what understanding that there is no separation it means to follow her lead as ancestor between the spirituals and jazz. For Geri, guide, inspiration, and example. they are produced of the same culture, What follows is a set of deeply person- they are both sacred music, they both bear al, preliminary thoughts on Geri as leader witness to a people’s ongoing struggle to and on the implications of her life’s work be free. This album includes a wide vari- for our study, playing, and understanding ety of black music: jazz standards, spiritu- of the music. als, and jazz originals. It features Carmen Lundy, Jimmy Cobb, Ron Carter, George Geri’s 2006 Telarc release Timeless Por- Shirley, Wallace Roney, Donald Walden, traits & Dreams opens with the spiritu- and the Atlanta Jazz Chorus under the di- al “Oh Freedom,” melding almost seam- rection of Dwight Andrews. There are lessly into the Antoine Roney original standards like Gershwin’s “Embraceable “Melchezedik,” which includes ample You,” Charlie Parker’s “Ah-Leu-Cha,” quotation of Geri’s own “Angels.” This and lesser known jazz works such as “Just purposeful opening with “Oh Freedom” for a Thrill” by Lil Hardin Armstrong. On serves as an invocation: “the act or process this recording, Geri once again uplifts the of petitioning for help or support”; spe- work of black women composers and in- cifically, “a prayer of entreaty.” A lesser- cludes works by Hardin, Mary Lou Wil- known definition of invocation is “a for- liams, and her own beautiful blues “Our mula for conjuring,” an incantation.3 Lady” written not for Mary, Mother of Geri’s choice to open with “Oh Freedom” Christ, but for our Lady Day. is a gesture toward all of these meanings. This recording gives a strong sense of It is indeed an invocation, a recognition, Geri’s own sense of history. Jazz situated and an invitation to the ancestors and the in, in conversation with, stretching, and Holy Spirit to guide and bless the endeav- at times led by other forms of black music or, but also a way of honoring and walk- culture. For Geri, jazz as a form was open ing in the black freedom struggle: to a vast array of influences but deeply Oh freedom, Oh freedom, Oh freedom grounded in African American history over me, and culture. Here we have a celebration of the music in that context. And before I’d be a slave I’d be buried in my If the invocation is “Oh Freedom,” grave, the benediction is “Lift Every Voice and And go on home to my Lord and be free.4 Sing,” otherwise known as the Negro

148 (2) Spring 2019 15 Following national anthem, with which Geri clos- a renaissance of amazing scholars in this Geri’s Lead es the recording. In her most recent book, area of African American music and cul- May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black ture. I’m looking at the writers, people like National Anthem, the brilliant Imani Perry Farah Jasmine Griffin, people like Robin D. writes of the song: G. Kelley, and George Lewis . . . people of It tells the singer to see herself or himself as that ilk, who really are establishing a lev- emerging magnificently through struggle. It el of responsibility for how we will write nurtures an identity rooted in community. about the music and how we talk about It is a song that moves regionally and inter- the music. And I just feel that these are the nationally, yet holds fast to a sense of partic- ways to look, [instead of] getting so upset ular belonging. It has had a remarkable lon- about some of these other things that are gevity due to both its beauty and its vision.6 not really dealing with the real core of what is happening in the culture. Like the book Certainly the same might be said of that Kelley did on Monk . . . that sets the bar Timeless Portraits and Dreams, but most im- of what the expectation of jazz scholarship portant, of Geri’s own sense of the histo- should be . . . real, substantive research on ry of black music and especially the his- the music, based on a respect for the cultur- tory of jazz, which also moves regionally al criteria accepted by the field . . . [and] the and internationally yet holds fast to a par- folk. The music truly deserves this level of ticular “belonging.” care. Ten years, you know, Kelley did that I think of this album as a guide through research. That kind of time and that kind of Geri’s own understanding and concep- love and appreciation for the subject mat- tion of the music she played and the ter, is where I want to go personally to find way she believed it should be taught and out, what the facts were, on a much deep- passed on. First, jazz is not separate from er level. These discussions about our inno- other forms of black music. It is born of vators’ contributions are thrilling. And I those forms that precede it and helps to think we’re going to see more of this.7 shape those that follow. It is always in conversation with these other forms as “A level of responsibility”–it resonates. well as music born of different cultures. Her sense of responsibility to the music, to This understanding informed her ped- its past and its future, to her peers and her agogy. She believed the student of jazz students, a sense of responsibility that re- needs to know the history and context of quired a profound discipline, was daunt- its birth and its development. She was a ing. In emphasizing the importance jazz voracious reader and one of the most in- history and tradition held for Geri, I by no tellectually curious people I knew. She means want to suggest an aesthetic conser- kept up with the latest jazz studies schol- vatism on her part. This was not the case. arship, not only to be informed by it but For Geri, jazz was innovation. Among her also to judge the degree to which it re- earlier recordings were Afrofuturistic spected the context, the history, and the ventures. She is one of the few pianists to political and cultural import of the music. play with Ornette Coleman. She worked In one of the best interviews I’ve read, with Betty Carter, and Cecil Taylor was a conducted by Angelika Beener, Geri major inspiration to her. So Geri was no asserts: traditionalist in the vein of Wynton Mar- It’s OK for people to have opinions, that’s salis. She saw the music on a continuum. fine . . . and it’s OK to publish opinions, I think her emphasis on history and tra- and that’s fine. I feel strongly that there is dition stemmed from two things: 1) what

16 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences she feared was an effort to de-emphasize herself, me, and Epatha, who had also Farah jazz as an African American form, a liv- agreed to work on the project. Jasmine Griffin ing tradition whose practitioners need It’s an afternoon, possibly January, to know, acknowledge, and honor it as a during the week, a Tuesday or a Wednes- product of black culture; and 2) her de- day because I run from a seminar I con- sire to influence and inform the way that duct at the Schomburg to Epatha’s Har- history was represented so that women lem abode. She greets me with a warm and avant-garde artists were not margin- smile and down-to-earth spirit. She, Geri, alized or ignored. and I sit at a large round table . . . eating, drinking . . . was it tea? Wine? I don’t re- A Conversation with Mary Lou was a the- member. I just know we are immediately atrical piece born of the collaboration be- comfortable. Three sisters who love this tween Geri, actress S. Epatha Merkerson, music and love black people, and we are and me. And although I will gesture to- laughing and singing, and Epatha is pull- ward the making of our shared projects, ing up the music, and I am recalling ob- I want to talk about them in the broader scure tracks and anecdotes, and before sense of the kinds of conversations and col- you know it, we are mapping this thing laborations Geri initiated and sustained out. Geri is happy, quietly encouraging, with the other artists and with the tradi- laughing. Soon it becomes clear, when tion itself. we start talking about our Queens, that Conversation and dialogue are the we are also talking about folk not conven- words that most often come to mind when tionally recognized as jazz artists. Our I think of Geri as leader. On the bandstand, discussions reach the blues, gospel, and even when she is the leader, she is in con- soul royalty, and pretty soon we get to versation. She may set the tone, suggest Bessie, Mahalia, and Clara Ward, and I’m a direction, but always she seems to say coming up with anecdotes about when “What do you think?” “Let me hear what this one performed and when that one you have to say.” She is creating space for performed, and at some point, someone your response, your questioning, and your asks “How can we organize this?” And questing. Sometimes she is goading you: one of us comes up with a conceit and a “Go on . . . Go on . . . Keep Going . . . Jump! narrative about the Apollo as a sacred . . . OK, now come back . . . I got you.” Even space, as hallowed ground. And at some Geri the soloist is in conversation, with point, I don’t remember when, Geri says, those who inspire her, with the various “I’m going to need somebody to write emotions within her, with God, with her- the script. Farah, you can do that.” “No, I self, and with the future. Collaboration is cannot.” “Yes, you can, you just did. Epa a form of conversation as well. The source tha, you direct.” of my greatest joy, and not a little bit of And before either of us can object, Epa frustration, were the collaborations I em- tha is directing and I am writing the script barked upon with Geri and Epatha. and our debut show will be at the Apol- It all started with a conversation. A lo with Dianne Reeves, Lizz Wright, Tia phone call and a series of discussions Fuller, Terri Lyne Carrington, and Geri’s about her idea to do a show at the Apol- trio with Kenny Davis and Kassa Over- lo that would honor the great jazz women all. Eventually what feels like a million who performed there. She asked me to be more people join, including the Howard the historian on the project and I agreed. University a cappella choir, Afro Blue, the And later, she set up a meeting between dj Val Jeanty, two hoofers, and Maurice

148 (2) Spring 2019 17 Following Chesnut. Because I add a bit about Pearl Epatha: “They are boring, but I like the Geri’s Lead Bailey and Mom’s Mabley, the oh-so- company so let’s go.” talented comedic actress Karen Malina White is on board. At the last minute, And then as we approach it, I ask perhaps two days before our first per- “Where are the horses?” And Geri says, formance, Geri would add an organ. But “Oh, there are no horses.” So we get on that was all to come. On that Tuesday and we strap ourselves in, and before or Wednesday in Harlem, I left Epatha’s long, we realize there are no horses be- apartment elated and scared to death. cause it’s not a carousel, it’s a roller coast- “What have I gotten myself into? She er. And we realize it’s not just any roll- needs a playwright not a historian.” er coaster, but a super duper, triple loop Together, the three of us embarked on a cyclone or something. And Epatha and roller coaster ride that started with a con- I are holding each other screaming. But versation and that included many more not Geri; she’s just smiling because she between us, the tradition we honored, can see the whole thing and while we are Geri’s vision and genius, and all the other freaking out about being upside down, artists on that stage and the brilliant, so- she already sees the end and knows we phisticated, all-knowing Apollo audience will survive. We get off, exasperated, and who spoke to us during the show, during declare: “That’s it. Can’t do it. My nerves intermission, and afterward. “I love it, can’t take it.” Geri is gracious and thank- but how could you have Sarah Vaughan ful, and bearing gifts. The evening ends singing ‘I’m Glad There is You?’ when and we are giddy; days later, we have that was Gloria Lynn’s song first and she the postperformance meeting to evalu- sang it here at the Apollo and she was ate what worked and what didn’t. Geri from Harlem. I know, ’cause I was here.” I sweetly says, “Would you ladies like to go look at Epatha with a look that says “I told on another ride with me?” And we both you so.” And she breaks out laughing and say, “Yes, can’t wait.” we hug each other because we got through Collaborating with Geri was exhilarat- it and were the better for it. Now she was ing and exhausting and you are a better a director and I was a scriptwriter, some- thinker and artist for it. You have grown thing we both aspired to be, but had not creatively and spiritually, and you have articulated to Geri. She just knew and she been so steeped in love that you can’t wait presented the opportunity and said, “Do to return. Like the improvising artist, you it.” And we had to rise to the occasion be- bring all that you have to the moment, cause you have to bring your best when and then you step out on faith. you are writing for and directing Dianne We learned to trust the process, to trust Reeves, Lizz Wright, and Terri Lyne Car- the vision, even as the nuts and bolts of rington. That demands a certain level of making it happen seemed impossible. We responsibility and discipline. went from the Apollo to three nights at I don’t know about others, but for Ep- Harlem Stage, where we debuted A Con- atha and I, collaborating with Geri went versation with Mary Lou featuring the re- something like this: markable Carmen Lundy, thanks to the tireless Ora Harris and the Kennedy Cen- Geri: “Hello ladies, would you like to take a ter. And the process was a true collabora- ride on a carousel with me.” tion. I wrote, they read, I rewrote. Epatha Farah: “Why yes, I love carousels. They are saw the stage and might tell us that what pretty.” we thought we could do, we couldn’t do,

18 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Farah Jasmine Griffin

Geri Allen, S. Epatha Merkerson, and Farah Jasmine Griffin (left to right). Sound check forA Conversation with Mary Lou, Harlem Stage, New York, March 14, 2014. but we could do this instead. Epatha and I lay the foundation for you to perform. created ways to highlight Geri, we let her “Read from the Billie Holiday book” genius guide us, and the music guided all while I play “Our Lady.” “Write the liner of us. We did it all in service to the mu- notes.” And then, certain that you could sic, and for Epatha and I, out of love for do something different, something more, Geri. And in return, we got each other certain of her vision and the broader pic- and these creative projects that were big- ture, she would “encourage” you to take ger than any one of us together. bigger risks by placing you in situations From her reading of my book on Bil- where you had to leap out on faith, and lie Holiday, Geri heard something in the her belief in you. sound of my writing, in the sound of my An exploration of Geri’s collaborations voice, spoken and written. “Your writ- reveals her insight as a thinker and a vi- ing is very musical,” she would say. And sionary. Her gift for seeing the whole pic- she would try to get me to write a spo- ture, hearing its sound, was extraordi- ken word piece to be on one of her al- nary. I think one course of study about bums. “I’m a bad poet,” I’d say. But she Geri would be an exploration of her col- would push back: “Would you write the laborations: with her own band, with liner notes?” “I’d be honored.” Geri had Terri Lyne and Esperanza, and with Ter- a sense of your capacity and your gift. ri Lyne and David Murray. It might ven- She’d insist that you live up to it, that ture out to a consideration of her inter- you step outside of your comfort zone. At est in technology and explore the collab- first, she would feel out what felt safe and oration with her brother in introducing

148 (2) Spring 2019 19 Following innovative technology into performance for a group of mothers from a nearby Geri’s Lead and the classroom. shelter for mothers and children. Beauti- As an aside, I want to say something ful things happen in Geri’s wake. She set brief about Geri’s commitment to en- things in motion and there is a shimmer- suring that the music reached audienc- ing, ripple effect much like her shimmer- es, especially black audiences that might ing playing on the piano. Where Geri led, not otherwise hear it. This was yet anoth- love and beauty followed. er way she sought to keep the music relevant. I helped her organize a series of resi- Geri found inspiration and influence far dencies. She did them at Harvard, Prince and wide. She was not bound by the tradi- ton, and the University of Pennsylvania. tion she held in such reverence. She was Whenever possible, she held master class- freed by it. As much as she was grounded es for the students, performed with the in a sense of community, it was the basis jazz band, and gave a concert with her from which she soared. When we think own band. But she also requested that we of her, we should also think of her as a set up performance presentations at local cosmopolitan artist who traveled wide- high schools. In New York, we did it at the ly in her music, her ideas, and her person. Thurgood Marshall High School and Geri That’s one of the reasons I so love her re- knew that Kassa Overall and Maurice cording Flying Toward the Sound; it encom- Chesnut could attract the students’ atten- passes her journey in this life and beyond. tion with hip-hop rhythms. She wanted The recording, though solo piano, pro- the young people to know that all jazz was vided yet another opportunity for collab- their music, that they could bring them- oration. Carrie Mae Weems provided the selves and the sounds of their generation photograph, cover concept, and art films. to it. She seemed to say “Come on in. Join I wrote the liner notes. While I often vis- the conversation.” As a professor of mu- ited Geri in the recording studio, it was sic and later as a director at the Universi- a special treat to spend time on the set ty of Pittsburgh, she sought out the best when Weems was making the films. In high school–aged musicians and built re- my liner notes for that recording I wrote: lationships with high school music teach- She hails from a culture that celebrates ers and church directors of music in flight as a metaphor for freedom. From the search of musically talented young peo- folk tales of the enslaved Africans who aban- ple. At the Apollo, our extravaganza was don the fields and fly back to Africa to the part of the Harlem Jazz Shrines Festival, a fugitive slave narratives of the 19th centu- series that takes place every spring in dif- ry; from Paul Laurence Dunbar’s exquisite ferent Harlem venues, theaters, church- poem of 1899, “Sympathy,” with its singing es, restaurants, and bars. A ticket to each caged bird [the inspiration for Maya Ange- performance cost $10. Our Great Jazz lou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” Women of the Apollo was held on Mother’s (1970)] to Abbey Lincoln’s “Bird Alone” Day weekend, and one of the stagehands (1991), African American culture is domi- (someone needs to write a book about nated by images and sounds of movement, the Apollo’s stagehands; I actually wrote mobility, fugitivity, and flight. Geri Allen is them into the script and they were among nothing if not deeply rooted in the cultures the first to take a bow) thanked us for hav- of Africans in America. She is also a highly ing the show during Harlem Jazz Shrines accomplished, cosmopolitan, world-class because he bought tickets for ladies from artist. As such, like the music she plays she the senior center/nursing home and also is always open to new influences.8

20 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Upon hearing Native American leg- while the right hand takes ever more Farah ends, especially “Legend of the Flute,” risks. It glides, sails, dips, and soars. In its Jasmine Griffin that resonated with her own people’s entirety, the song is almost sixteen min- love of music and near mystical celebra- utes long embodying both the grounded- tion of flight, she found inspiration as ness of a daily spiritual and artistic prac- well. Flying Toward the Sound is a musi- tice that allows for flights of creativity cian’s journey. She conceived of the proj- and improvisation in life and in music; ect in relation to three modern jazz pia- parental love that provides a safety net nists in whom she found inspiration and for children to soar; and the jazz tradition in whose lineage she falls: Cecil Taylor, that does the same for innovators such as McCoy Tyner, and Herbie Hancock. She Taylor, Tyner, Hancock, and Allen. does not play their music, instead she All the pieces that precede “God’s An- plays toward it, around it, through it, to cient Sky” lead to it as light going through her own voicing. The suite is titled “Re- a prism. The first three are devoted to fractions.” Like light entering through a Tyner, Taylor, and Hancock. She intro- prism, Geri envisioned the project as the duces themes associated with each art- music of Taylor, Tyner, and Hancock, en- ist and then integrates them throughout. tering the prism that is herself, only to be “Flying Toward the Sound” is for Tyner. bent, reshaped, and colored anew, result- “Dancing Mystic Poets at Twylight” is a ing in a flight of light and sound. highly percussive, polyrhythmic piece Until the recording of A Child Is Born in not unlike Taylor, who inspired it. “Red 2011, I would say Flying Toward the Sound Velvet in Winter,” for Herbie Hancock, is was her most introspective and spiritual orchestral, making use of the full range of work. Here, she is an artist looking deep the piano, a kaleidoscopic world in itself. within and making connections between Here, Geri leads and we gladly follow to a what she finds through this practice of in- sonic universe of her making. teriority and that of the larger world. In Let us imagine a study of jazz and a con- nine original compositions, composed struction of jazz history in which she is not during her Guggenheim Fellowship, she an addendum–“a woman in jazz”–but engages the music of her guides, to med- where she is a central component in any itate on the meaning of family, particu narrative we write, where it is impossible larly motherhood and creativity: “Faith to think about the trajectory of the mu- Carriers of Life” and “Your Pure Self sic without thinking about her. Where we (Mother to Son).” But it is “God’s An- place her in a lineage of those who influ- cient Sky” that is the project’s spiritu- enced her and those whom she influenced, al centerpiece. It flies to places of great perhaps especially pianists, but not only spiritual power–the Western Wall of pianists. Vocalists, percussionists, bass- Jerusalem, St. Mary’s of Zion in Axum, ists, horn players, and those of us who are Ethiopia–and then over the great natu- not musicians, but actors, dancers, writ- ral cathedrals–the ocean, the desert, the ers, photographers, painters as well. forest, and the mountains. The repetition She hailed from a culture that cele- played with her left hand gives us dra- brates flight as a metaphor for freedom, ma and a sense of permanence, it moves and through her music and her grace, she us along, while the melody played by the touched that longing, that struggle, and right is broad, spacious, and panoramic– that capacity for freedom in all of us. it flies. At times, we are given roots, complex and twisted, but roots nonetheless,

148 (2) Spring 2019 21 Following endnotes Geri’s Lead 1 “In Celebration of William Levi Dawson: An Exploration of American Music and Identity at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century,” conference at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, March 3–5, 2005. 2 Farah Griffin, If You Can’t Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday (New York: One World Books, 2001). 3 Merriam-Webster, “Invocation,” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/invocation. 4 Geri Allen, “Oh Freedom,” Timeless Portraits & Dreams, liner notes, Telarc, 2006. 5 Melchezedik: Melch = King, Saddiq = Righteousness. 6 Imani Perry, May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem (Chapel Hill: The Uni- versity of North Carolina Press, 2018), xiv. 7 Angelika Beener, “Geri Allen on First Christmas Album & Embracing It All,” Alternate Takes: Broadening the Jazz Perspective, November 22, 2011, https://alternate-takes.org/ 2011/11/22/geri-allen-on-first-christmas-album-embracing-it-all/. 8 Geri Allen, “Flying Toward the Sound,” Flying Toward the Sound, Motéma Music, 2010.

22 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Soul, Afrofuturism & the Timeliness of Contemporary Jazz Fusions

Gabriel Solis

Abstract: The rise of jazz-R&B-hip hop fusions in contemporary Los Angeles offers an opportunity to reflect on the ways jazz matters to black audiences today. Drawing on recent Afrofuturist art and theory as well as on Amiri Baraka’s analysis of the “changing same” in black music, this essay traces out the significance of work by artists as diverse as Kamasi Washington, Flying Lotus, Thundercat, and Robert Glasper, positing that their music tells us that jazz matters not only in itself, but also in its continuing capacity to engage in cross-genre dialogues for musicians and audiences who hear it as part of a rich continuum of African American musical expression.

We are, it seems, in an age of Afrofuturism. The release of the Black Panther feature film in Febru- ary 2018 was greeted with a spate of think pieces across a range of media, explaining the term Afro- futurism for an unfamiliar audience. “T’Challa, also known as the Black Panther, the title character of the blockbuster movie, wasn’t the first person to land a spaceship (or something like it) in down- town Oakland, Calif.,” starts one such article.1 Such pieces point back to bandleaders Sun Ra and George Clinton (and sometimes to Jamaican dub artist Lee “Scratch” Perry) to provide background for the film’s mix of the old and the new, technology and the spirit, space-age Africa, and, eventually, a sense of diasporic culture that travels in both directions across the Black Atlantic–in ships in the gabriel solis is Professor of sky rather than the sea–suturing the fissures rent Musicology at the University of by the middle passage, by war, and by colonial mo- Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. dernity’s many terrors. He is the author of Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at At the same time, we are in an age of poly- or Carnegie Hall (2013) and Monk’s even omnigenericism in music. That is, in many cas- Music: Thelonious Monk and Jazz es, musicians and their audiences are liable to con- History in the Making (2007). nect multiple genres, creating new fusions, and

23 Contemporary even to view all genres of music as poten- in its value to a broad audience and to Jazz Fusions tially available to them. This is notable, musicians who may not identify with the if only because of how strongly it rep- genre term “jazz” but who, nonetheless, resents a break from the immediate past. make music in dialogue with it in one way Over the course of a period from per- or another. haps 1960 to 2000 (to speak in very rough If the contemporary meaning of jazz terms), genre became not only the key does not necessarily point to either a fu- way to interpret popular music, but one turist position or an imbrication in the of its most powerful modes of creating a midst of a broader space of black popular hierarchy of value. From the authenticity music, its history certainly provides con- –and authority–of rock to the “Disco siderable precedent. To a remarkable ex- Sucks” campaign of the 1970s, and from tent, in fact, seeing the continuing rele- the much-touted “realness” of country vance of the music requires an account- music to Wynton Marsalis’s increasingly ing that understands it as having always strange, transphobic comments from the been more than a narrow style catego- early 1990s on fusion as a kind of musi- ry, always more than simply a musical cal “cross-dressing,”2 Baby Boomers and form. To see it today as the cultural met- Generation Xers invested heavily in a dis- aphor, artistic movement, and range of course of genre purity as a way of attach- sonic signifiers that it most certainly is, ing value to their chosen object of atten- it is critical to recognize its broad back- tion. That discourse seems less and less ground.3 Regarding this background, jazz relevant every year. occupied an odd place in the twentieth- Jazz–beyond the singular instance of century imagination: situated between Sun Ra–seldom enters into discussions worlds, it was “both/and” in many con- of either Afrofuturism or the contempo- texts. Racially, for instance, historian and rary omnigeneric black music so strong- journalist J. A. Rogers’s famous article in ly connected with it. And yet, following The New Negro saw it as a “marvel of par- the theme of this issue of Dædalus, I wish adox”: the music was both particularly to look at the remarkable presence of jazz African American, American, and, at the (understood broadly) at the heart of pre- same time, universal.4 Also, aesthetical- cisely these two phenomena. Indeed, de- ly, as Ingrid Monson notes, pointing to spite the prominence of Marsalis’s voice mid-century jazz’s “Afro-modernism”: as an arbiter of jazz in the 1990s and “at once more populist than its European 2000s, it is my contention that the turn [modernist] counterpart, yet committed to stylistic plurality is reasonably seen as to articulating its elite position relative to a return, a move that echoes and recap- the more commercial genres of r&b and tures a crucial element of the ethos that rock and roll.”5 And, indeed, generical- underlaid jazz in the 1970s. My intention ly, the music has been open to incorpora- in locating jazz in relation to the speculation from the most disparate of sources– tive, Afrofuturist current of our contem- Western classical and Afro Caribbean, porary moment is twofold in relation to Nordic, African, and Indian musics have claims about why jazz still matters: first, all informed it–and yet has also policed to ask about the music’s contemporary its boundaries; and of course, many of visibility and, second, to ask what we the musicians past and present who have might still learn from it today. Ultimately, played this music reject jazz as a genre in answer to both of these questions, I ar- label altogether. Here I explore an as- gue that the relevance of jazz can be seen pect of this in-betweenness, focusing on

24 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences the movement across genres as produc- of African American music in the mid- Gabriel ing a kind of transcendence, and on the 1960s, Baraka, then writing as LeRoi Solis role of technology as a symbol of this Jones, saw an emerging gulf between the genre-crossing gesture and as a generator jazz avant-garde (the “New Thing” or of the music’s sound and social meaning. “New Black Music,” as he called it) and To get at this body of ideas and to clar- the working-class black audiences that ify why they matter, I’ll start with a dis- had sustained jazz in earlier decades. Ad- cussion of a few pieces that clearly occu- dressing the same question that animates py a relation to both jazz and other forms this issue today–why jazz matters–he of black popular music, in order to get at argued that there should be no alienation the musical aesthetics at play. I am be- of black audiences from avant-garde jazz. ing intentionally vague with regard to Rather, as he saw it, there was much for genre in this formulation. My point is black communities to find in the New to see both sonic signifiers of jazz and a Thing, that in fact the two kinds of mu- jazz “impulse” in an explicitly polygener- sic (r&b and New Black Music) explored ic music scene, rather than one that co- the same territory, gave voice to the same heres around style or other features of a longings, and did the same work, just in coherent genre.6 Some of the music I dis- different registers. His argument goes cuss here clearly comes out of a primary into quite abstract, metaphysical direc- orientation to jazz, but much of it draws tions: “To go back in any historical (or on jazz from another space. This discus- emotional) line of ascent in Black mu- sion leads me to a reading of Afrofutur- sic leads us inevitably to religion, i.e., ism as a discourse in contemporary Afri- spirit worship. This phenomenon is al- can American and African Diasporic arts. ways at root in Black art.”9 And further, The central notion animating the study “The blues (impulse) lyric (song) is even of this music is, to paraphrase Nigerian descriptive of a plane of evolution, a di- American science fiction author Nnedi rection . . . coming and going . . . through Okorafor, that black speculative arts rou- whatever worlds. Environment, as the so- tinely trouble ontological boundaries, cial workers say . . . but Total Environment whether through a kind of liminality (including at all levels, the spiritual).”10 as “in-between-ness” or as “both/and- From James Brown to Albert Ayler, Sun ness.”7 Like the music discussed here, Ra, and John Coltrane, “The song is the such work disrupts distinctions, such as same and the people is the same.”11 that between science fiction and fantasy, Following Baraka, but offering a more between demotic and avant-garde, or mundane line of argument, I am interest- more broadly between human and non- ed in the fact that there was considerable human, sitting at the intersection of the mutual interest in making music across biological, the technological, and the that genre divide within a few years of cosmological. the publication of Baraka’s article. This includes (but is hardly limited to) pop- My thinking on the intersection of ular artists who embraced elements of polygenericism, Afrofuturism, and jazz the New Thing–such as the soul band was first prompted by a desire to rein- Earth, Wind & Fire whose 1971 debut al- vestigate cultural critic Amiri Baraka’s bum, The Need of Love, opens with a near- ideas in the seminal article “The Chang- ly ten-minute free jazz piece, “Energy,” or ing Same: r&b and the New Black Mu- Nina Simone, whose work on songs such sic.”8 In short, looking at the landscape as “Why? (The King of Love Is Dead)”

148 (2) Spring 2019 25 Contemporary brought inspirations from gospel-tinged technology that have constituted those Jazz Fusions r&b together with modal jazz to mourn boundaries in the recent past. Moreover, the murdered African American leaders the return and reinterpretation of these of the late-1960s–as well as avant-garde sounds should remind and reiterate for us figures who incorporated signifiers of the historical significance of genre-span- funk and r&b, such as Pharoah Sanders, ning jazz fusions to African American au- whose long, timbrally noisy explorations diences in the 1970s. dug into Afrocentric cosmologies with Flying Lotus’s You’re Dead! is the least the underpinning of a funky, danceable obviously “jazz” project of those I discuss groove, or Archie Shepp, whose album here.12 The album’s scant thirty-eight Attica Blues threaded together funk and minutes is composed of nineteen short “energy music” to protest the racialized, tracks, the longest coming in at just un- carceral state made increasingly visible der four minutes, and most running less by the policing initiatives now known than two. As a result, the album dispens- as the Rockefeller Drug Laws. This has es with the kind of extended, improvisa- once again become relevant in the work tional forms common to modern jazz; of a group of young musicians originally moreover, it does not use the kinds of from Los Angeles who have collaborat- song forms that remain the common lan- ed on a range of projects and who all tra- guage of jazz, even in the more heteroglot verse the boundaries between jazz, r&b, post-1970s era. Rather, its episodic struc- and hip hop, including producer and dj ture makes up a single, longer form. What Flying Lotus, saxophonist Kamasi Wash- is most interesting about the piece is the ington, bassist Thundercat, pianist Rob- way that Stephen Ellison (Flying Lotus’s ert Glasper, and of course, rapper Kend- given name) and his co-composers, in- rick Lamar. cluding Stephen Bruner (Thundercat), I focus here on this group of Los An- Kamasi Washington, and Herbie Han- geleno musicians, looking particularly, cock, use brief snippets of a wide range of if fleetingly, at recent recordings includ- genres to represent the album’s concept: ing Flying Lotus’s You’re Dead!, Kamasi a meditation on the moment of death and Washington’s aptly titled, massive al- its aftermath, seen from the perspective bum The Epic, and Robert Glasper’s work of the Tibetan Book of the Dead.13 That is, with his trio and a larger group called though the title suggests a sense of mor- “The Experiment.” These make for a use- bidity, it should be thought of as a piece ful set, since they represent a breadth of aiming at an understanding of the pro- genres and stylistic approaches that de- cess of death, a liminal state, and rebirth, fine the scene (from work that is straight- a mystical perspective journalists have forwardly within the jazz frame to work credited in part to Ellison’s upbringing as that is in significant ways outside that the nephew of Alice Coltrane. This nar- frame), and because they involve three rative of rebirth can be heard on multi- distinct approaches to making work that ple levels–personal, social, cultural, and might reasonably be called Afrofuturist. so forth–an interpretation Ellison indi- Significantly, each of these artists, in one cates (without quite articulating) in in- way or another, makes reference back to terviews around the project, including, mid-1970s jazz-r&b fusions, and each for instance: “The concept is so much works in ways that interestingly disrupt more than ‘You’re dead as a person,’ to not only genre boundaries, but also the me. Even calling it You’re Dead! goes so expectations about the relationship to deep into how I felt maybe a year ago,

26 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences where I was watching the music scene music as an inherently technologized, Gabriel shift and change.”14 collaborative composition using the stu- Solis To get a sense of this, and a feel for the dio as a medium: playing licks, loops, and ways the piece deploys a language that even just timbres with Hancock and oth- ties together hip hop’s more experimen- ers, and slowly cobbling things together tal wing and mid-1970s electric jazz (El- into tracks: lison specifically points to George Duke in interviews, but Stanley Clarke, Chick When we did the “Tesla” song, I had some Corea, Joe Zawinul, Miles Davis, and drums that I had already recorded–I kinda others are apparent as well), it is useful found a cool loop, and a little idea. Herbie to consider tracks three, four, and five: had come by and I played some ideas, some “Tesla,” “Cold Dead,” and “Fkn Dead.” In things I was feeling. He got on my Fender just under four minutes combined, they Rhodes and I started humming ideas out to include a compendium of stylistic signifi- him, and those became progressions. Then ers: double-time shuffle groove; additive, we did another take, and then he got even even-eighth patterns; a distorted electric more free with it. Eventually you get these guitar and electric piano pairing; a synth really fast recordings, and you just kind of choir; and what I think of as a kind of cos- jump to moments. mic slow jam. The thing that marks this It’s kind of the same as writing, with loops as something other than the 1970s jazz fu- and stuff. It’s hard to explain, but it makes sion it most clearly resembles in its sty- so much sense in my mind. Like, I try to put listic mix is the sonic quality Mark Fisch- it together just like I would make a beat, er describes as “crackle.”15 That earli- even if I’m using [other] people–if I had er jazz fusion consistently used the peak records or chopping up samples from the of high-fidelity recording techniques to Internet, I still do that with collaborations produce music that sounded profound- and working with people.16 ly clear. Performers as diverse as Weath- er Report, Return to Forever, and George This kind of creative practice–so Duke all worked within the jazz aesthetic much a part of the digital age, and yet still of their time, producing albums that at- so fundamentally connected with long- tempted to capture a sound as close to an standing models of musical interaction– unmediated purity as possible. Flying Lo- explodes the distinction between impro- tus, on the other hand, uses high levels of visation and composition in interesting compression, distorting the sounds of his ways. It aims, ultimately, at a fixed musi- source material to sound intentionally cal object, and in that sense is clearly com- lo-fi. Listeners may hear this as producing positional; and yet, it happens in the mo- a temporal distance or a haunted, ghostly ment, through interaction between mu- quality–as Fischer suggests recordings sicians, in the studio, and in that sense is by fellow edm artist Tricky have–or improvisational. Its reliance on the plas- they may interpret the recording’s crack- ticity of digitally recorded sound makes it le as indicating a kinship with music from distinctively contemporary, and its com- the era of analog recording; or they may bination of the human and the techno- see the sound connecting this album with logical is a hallmark of Afrofuturism. the circulation of hip hop mixtapes. Kamasi Washington’s The Epic is some- None of this is improvisatory in the way thing like the opposite of You’re Dead!17 jazz is commonly understood. Rather, El- Its seventeen tracks run nearly three lison describes the process of creating the hours, regularly extending more than ten

148 (2) Spring 2019 27 Contemporary minutes each, and most have some ver- pioneering Afrofuturist funk-rock band Jazz Fusions sion of head-solo-head form. There is no Parliament-Funkadelic.20 A voice-over obvious program to the project, in the introduces the song as sci-fi–inspired way there is in You’re Dead!, but its ti- lights flash like a mothership landing. tle and cover art imply a certain interest “This is a journey into music and sound,” in cosmic hugeness and a sense of possi- the voice intones. “Watch out and get bility. In line with this, on the whole, the ready to move your feet. Wherever you album has a fairly unified sound. Criti- are, you will be a part of it.” There follows cal commentators have pointed to John an extended introduction that features Coltrane as the key intertext, noting the the hip hop producer Battlecat, crafting ways Washington moves between a mod- an improvisation out of sampled clips of al language, “Giant Steps”–derived har- Washington’s own saxophone solo from monic complexity, and outside playing; the studio recording of the song. Once the ways the massiveness of the arrange- again, the effect of the spectral is intro- ments resembles Coltrane’s larger en- duced, as Battlecat’s sample is marked semble works; and so on.18 And Wash- off from Washington’s live sound pre- ington generally name-checks Coltrane cisely by crackle. The intersection here in interviews. But there’s really not very of a jazz-derived form (a precomposed much on the album that sounds like head used to bookend and as the source Coltrane; rather, the project sounds as for a series of improvised solos), a massed though it has picked up in the middle of stage presence, and explicitly technolo- the mid-1970s, “post-Coltrane” work. In gized sound–indeed a sound that might this regard, Will Layman, writing in Pop be called “cyborgian” for the ways it ex- Matters, compares it with McCoy Tyner, tends the human through first an analog Pharoah Sanders, Gary Bartz’s Nu Troop, instrument (the saxophone) and then a The Crusaders, Miles Davis, Wayne Shor- digital one (the sampler)–offers many ter, Joe Zawinul, and Archie Shepp.19 ways to think of this piece and its perfor- The album’s commitment to a sound mance as polygeneric. that is at once accessible and cutting Finally, I would point to two of Robert edge can be most clearly heard in the fi- Glasper’s recent recordings: the trio al- nal track, “The Message.” The song’s 7/4 bum Covered and the Experiment album funk groove supports a head and series of Artscience.21 In comparison with Wash- solos (Thundercat on electric bass, Wash- ington’s The Epic and Flying Lotus’s You’re ington on tenor, and Ronald Bruner Jr. Dead!, Covered fits most clearly within the –Thundercat’s brother–on drums) that mainstream of contemporary acoustic mine the timbres and shapes of 1970s jazz. Glasper uses the trio format to play polygeneric jazz (fusion and avant). The densely interactive music that is rhythmi- most interesting intersection between the cally complex and harmonically varied, human and the technological is best seen and that mostly uses songs as the basis not on the album, however, so much as in of extended improvisation. He has actu- Washington’s live performances of this ally played music that is much less obvi- work in the year following the album’s ously within the jazz frame–his album release. As captured in a live broadcast Black Radio won the 2013 Grammy award npr made from Los Angeles’s Regent for best r&b album–but he has general- Theater for the show Jazz Night in Amer- ly separated the two genres in his output, ica, “The Message” achieves a size and releasing jazz recordings under the Rob- scope reminiscent of the 1970s shows of ert Glasper Trio and avant r&b under the

28 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Robert Glasper Experiment. For what it’s set of electronic sounds reminiscent of Gabriel worth, the Black Radio albums draw on video game soundtracks. Solis jazz (and hip hop and blues) within the larger r&b and neo-soul frame in a fair- I’m not the first to suggest a trans- or ly programmatic way, pushing the idea intergeneric frame for understanding of black radio as a polygeneric space, a black music, but it remains true that both space where listeners have heard compat- scholarship and criticism (as well as as- ibility in music well beyond the bound- pects of the newly algorithmic systems aries of genre. What makes Covered such of music marketing) remain aligned to an interesting album is that Glasper uses a strong vision of genre as the key frame it to enact a further turn of the transge- for the music. That said, I would point neric screw, to bridge the two aspects of to a few instances of work in this vein his own creativity, performing material that I take inspiration from. Musicolo- mostly from the Black Radio projects but gist Guthrie Ramsey’s now classic book doing so in his trio format. Race Music draws on the resources of oral The opening cut from Glasper’s most history and a community-based view of recent Experiment album, Artscience (a African American music-making to un- term clearly reminiscent of Sun Ra’s cover the ways similar frames of refer- “Myth Science”), continues this both/and ence informed the music across a wide hip hop–jazz fusion approach, and in- spectrum of genres and styles, from jazz deed explains it about as directly as it to blues and from doo wop to hip hop possibly could. This piece, “This Is Not in the period between the 1930s and the Fear,” opens with a minute-long collec- 2000s.22 His use of the term “race mu- tive improvisation by a quartet includ- sic” as a title is particularly telling, inas- ing Glasper on piano, Derrick Hodge on much as it points backward historical- bass, Mark Colenberg on drums, and ly to a moment, in the 1920s and 1930s, Casey Benjamin on saxophone. With when music by African American artists its quick tempo and highly interactive was marketed–and consumed, or so it sound, this sits clearly in a contemporary would appear–not on the basis of genre jazz world. As the track goes on, howev- (like blues, jazz, or r&b), but rather on er, Glasper settles into a slower pace, lay- the basis of a racialized community. Mu- ing lush, r&b-derived chords underneath sicologist David Ake and colleagues like- the more frenetic work of the other three. wise explore the gatekeeping function These two sound streams continue as of the genre label “jazz” in their edit- Benjamin’s saxophone takes up a melo- ed volume Jazz/Not Jazz: The Music and Its dy derived from Glasper’s chord chang- Boundaries.23 Through a range of case es. Glasper intones over this sonic bed a studies, from the 1920s to the present, manifesto for contemporary polygeneri- they showcase the extent to which jazz cism: “The reality is,” he says, “my peo- musicians have reached out past those ple have given the world so many styles boundaries–into pop, light classical mu- of music, you know so many different sic, avant-gardism, and more–as well as styles; so why should I just confine my- the ways jazz communities have policed self to one? We wanted to explore them the borders of the music. all.” At this, Hodge and Colenberg set- tle into a hip hop–derived groove with a The music I’ve discussed in this es- strong emphasis on the downbeat, and say is similar in some ways to the reper- turntablist Jahi Sundance enters with a toires looked at by Ramsey or by Ake and

148 (2) Spring 2019 29 Contemporary others, inasmuch as they involve both a oriented, often mystical precursors.25 Jazz Fusions matter of working through current social Building on Womack’s groundbreaking and aesthetic issues across some genre exploration of the concept, black specu- divides, and a desire to reach across and lative arts scholars Reynaldo Anderson around those divides to develop hip new and Charles Jones have described it as sounds. And yet, given their particular “the emergence of a black identity frame- place in time–at the end of a history that work within emerging global technocul- already includes the stories those authors tural assemblages, migration, human re- are telling–they need more interpretive production, algorithms, digital networks, resources. Ramsey’s “blues muse” and software platforms, [and] bio-technical the dynamic of “up South” that derives augmentation.”26 from the mid-century Great Migration Musically speaking, this technotopian may tell us something about this work, vision is commonly seen in spatial terms, but not much at all about its technological in the outer space/Egypt (or perhaps bet- bent or speculative leanings. And though ter, Nubia) pairing, as for instance, in Sun the jazz/not jazz dyad may describe how Ra’s work, or on the cover art of Earth, some listeners respond to much of this Wind & Fire’s All ’n All. Aside from Ra, music, I see something more complicated Afrofuturists have tended to focus on the going on. If nothing else, most of the mu- soul/funk/hip hop continuum, in such sicians here (with the exception of Glasp- figures as Jimi Hendrix, George Clinton, er) could as easily be described as outsid- or Janelle Monáe, or on Jamaican Dub, ers reaching across a boundary into jazz as as Michael Veal points out in his book on insiders reaching out. the genre.27 The relative absence of Afro- I draw on Afrofuturism as a way of futurist writing on jazz can be explained framing this material because of that train large measure as the result of a his- dition’s clarity in identifying the critical torical accident. The dominant voices engagement with speculative culture as a in jazz during the theory’s emergence in repository of black thought and resource the 1990s were the so-called Young Lions, for black liberation. In brief, Afrofutur- a group of musicians who were explicit- ism describes Afrocentric work in the arts ly past-oriented and came off as luddites. and philosophy that investigates African Coalescing around Columbia Records’ diasporic engagements with a vanguard- marketing of Wynton Marsalis, this com- ist orientation, technoculture, and/or the munity of musicians was race conscious, fantastical. The term Afrofuturism was even if they may not have been interest- first coined by Mark Dery, a cultural critic ed in more pan-Africanist politics of the who identified a trending interest in both generation before them; but, at least as science and technology and science fic- Columbia and the pbs Jazz documenta- tion among African American artists and ry would have it, they rejected both the intellectuals in the 1990s.24 Writer and fusion and avant-garde styles of jazz that critic Ytasha Womack identifies a dou- defined the 1970s and early 1980s in fa- ble process whereby the growth of the vor of playing within a postbop style that concept in the 1990s and 2000s took two was canonized in the 1950s and 1960s; forms: first, the production of an Afro- and their decision to play acoustic music futurist ethos in new work, largely in liter- was couched in an explicit opposition to ature, film, and the visual arts; and second, electric (and electronic) instruments.28 the reinterpretation of older black arts Perhaps most important, they cultivat- to find experimental, technoculturally ed a specific antipathy toward hip hop,

30 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences the black music most clearly technologi- to publish the list, they gave Francis Da- Gabriel cal in both material and ideology as well vis the opportunity to pan the album: Solis as most relevant to the 1990s American This sprawling 3-cd debut by a Los-Ange- zeitgeist. les-based tenor saxophonist who’s record- However, looking beyond this partic- ed with Kendrick Lamar as well as Gerald ular constellation of references, there is Wilson is being talked about by its more much in Afrofuturism that comes to seem fervent admirers as if it were jazz like we’ve highly relevant to much jazz, and certain- never heard it before. It’s not, though. ly to the work I am discussing here. Not Strings, voices, cosmic graphics, Washing- only the orientation to technology as a ton’s dashiki and all, it’s merely jazz like resource for liberatory, improvisation- we haven’t heard it in a while–an inten- al music, or the extensions of the human tional throwback to those “spiritual,” early into new realms through technology, or ’70s Impulse, Black Jazz and Strata-East the intersections between science and lps whose greatest appeal might be to lis- mysticism, but also perhaps most signifi- teners too young to remember the dead end cantly Nettrice Gaskin’s vision of Afro- for jazz this sort of thing led to back then. futurity as “the artistic practice of nav- Washington’s obvious sincerity, while ad- igating the past, present, and future si- 29 mirable, isn’t enough to save The Epic for multaneously.” Although theorists of those like me, who do remember all too Afrofuturism do not routinely identi- well. Then, I don’t hear what others say fy polygenericism as a core component they do in Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterflyor of the movement, I believe it is reason- Broadway’s Hamilton, either.30 ably seen to be one. The multiplicity that marks both its spatiality and its temporal- The final throwaway line aside, Davis’s ity is similarly found in the genre orien- complaint is that this work isn’t origi- tation of its major figures. Sun Ra’s work nal. I suggest the return to older materi- spanned approaches from as disparate of al is not simply derivative, as Davis would sources as swing jazz and electronic noise have it, but rather part of an Afrofuturist music; George Clinton’s P-Funk project “back to the future” gesture (and indeed, was explicitly an attempt to mediate be- a return to the specifically Afrocentric, tween funk and psychedelic rock; more Afrofuturist past embodied in the tech- contemporaneously, Janelle Monáe has nologically experimental, at times spir- made a career of “tipping on the tight- itually inclined, funky music of George rope” strung between hip hop, r&b, bub- Duke, Herbie Hancock, and Earth, Wind ble gum pop, and more. What’s more, the & Fire, among others) in order to take ad- figures of the cyborg, the android, and vantage of its potentiality for a futurity of the monster–all of which have been fix- the present. tures in Afrofuturist work since at least the 1970s–are themselves hybrid. To think further about the stakes of the The response to the music I’m looking polygenericism that ties these musicians’ at here among jazz critics has been mixed, work together, and the investment in the but I find the following telling: among the technological as a resource for music that interminable end-of-year listicles in 2015, is profoundly human, it will be useful to npr’s jazz critics poll rated The Epic at #4, turn for a moment to the notion of poly- after work by such established figures as genericism as critique and as a mode of Rudresh Manthappa, Maria Schneider, making the culture at large better. In mu- and Jack DeJohnette. Yet when they went sical cultural studies, the most extensive

148 (2) Spring 2019 31 Contemporary recent meditation on this capacity of mu- much more difficult. One way to get at Jazz Fusions sic is music critic Josh Kun’s Audiotopia, it is to look at the ways this music is em- which locates this possibility not only in bedded in a recommendation matrix by the work of artists, but in the work of lis- the streaming services through which teners. At base, Kun narrates the experi- many audiences now consume music. A ence whereby cross-generic listening cre- glance at the “related artists” pages for ated for him “an alternate set of cultural Flying Lotus, Washington, and Glasper spaces” through which he could envision is instructive. In a sense, they tell a sto- a world larger and different than the one ry about how an artist may or may not in which he lived while growing up.31 be understood beyond conventional no- Drawing on sociologist Ruth Levitas’s tions of genre. Of the three, only Wash- reading of Foucault’s notion of “hetero- ington’s really describes an omnigeneric topias,” he describes recordings not as frame. Notably, while his page points to “maps of the future,” but as “adequate both Glasper and Flying Lotus, neither of maps of the present,” believing we can their pages points to him or to each oth- find, in music’s cultural polyphony, maps er. Glasper’s is composed primarily of that “point us to the possible.”32 well-known artists solidly within the jazz The same, I suggest, is true for musi- world–Kurt Rosenwinkel, Kenny Gar- cians, as well as for audiences. For in- rett, Brad Mehldau, Roy Hargrove, Nich- stance, Ellison (Flying Lotus) identifies olas Payton–and Flying Lotus’s includes jazz as a source of possibility for him, I almost solely other experimental, elec- think, precisely because he is inside it as a tronic, sample-oriented artists–Sami- listener, but not fully inside it as a music- yam, Tokimonsta, Daedelus, Knxwledge, maker. The recordings I’ve looked at here Shigeto. Washington’s page points in express a range of critique, but togeth- both of these directions. Interestingly, his er perhaps their most crucial interven- is also the only one of the three to point tion is in the critique of genre. It’s not directly to other new or canonical artists that they reject jazz so much as that they associated with Afrofuturism, including reject a genre-based conception of it. In- Sons of Kemet, Alice Coltrane, Pharoah deed, each of them is happy to claim jazz Sanders, and Sun Ra. as a description of their work; but in doing so for such varied work (and for work This is a good moment to stop and take that moves past both the sounds of post- some historical stock of the aesthetic cri- 1980s acoustic jazz and its ideological at- tique embedded in polygenericism. This tachment to genre purity and distinc- is not just the oddball feeling of a few mu- tion from other forms of pop music) they sicians at the edge of things, but rather push it to integrate into a holistic, poly- or an emergent structure of feeling (much even omnigeneric black music. Nonethe- as I think Marsalis’s rejection of fusion less, while it is clear that the artists I have was in its moment), and one that can be looked at here want to speak to an audi- multiplied over and over within the pop- ence that is interested in hip hop, r&b, ular music world. It accounts for the rise and jazz, it’s less obvious that the indus- of extended instrumental music with or try either can or cares to help make that without room for improvisation (wheth- happen, or that listeners share their inter- er in math rock or in electronic dance mu- est. While the first of these issues can be sic) and the rise of explicitly hybrid styles grasped using older methods, the latter (in work as diverse as that of Rhiannon two–listener’s activity especially–are Giddens, D’Angelo’s Black Messiah, or

32 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly). jazz as a specific musical style, but as an Gabriel It also accounts for the move away from orientation to music-making that has the Solis monogeneric listening–at least as a form capacity to diffuse into many genres, in- of middle-class/elite distinction. While deed, into any genre. There is more to this is no doubt significantly related to the this, however, than simply a kind of flex- massive shift to online subscription lis- ibility or breadth to the jazz fusions of tening, it is a site where jazz clearly mat- the 1970s as a way of understanding why ters, specifically the jazz of the 1970s. The jazz–this jazz–still matters: it is to be critique of the 1970s fusion and avant- found in the shared Afrofuturist lean- garde movements by the succeeding gen- ings that connect the music these artists eration was that the music had lost its are making today with that of the past. way: the experiments had led to a dead Beyond the specific elements that might end and the way forward in jazz was to mark art as Afrofuturist–the connection look at the moment before, to the early of Egypt and outer space, the interest in 1960s, and explore a new path from there. cyborgs and other posthumans, the in- The artists I describe here have found a vestigations of fugitive myth-science– relevance of a different type in 1970s jazz these works share an affect that we surely fusions. That music offers not a vision of need at this moment.

endnotes 1 Glenn Kenny, “Exploring Afrofuturism in Film, Where Sci-Fi and Mythology Blur,” The New York Times, March 13, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/movies/touki-bouki -streaming-afrofuturism.html. 2 Rafi Zabor and Vic Garbarini, “Wynton vs. Herbie: The Purist and the Crossbreeder Duke It Out,” Musician 77 (March 1985). 3 I do not wish to engage in the exercise of defining jazz here, but I note that such a definitional discourse is common and has colored both scholarly and critical writing, as well as occasional statements by jazz musicians such as the (in)famous rant by Pat Metheny on whether or not Kenny G should be interpreted as a jazz musician. Pat Metheny, “Pat Metheny on Kenny G,” Jazz Oasis, 2000, http://www.jazzoasis.com/methenyonkennyg.htm (accessed June 22, 2018). 4 J. A. Rodgers, “Who is the New Negro, and Why?” in The New Negro: Readings on Race, Rep- resentation, and African American Culture, 1892–1938, ed. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Gene An- drew Jarret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007). 5 Ingrid Monson, Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa (Oxford: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2007), 71. 6 A note is in order here about what I mean by “genre.” The term is commonly used as short- hand to describe a musical style or tradition defined by a set of shared sonic features, forms, and, where applicable, textual themes. In addition, music scholars who have written about genre formation have pointed to two other defining features: first, industry practices (from studio norms, to venues, to pr and more); and second, audience behaviors. See David Brack- ett, Categorizing Sound: Genre and 20th Century Popular Music (Berkeley: University of Califor- nia Press, 2016); Fabian Holt, Genre in Popular Music (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007); and Keith Negus, Music Genres and Corporate Cultures (London: Routledge, 1999). While I will primarily discuss aspects of style in this essay, in fact my contention is that the polygenericism of the music I am interested in here extends to both of these other aspects of genre production as well.

148 (2) Spring 2019 33 Contemporary 7 Quiana Witted, “‘To Be African is to Merge Technology and Magic’: An Interview with Nnedi Jazz Fusions Okorafor,” in Afrofuturism 2.0, ed. Reynaldo Anderson and Charles Jones (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2016), 207–208. 8 Gabriel Solis, “Timbral Virtuosity: Pharoah Sanders, Sonic Heterogeneity, and the Jazz Avant-Garde in the 1960s and 70s,” Jazz Perspectives 9 (1) (2015): 48. 9 LeRoi Jones [Amiri Baraka], “The Changing Same (r&b and New Black Music),” in Black Mu- sic (New York: Akashic Books, 2010 [1966]), 181–182. 10 Ibid., 184. 11 Ibid., 187. 12 Flying Lotus [Stephen Ellison], You’re Dead!, Warp Records, 2014. 13 Arun Rath, “Music from Death’s Doorstep: A Conversation with Flying Lotus,” npr: All Things Considered, October 12, 2014, https://www.npr.org/2014/10/12/354599863/music -from-deaths-doorstep-a-conversation-with-flying-lotus (accessed June 22, 2018). 14 Ibid. 15 Mark Fischer, “The Metaphysics of Crackle: Afrofuturism and Hauntology,” Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 5 (2) (2013): 42–55. 16 Rath, “Music from Death’s Doorstep.” 17 Kamasi Washington, The Epic, Brainfeeder, 2015. 18 Adam Shatz, “Kamasi Washington’s Giant Step,” The New York Times Magazine, January 21, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/magazine/kamasi-washingtons-giant-step.html. 19 Will Layman, “The Kamasi Washington Phenomenon,” Pop Matters, January 14, 2016, https://www.popmatters.com/the-kamasi-washington-phenomenon-2495458272.html (accessed June 22, 2018). 20 The full video of the concert can be found at Jazz Night in America, “Kamasi Washington’s ‘The Epic’ in Concert,” YouTube, uploaded August 7, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=0YbPSIXQ4q4. “The Message” begins at 1:44. 21 Robert Glasper, Covered: Recorded Live at Capitol Studios, Blue Note Records, 2015; and Robert Glasper, Artscience, Blue Note Records, 2016. It is challenging to write about Glasper in this context at this point, inasmuch as he is most visible in the jazz press now for a set of misog- ynist comments exchanged in an interview between himself and pianist and blogger Ethan Iverson. Ethan Iverson, “Interview with Robert Glasper,” Do the Math, March 2017. (See Michelle Mercer, “Sexism from Two Leading Jazz Artists Draws Anger–And Presents an Opportunity,” The Record: Music News from npr, March 9, 2017, https://www.npr.org/ sections/therecord/2017/03/09/519482385/sexism-from-two-leading-jazz-artists-draws -anger-and-presents-an-opportunity, for quotes from and commentary on the Do the Math post, which is no longer available.) I abhor those comments, but still find the music compelling in relation to the topic of contemporary soulful jazz fusions. 22 Guthrie Ramsey, Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop (Berkeley: University of Cali- fornia Press, 2013). 23 David Ake, Charles Hiroshi Garrett, and Daniel Goldmark, Jazz/Not Jazz: The Music and Its Boundaries (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012). 24 Mark Dery, “Black to the Future: Interviews with Samuel Delaney, Greg Tate, and Tricia Rose,” in Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1994). 25 Ytasha Womack, Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2013). 26 Reynaldo Anderson and Charles Jones, “Introduction: The Rise of Astro-Blackness,” in Afro- futurism 2.0, vii–viii.

34 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 27 Michael Veal, Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae (Middletown, Conn.: Gabriel Wesleyan University Press, 2007). Solis 28 Jazz, dir. Ken Burns, pbs miniseries, 2001. 29 Nettrice Gaskins, “Afrofuturism on Web 3.0: Vernacular Cartography and Augmented Space,” in Afrofuturism 2.0, 27. 30 Francis Davis, “The 2015 npr Music Jazz Critics Poll,” npr Jazz: A Blog Supreme, December 21, 2015, https://www.npr.org/sections/ablogsupreme/2015/12/21/460527087/the-2015-npr -music-jazz-critics-poll (accessed June 22, 2018). 31 Josh Kun, Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 2. 32 Ibid., 23.

148 (2) Spring 2019 35 “You Can’t Dance to It”: Jazz Music and Its Choreographies of Listening

Christopher J. Wells

Abstract: Central to dominant jazz history narratives is a midcentury rupture where jazz transitions from popular dance music to art music. Fundamental to this trope is the idea that faster tempos and complex melodies made the music hostile to dancing bodies. However, this constructed moment of rupture masks a longer, messier process of negotiation among musicians, audiences, and institutions that restructured listening behavior within jazz spaces. Drawing from the field of dance studies, I offer the concept of “choreographies of listening” to interrogate jazz’s range of socially enforced movement “scores” for audience listening practices and their ideological significance. I illustrate this concept through two case studies: hybridized dance/concert performances in the late 1930s and “off-time” bebop social dancing in the 1940s and 1950s. These case studies demonstrate that both seated and dancing listening were rhetorically significant modes of engagement with jazz music and each expressed agency within an emergent Afromodernist sensibility.

Like many jazz scholars, I spend a lot of time doing critical historiography, contemplating the sed- imental layers of ideology jazz’s histories have ac- cumulated over time and how those striations affect our view of the past. But there is one moment in my life that sticks out when I truly felt the gravity of jazz historical narratives. When I say gravity, I mean precisely that: it pulled me off my feet and planted my ass in a chair. At the 2013 American Musicologi- christopher j. wells is As- cal Society annual meeting in Pittsburgh, a live band sistant Professor of Musicology performed Ted Buehrer’s painstaking transcriptions at the Arizona State University of Mary Lou Williams’s compositions and arrange- School of Music. Their work ap- ments. My friend Anna and I lindy hopped our way pears in the Oxford Handbook of through Williams’s best charts from the 1920s and Dance and Ethnicity (2016) and 1930s: “Walkin’ and Swingin’,” “Messa Stomp,” the journals Women & Music and 1 Jazz & Culture. They are current- and “Mary’s Idea.” About halfway through, the ly writing a book about the his- band took up “Scorpio” from Williams’s Zodiac tory of jazz music’s ever-shifting Suite, and I felt that groovy bassline throughout relationship with popular dance. my legs and hips as delightful pockets of rhythmic

36 dissonance invited me (and I presume also Great jazz soloists abandoned dreams of Christopher J. Anna, though I haven’t asked her) to keep having big bands of their own, formed Wells dancing . . . but we didn’t. The music still small groups instead and retreated to felt “danceable,” but we’d crossed from nightclubs, places too small for dancing. 1938 to 1944, and I felt a shift inside myself . . . The jam session had become the model, as I questioned whether letting my hips freewheeling, competitive, demanding, the respond to that bassline would still be ap- kind jazz musicians had always played to propriate as the band crossed the “bebop entertain themselves after the squares had moment”: that early 1940s boundary sep- gone home. The Swing Era was over; jazz arating jazz-as-pop from jazz-as-art. had moved on. And here and there across The bebop moment has become a cru- the country, in small clubs and on obscure cial, arguably the crucial, event in near- record labels, the new and risk-filled mu- ly every large-scale narrative treatment sic was finally beginning to be heard. It was of jazz’s history. As cultural theorist Ber- called “Bebop.”3 nard Gendron explains, The bebop revolution has since been en- Henry Martin and Keith Waters offer a shrined in the jazz canon as a contest of similar framing in their ubiquitous tome epic proportions, occurring at the ma- Jazz: The First Hundred Years: “The bebop- jor fault line of jazz history. Bebop is giv- pers, however, disassociated jazz from the en credit for having transformed jazz from jitterbugging crowds of the 1930s in an at- a popular dance music, firmly ensconced tempt to win respect for their music as an art form. The radical change in tempo in the Hit Parade, to a demanding, experi- 4 mental art music consigned to small clubs also certainly affected dancing.” Among and sophisticated audiences.2 the “key points” they use to differenti- ate bebop from swing are the following: Gendron’s historiographic framing is “Deemphasis on dancing: Tempos con- quite astute, and it is important we con- siderably faster or slower than in swing; tinue to reexamine this still potent nar- Rhythmic pulse less obviously articulat- rative construct. I would advocate moved than in swing.”5 Further scholarly ac- ing away from the idea of a bifurcating counts bolster this point. Even as he no- “moment” in favor of conceptualizing tably, and somewhat controversially, sit- the cultural transition of jazz at midcen- uates bebop as a contiguous extension of tury as a long and often messy process en- the swing era, historian David Stowe still compassing many individual and collec- reinscribes this trope, offering “big bands tive negotiations among musicians, audi- betraying their audience by playing un- ences, and institutions. danceable tempos or lacing their charts A critical element of the potent trope with the controversial modernisms of Gendron highlights is that the bebop mo- what was coming to be called bebop.”6 ment marked jazz music’s severance from Stowe’s emphasis on betrayal highlights practices of social dancing. This is encap- another significant element of this narra- sulated in a scene from Ken Burns’s iconic, tive: that musicians claimed greater au- if oft-criticized, documentary Jazz: “No tonomy as artists by distancing them- Dancing, Please.” The sign fills the screen selves from popular audiences and from before panning upward to a sax player the trappings of mass entertainment. blowing in a smoky club. In this early mo- Musicians and dancers have also re ment from the eighth volume of Jazz, nar- affirmed this narrative. In his autobiogra- rator Keith David explains, phy, Dizzy Gillespie attributes his band’s

148 (2) Spring 2019 37 “You Can’t struggles in the late 1940s to a disjuncture of serious art. As he explains, concert for- Dance to It” between what his band was playing and mats present a powerful cultural rheto- what social dancers wanted. ric within the United States, because of Dancers had to hear those four solid beats their associations with the “considerable social privilege” afforded European and could care less about the more esoteric 10 aspects, the beautiful advanced harmonies art music. Concerts, of course, also im- and rhythms that we played and our vir- pose a specific choreography for audienc- tuosity, as long as they could dance. They es; DeVeaux writes, “The concert is a sol- didn’t care whether we played a flatted fifth emn ritual with music the object of rev- or a ruptured 129th.7 erent contemplation. Certain formalities are imposed upon the concert audience: Foregrounding and problematizing au- people attend in formal dress, sit quietly, dience members’ bodies, Gillespie high- and attentively with little outward bodily lights the chasm between his own expres- movement, and restrict their response to sive desires and those of listeners who applause at appropriate moments only.”11 principally wanted “to dance close and In a concert setting, musicians and seat- screw.”8 Frankie Manning, arguably the ed audience members lay claim to cultur- most influential Savoy Ballroom danc- al capital by performing the movements er of the swing era, gives an account of and nonmovements that mark the con- bebop from which one would certain- cert as an elite social space and the music ly gather the music was not for dancing. performed as worthy of serious consid- Manning writes: “I went to Minton’s eration. Both affirmations and contesta- Playhouse to hear some jazz, and I said, tions of the bebop moment as a singular ‘What the heck is going on?’ . . . I was point of rupture that marks jazz’s emer- used to music for dancing, but this new gence as “art” necessarily position jazz sound was only for listening.”9 Though listeners’ bodies as critical sites of deep- Manning’s parsing of listening and danc- ly political performance both within and ing highlights the very dichotomization in opposition to social inscribed chore- of listener corporealities I seek to disrupt ographies. in this essay, his experience represents his I contend that jazz studies as a field generation’s perspective regarding the could benefit from more robust discus- challenges bebop’s innovations present- sions of its audiences and of the social and ed to bodies entrained to the rhythms and aesthetic politics that shape how listen- tempos of swing, challenges that indeed ing bodies contribute to the aesthetic dis- dissuaded them from dancing. courses that mark jazz as lowbrow, high- Of course, as audiences stop dancing, brow, sinful, tasteful, primitive, modern, they necessarily start doing something popular entertainment, and high art in else, and equally critical to jazz’s osten- various times and places. As both a prac- sible transition is listeners’ new mode ticing social jazz dancer and a scholar re- of performative engagement, as jazz au- searching jazz music’s intersections with diences increasingly listened while per- social and popular dance, I have had the forming the motionless, serious, and in- privilege of engaging substantively with tellectually rigorous listening posture of dance studies as a field. Dance scholars the Western concert listener. Musicol- have developed a robust and deeply nu- ogist Scott DeVeaux argues that the rise anced critical discussion of bodies and of the jazz concert between 1935 and 1945 embodied expression that could certain- was crucial to repositioning jazz as a form ly inform work in jazz studies, even when

38 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences dance is not our explicit subject. In this es- Auditorium, the first of which, also in Christopher J. say, I offer the concept of choreographies of 1938, featured Cab Calloway’s band. Ad- Wells listening as a theoretical tool meant both vertisements made clear that from 9–10 to place jazz studies in closer dialogue p.m. there would be “NO DANCING, in with valuable work on embodiment and order that you may hear Cab at ease” with performance emerging from the field of assurances that “at ten o’clock sharp, dance studies and to offer us useful lan- he will get ‘hotcha’ and ‘jam it’ until guage through which to more critically one-thirty o’clock the next in the morn- interrogate the complex and deeply con- ing.”13 The following year, City Auditori- textual social performances of listening um hosted Count Basie’s orchestra, offer- in which jazz’s audiences engage. Toward ing a concert half-hour with “POSITIVELY that end, I develop and apply the concept NO DANCING” following a patron’s in- through two brief case studies, one from terview in the lobby.14 the early 1930s and one from the late 1940s To understand why these Atlanta con- and early 1950s, that highlight shifts and certs were exceptional, however, and why unorthodoxies in black listener corpore- these audiences may have desired to en- ality and complicate dominant narratives act the seated posture of serious listen- regarding black audiences’ corporeal ing, we must consider that these perfor- modes of dancing and of listening during mances were organized as racially seg- these periods. regated events for black audiences only. The same Daily World article announc- Black jazz audiences during the inter- ing Cab Calloway’s 1938 appearance and war period were particularly mindful of its “streamlined” concert section also the intersection between seated listen- reveals that this would be City Audito- ing and the projection of rigor and digni- rium’s first “all colored double perfor- ty. A series of events targeting black au- mance” and that “management is ea- diences in Atlanta during the late 1930s ger to see if Negro people really appreci- specifically bifurcated the space for seat- ate an evening all their own.”15 While it ed listening and dancing listening. Ad- may have been their first jazz concert, the vertisements in the Chicago Defender and black Atlantans attending City Auditori- the Atlanta Daily World–Atlanta’s prima- um were not strangers to the role of at- ry African American newspaper–pro- tentive audience member for a serious moted dance parties that also featured a concert performance. The venue regu- separate “concert hour” when no danc- larly hosted not only jazz dances but also ing was allowed. The first such concert graduation ceremonies, community pag- was held at Sunset Park in July 1938 and eants, and operatic and concert recital featured the Jimmie Lunceford Orches- performances by black singers, the kinds tra. The Defender reported that the Lunce of events whose concordances with elite ford event separated dancing time from European culture musicologist Lawrence concert time: “During the concert hour Schenbeck has convincingly situated before the ‘jam session,’ Lunceford en- within the African American social and tertained the crowd with what could be intellectual project of racial uplift.16 In considered a floor show, but was styled fact, earlier that month, the City Audito- as a concert hour–no dancing was al- rium staged a pageant entitled “75 Years lowed. At 9:30 o’clock, swing-time be- of Progress” that celebrated the develop- gun continuing until 1:30 o’clock.”12 Two ment of the Negro race in America, and similar events were held at Atlanta’s City earlier in the year the auditorium hosted

148 (2) Spring 2019 39 “You Can’t Figure 1 Dance to It” Cab Calloway Band Concert Advertisement, 1938

Source: Atlanta Daily World, August 4, 1938 (accessed via ProQuest Historical Newspapers).

Figure 2 Count Basie Orchestra Concert Advertisement, 1939

Source: Atlanta Daily World, May 14, 1939 (accessed via ProQuest Historical Newspapers).

40 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences spiritual concerts from the Tuskeegee ences listening, it is useful to consider the Christopher J. University Choir under the direction of conjuncturally specific listening praxis Wells African American composer William ethnomusicologist Judith Becker has Dawson.17 Atlanta’s black audiences thus termed “habitus of listening.” Building already understood the specific rules gov- upon sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s frame- erning audiences’ corporeal performance work, Becker offers this term as a way to in this elite cultural space: by sitting understand the default mode(s) of listen- down, listening intently, and responding ing within a particular sphere of musical appropriately with limited movement, practice. As Becker explains: black audiences could acquire embodied Our habitus of listening is tacit, unexam- cultural capital by performing the phys- ined, seemingly completely “natural.” We ical rhetoric through which seated audi- listen in a particular way without think- ences communicate respect, dignity, in- ing about it, and without realizing that it telligence, and sophistication. even is a particular way of listening. Most I introduce these hybridized concert of our styles of listening have been learned events, which explicitly instruct audi- through unconscious imitation of those ences about how to position their bod- who surround us and those with whom we ies for listening, to suggest choreography continually interact. A “habitus of listen- as a useful analytic lens through which to ing” suggests not a necessity nor a rule, but approach listening practices and engage- an inclination, a disposition to listen with ment with music, and specifically with a particular kind of focus . . . and to inter- jazz. My use of the term choreography fol- pret the meanings of the sounds and one’s lows dance scholar Susan Foster, who emotional responses to the musical event employs the concept to consider broad- in somewhat (never totally) predictable ly the structuring of possibilities for how ways.20 bodies can move and behave within a given space. Whether planned intentionally Tacit, socially constructed choreogra- by a single person or formed organically phy is often central to the process of “un- through gradual shifts in tacit social mo- conscious imitation” to which Becker re- res, choreography, she argues, is a “hypo- fers. The habitus generated by a musical thetical setting forth of what the body is space’s choreography guides how one en- and what it can be based on the decisions acts the process of listening, what senso- made in rehearsal and in performance ry information is a relevant part of this about its identity.” Foster claims we can listening process, and what constitutes thus read choreographies as “the prod- appropriate interaction between the vari- uct of choices, inherited, invented, or se- ous participants. When applied to jazz lis- lected, about what kinds of bodies and tening spaces, choreography indexes the subjects are being constructed and what implicit and explicit assumptions peo- kinds of arguments about these bodies ple make about their role (dancer, musi- and subjects are being put forth.”18 Fos- cian, concertgoer, and so on), how they ter’s work draws from a robust interdis- should thus orient their body to commu- ciplinary conversation in dance studies nicate what it means for them to listen to that regards the body, whether moving or the music being played (or that they are stationary, as always performative and al- playing), and what their listening bodies ways political.19 communicate about the soundscapes and To see how movement’s interaction attendant values within a given shared with choreographies specifically influ- space.

148 (2) Spring 2019 41 “You Can’t In discussing jazz musicians in the talent as the result of a savage and natu- Dance to It” 1920s, musicologist Jeffrey Magee sit- rally gifted body rather than a rigorously uates jazz musicians’ enactment of ra- cultivated mind. cial uplift as a form of cultural mastery For black musicians and audiences, as- that demonstrated fluency in Western pirational desire for the cultural capi- concert traditions.21 By corporeally en- tal afforded serious music and musician- acting the role of Western concert lis- ship functioned at the point of intersec- teners, black audiences at City Audito- tion between two ideological formations rium also embodied an ethic of racial up- in African American communities: the lift through cultural mastery, situating aforementioned racial uplift and, in the themselves as educated, cerebral, and se- 1940s, an emergent discourse of Afro- rious listeners. Crucially, performing the modernism. Musicologist and pianist nonmovement of a seated listener also Guthrie Ramsey has situated Afromod- signaled that African American audienc- ernism as an aesthetic and political con- es were capable of corporeal discipline, a sciousness through which Afrodiasporic critical counter-statement to longstand- people asserted artistic agency and au- ing minstrel tropes that portrayed black tonomy by focusing on form and ab- bodies as fundamentally wild and sub- straction over function. For some musi- human. Corporeal discipline was thus cians, this aesthetic sparked an ambiva- central on numerous levels to the physi- lence or even hostility toward dancing. cal enactment of racial uplift.22 Control From their perspective, listening with- of one’s body was tied to positive moral out silence and without stillness commu- values through the early twentieth-cen- nicated both a lack of respect and a lack tury discourse surrounding physical cul- of effort: that one was not truly listen- ture. As a precursor to the American ing. Operating from within this ideolo- bodybuilding movement, the concept of gy, accounts of jazz’s transition to a form physical culture offered that individuals of art music tend to focus principally on were capable of improving their bodies the agency and actions of jazz musicians, through educated, disciplined labor and suggesting that bebop players complicat- were capable, through this work, of im- ed jazz’s musical texture to such a degree proving their worth and moral character. that the sound itself rejected the danc- This concept became an especially po- ing body and demanded pure, seated lis- tent tool for African American communi- tening to be truly appreciated. As my sec- ties because it offered a counter-narrative ond case study will show, however, some to white supremacist genetic determin- black youth moved against the new pre- ism.23 It is also important to note that a scribed choreography of motionless lis- still, seated listening posture draws atten- tening, participating actively in bebop’s tion away from one’s body, presenting a innovations in a manner every bit as rig- space where serious sounds meet serious orous as their seated counterparts. minds (with perhaps the minor conces- sion that there are ears involved). For Af- Writing for the Hartford Courant in 1948, rican Americans at this time, emphasiz- columnist M. Oakley Stafford offered the ing their cerebral prowess and sensitive sort of frustrated antibebop rant com- intellect was a powerful tactic for contest- monplace among “moldy fig” critics in ing oppressive stereotypes that marked the 1940s. However, Stafford’s frustra- black bodies as wild, unrestrained, and tion in this case was not with the music dangerous and that sensationalized black itself but rather that in bebop’s “newest

42 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences phase,” a new form of social dance was “That’s Ridiculous!” Charles first heard Christopher J. emerging alongside it. jazz music as a child growing up on the is- Wells I’m Up To My Ears In The Bebop develop- land of St. Croix. He and his friends got ment. . . . Now the newest phase of it . . . A into bebop through listening to records few weeks ago there was only the music . . . in the early 1940s as young teenagers Sharp, discordant chords, absence of tune, and started dancing to bebop records in and that sort of thing. No one danced to it. church basements, at house parties, and, . . . Now the new development . . . They are by 1945, at massive block parties all over dancing to it. They are doing what appears New York City. These block party sites, to be a combination of the modern dance according to Charles, included in a va- with jitterbugging thrown in and even a cant lot adjacent to Minton’s Playhouse step or two of ballroom stuff. . . . It is so defi- where a record player perched on a flat- nitely to current music what the modern bed truck would play tunes such as Dizzy dance was to dancing . . . Difficult to accept Gillespie’s “Emanon” or Tad Dameron’s . . . Angular . . . Meaningful . . . And slow to get “The Squirrel,” both particularly popular into your affection but once there, you love among dancers. it. . . . Watch the up-and-coming set dance Aligning with the counter-history to it differently from the way they danced Charles’s reminiscences invite, Ramsey’s to jazz. . . . It is definitely not jazz . . . Worth discussion of Afromodernism explicitly watching . . . It grows on you.24 eschews the strict bifurcation of high art and popular culture central to the white While bebop’s “undanceableness” is a modernist paradigm implicit in most central theme of its historiography, there framings of the bebop moment. Ramsey is ample evidence that counter-chore- highlights the black body’s shifting rela- ographies existed among black youth tionship with popular culture and mass who treated bebop as their popular mu- media as particularly critical to the post- sic and developed new social dance forms war emergence of Afromodernist sensi- that both reflected and added new layers bilities. to bebop’s already complex tapestry of If one of the legacies of nineteenth-century innovations. minstrelsy involved the public degradation Several major African American fig- of the black body in the American entertain- ures in jazz history have alluded to this ment sphere, then one hundred years after phenomenon. As Amiri Baraka notably minstrelsy’s emergence, African Americans wrote in Blues People, “‘You can’t dance used this same signifier to upset a racist so- to it’ was the constant harassment– cial order and to affirm in the public enter- which is, no matter the irrelevancy, a tainment and the private spheres their cul- lie. My friends and I as youths used only ture and humanity. Although it has some to emphasize the pronoun more. ‘You precedent, the new attitude was so prevalent can’t dance to it’ and whispered ‘or any- 25 that it represents a huge departure from ear- thing else for that matter.’” When I in- lier modes of “racial uplift,” especially the terviewed Sylvan Charles, an eighty- “politics of respectability” championed by one-year-old retired postal worker, Har- the black professional and upper-class citi- lem resident, and self-identified “bebop zens, who sought to discipline black bodies dancer” about his experience with bebop into bourgeois submission.26 as a teenager in the 1940s, I presented him with the common narrative that bebop In Ramsey’s analysis, Afromodernism music was not for dancing; his response: involved a resistant shift in embodied

148 (2) Spring 2019 43 “You Can’t practice–I would argue, an alternative These younger bebop dancers repre- Dance to It” choreography of listening–manifested sented a sharp generational shift in which as a corporeal shift away from the dis- the music activated young peoples’ bod- ciplined, corporeal engagement that ies even as older dancers, like Frankie marked the era of racial uplift. Indeed, Manning and his contemporaries, resist- Ramsey acknowledges the significance ed the change. In her drafts for an unfin- of social dancing in black popular culture ished manuscript, Dehn relays a vivid de- but focuses the bulk of his analysis on the scription of the attitudes of black youth lyrical and sonic signifiers presented in from a Mr. Bishop, an instructor of black popular recordings. As such, in explor- physical culture at PS 28, a Brooklyn pub- ing black audiences’ kinetic engagement lic school. with bebop music through emergent The post-war kids are brighter, more ma- forms of popular dance, I seek to bolster ture, aware of problems economic, social, and expand his emphasis on black corpo- political. Conditioned to present time un- real autonomy as critical to Afromodern- rest, insecurity. They don’t think in terms ist liberation. of the future. . . . They don’t want to be dom- When asked about bebop’s “undance- inated. They are spontaneous, dynamic. I able” nature, dancer and folklorist Mura actually feel they are a better human mate- Dehn replied, “It was very, very dance- rial, conscious of their environment–good able–it was magnificent. It was not done and bad. They don’t go for Jazz. They are by white people. It was mostly done by 27 Bop fiends. If they are interested in dance, black people, and it was done in spurts.” everything else becomes secondary.29 Dehn, a Russian modern dancer, engaged in a decades-long study of African Ameri- Bishop’s account parallels cultural can folk and popular dance from the 1940s historian Eric Lott’s description of the through the 1980s. Her work plays a vital shifts in social consciousness among role in documenting a crucial yet largely young Northern black people in the mid- unacknowledged cultural space in which 1940s. Lott presents “bop style” as a de- bebop dance thrived as part of a nascent fiant identity performed through a ma- postwar black youth culture. Dehn’s ac- trix of statements not just in music, but count of bop dancing focuses on the ear- also fashion, language, and demean- ly 1950s, when a new generation of young or. Though dance is conspicuously ab- people, more cynical and politically rad- sent from Lott’s account of bop culture ical than those ten years older, regarded in New York, his description of “an aes- bebop as their popular music. The dance thetic of speed and displacement” and element of the new culture, according to a “closed hermeneutic that had the un- Dehn, lagged behind the music by about deniable effect of alienating the riff-raff half a decade. During World War II, ac- and expressing a sense of felt isolation, all cording to Dehn: the while affirming a collective purpose” neatly fit Dehn’s positioning of the cul- Musicians were ahead of dancers in their 30 search of new forms. . . . In a furious as- ture surrounding bebop dance. Further, sault of saxophone virtuosity the musician that the young black “cools” of the 1940s seems to disregard the dancer. He sweeps and 1950s found ways to move to this mu- him off the floor, breaks his legs with ir- sic is well in-line with Ramsey’s position- rational rhythms, stabs him with long ing of Afromodernism as a governing whaling spasms, paralyzes with introvert paradigm for black life and black aesthet- monotony.28 ics at midcentury.

44 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences What ultimately emerged from the Lindy. The preoccupation is to break up Christopher J. younger dancers’ experimentation was a the beat. The position of the body becomes Wells new style that adapted and expanded ear- nonchalant, deliberately negligent.35 lier vernacular forms, most notably the lindy hop and the applejack. Applejack- Through off-time dancing, bebop dancing became the most prominent style of ers worked around one of the core fea- bebop solo dance, done almost exclu- tures of bop’s ostensible undanceability sively by men, often in formal and infor- –that it was simply too fast–by effec- mal cutting contests.31 While individu- tively cutting the tempo in half at will al dance steps known as the “applejack” through their own realization of pulse. date back to the 1920s or before, apple- This sort of metric and hypermetric play jacking reemerged as a solo dance craze in allowed dancers not only to keep up with the late 1940s. The applejack is a step with bebop musicians, but to move in and out many similarities to the Charleston in of time with them, analogous to the inte- which inward-pointed feet step over each gration of “inside” and “outside” playing other as the knees continuously cross. By in a bop solo. In our interview, Charles the 1950s, this basic step had yielded a also emphasized his strong preference for wide array of variations including cork- the groovy feeling of dancing off-time, screws, fans, tic-tocs, and other steps ori- and told me he had only recently been ented around shifts in toe-heel balance.32 told by jazz musicians that he was danc- Individual styles of applejacking emerged ing “half-time.” The off-time tempo cre- with varying degrees of complexity ated space for complex nuances in danc- among different scenes. Dehn’s hand- ers’ engagement with musical rhythm written movement descriptions of apple- as, in Dehn’s words, “in New York, they jackers at the Audubon Ballroom iden- also dance between the beats, forming tify a range of slides and dips as well as a rhythmic counterpoint with the mu- abrupt stops in the middle of steps, lead- sic.”36 This type of danced engagement ing her to identify the Audubon dancers’ aligns in interesting ways with Stowe’s style as “the most modern dancing I ever description of bebop musicians’ techni- saw.”33 At the Savoy Ballroom, Dehn not- cal reflection of broader sociopolitical ed, “it is danced in a broad and sweeping shifts. way, with dips and slides, with diving and The sharp contradiction of the ensem- skating, mostly to Boogie-Woogie music. ble in bebop, together with the empha- But its off-balance pendulum fits into the 34 sis on individual virtuosity and dissonant torn riffs of Bop.” (to swing-attuned ears) sonorities, sug- Applejack dancers negotiated bebop’s gests the heroic alienation of the postwar “torn riffs” and its fast tempos through individual cut loose from Depression-era a shift toward half-time, or “off-time,” modes of commitment, or the racial mil- dancing. As Dehn described the phenom- itancy taking root among African-Ameri- enon, cans in the late 1940s.37 Time is cut in two. Instead of fast bounc- ing steps there is a resilient slow stepping On a cultural level, bebop dancers are with multiple jitters on each foot. It travels clearly part of Stowe’s paradigm, yet they through the erect body to a wobbling head. also fit within it on a technical level. In It is still the basic Lindy formula, but a new both its emphasis on individualism and rhythm has emerged. A half-time off-beat its use of dissonance–understood as metric rather than harmonic–applejacking

148 (2) Spring 2019 45 “You Can’t fits neatly into a bebop aesthetic that ex- appearance alongside the hucklebuck is Dance to It” emplifies the “cultural mood of alien- instructive regarding the porous transfer ation” the music expressed.38 between bebop and other black styles of While highly intricate and technical- popular music. The popular song paired ly complex, applejacking was firmly en- with the dance was an R&B recasting of trenched in black popular culture. Black Charlie Parker’s composition “Now’s newspaper coverage of the emerging the Time” and became a significant hit phenomenon suggests that the dance be- for Paul Wilson and his Hucklebuckers came popular via stage revues featuring in 1949 (and later, of course, for Chubby the song “Applejack,” itself popularized Checker). by Lionel Hampton in 1948 and Lucky Often walking a playful line himself be- Millender in 1949. Dolores Calvin of the tween “serious” art and popular enter- Chicago Defender reports seeing the dance tainment, Dizzy Gillespie noted the het- for the first time both on stage and in the erogeneity in bebop audiences’ listening audience during a 1948 performance by practices. Gillespie affirmed that bebop Hampton in Newark, New Jersey. was, in fact, a “danceable” music in a 1949 The kids were jumping to “applejack” essay he penned for the Los Angeles Senti- rhythm in the aisles. . . . The ones in their nel defending his style of music through seats who couldn’t get to the aisles were what he termed “counter-bopaganda”: yelling “applejack” followed by wild, un- Another argument against bop is that peo- controllable hysterics. . . . We just sat glued ple can’t dance to it. Well, I’ve seen people to our chair, afraid to comment for fear of dancing to our band and to our rca Victor a hundred or more nearby juniors crashing recordings such as “Swedish Suite” all over our skull. . . But nevertheless amazed and the country. As a matter of fact they think shocked at the goings on. [. . .] Then Hamp the Afro Cuban rhythm affects [sic] are es- began Hamp’s Boogie. . . . That too, had “ap- pecially interesting to a dancer. But very of- plejack” steps in it which he did quite will- ten people don’t want to dance, they just ingly. . . . The singers, Wini Brown and Ro- want to come up to the bandstand and lis- land Burton were also on the “applejack ten to the music. They pay their money and kick.”39 they take their choice. Is that bad?41 The applejack was one of several be- With the caution that this column, at- bop-era dances associated in the 1940s tributed to Gillespie, may well have been principally with R&B music and specifi- written by his publicist as was common cally with a popular “jump blues” hit. An practice at the time, this passage troubles article in Our World that otherwise does two pervasive narrative tropes of bebop not discuss dance extensively featured a historiography.42 First, Gillespie seems half-page spread of a dancer engaged in to invite danced engagement with his the solo “applejack” and partnered “be- music rather than expressing any resent- bop.” As the author explained, “dig the ment toward the ostensibly frivolous ac- new dances the cats are cooking. That tivity. He offers danceability as one of the should squash the deadpans who say be- music’s merits. Second, and highly re- bop isn’t danceable.”40 Indeed, Dehn fre- lated, he enthusiastically frames a bebop quently cites the applejack, along with performance as a commercial transaction the hucklebuck, as major postwar dance in which paying audiences purchase the trends among the bebop “cools.” Though right to interact with the music however she emphasizes the applejack more, its they choose. This is not the attitude of a

46 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences heroic modernist nobly rejecting engage- as central source texts, likely skews our Christopher J. ment with the commercial marketplace framing and understanding of audience Wells nor of one promoting antagonism to- members’ modes of listening and the ward popular audiences as a path to aes- range of movements available to jazz lis- thetic liberation and ascendance to the teners in specific cultural and historical realm of high art. Here, Gillespie demon- conjunctures. What I am explicitly ask- strates that, like generations of jazz musi- ing for here is a paradigm shift in how we cians before him, he was himself far more regard rigorous listening and musical flu- comfortable with and invested in the role ency. It is possible to appreciate music in of “popular entertainer” than were those ways that may be illegible to musicians critics who positioned him as a “seri- themselves, and the ontological fissures ous artist.” Indeed, as DeVeaux has ar- between bebop dancers and musicians gued, even this pervasive image of bebop- should push us to imagine a robustly het- musician-as-maverick-artist was itself a erogeneous concept of “music apprecia- performative strategy crafted by skillful tion” that moves beyond mere fidelity or musician/entertainers such as Gillespie lack thereof to the precise epistemologies to satisfy the taste of white hipsters who through which musicians conceptualize craved the vibe of an authentic, anticom- and value their own work. Such a para- mercial jam session experience and were digm shift offers a counterweight to any willing to pay for it.43 clean, ideological narrative of jazz’s sonic Given Gillespie’s above claim, however, evolution into a form of expression that what are we to make of his retrospective can only be properly appreciated, and disdain for those who wanted to “dance only properly respected, when audiences close and screw” and to whom a flatted listen from a posture that performatively fifth was ostensibly illegible? Gillespie’s erases their own bodies as participating frustration here is that dancing audienc- agents in the event. es failed to appreciate those aspects of Indeed, as a practice, bebop dance ex- bebop music he himself most prized: in poses the separation of the terms “danc- this case, its extended harmonic language ing” and “listening” as a false dichotomy. and layers of asymmetric rhythmic com- Even as DeVeaux critiques the prestige plexity. However, his lamenting criticism culture of the concert and concert hall, he could also suggest that, while he was a reifies the value judgments of its partic- brilliant musician, he may have lacked ular choreography of listening when he the kinesthetic “chops” to properly ap- claims that even in the Savoy Ballroom, preciate the subtle complexities of bebop the increasing virtuosity of jazz music dancers’ movement. In fact, bop dancers’ led to moments where “dancing would penchant for “off-time” dancing yielded occasionally be supplanted by listening” a fluid range of intricate, multilayered re- and claims that concerts required listen- lationships with “those four solid beats” ing with undivided attention. Through in the music. It may be that the metric multilayered metric play, bebop danc- subtleties of virtuoso social bebop dancers made active choices about where and ers’ treatment of pulse were as illegible how to experience the musical pulse and to Gillespie as his flatted fifths were to phrasing, both how to ride it and how to them. What this possible disconnect sug- deviate from it when they so chose. This gests more broadly is that jazz history’s musical experimentation with rhythmic strong focus on musicians’ perspectives, dissonance and polymeter either imme- through oral history and autobiography diately followed or was coterminous with

148 (2) Spring 2019 47 “You Can’t the height of off-time bop dancing. Such body as a site of liberation, not for black Dance to It” parallels place bop dancers not among people from oppression but for white some broad-brushed construct of “the people from whiteness.46 masses,” those supposedly underedu- Indeed, both still and moving listen- cated jazz consumers seeking some cheap ing practices represent African American form of casual listening pleasure ostensi- jazz listeners’ claims to corporeal agen- bly out of step with genuine musical in- cy in resistance to the various determin- novation. Rather, the social history and isms inscribed upon their bodies. Artic- temporal dynamism of bop dancing in- ulating the corporeal agency of listening vite us to see African American youth as bodies necessarily invites a more robust virtuosic listeners who not only respond- engagement with Ingrid Monson’s work ed to bop musicians’ innovations but also on “perceptual agency” than space af- contributed their own layers to its in- fords me here, but certainly the relation- vigorating soundscape as active partici- ship Monson seeks to explore between pants in what musicologist Brigid Cohen, the auditory and the political could pro- borrowing a term from cultural theorist ductively involve both the internal ex- Homi Bhabha, has called postwar New perience and externally perceivable ex- York City’s “vernacular cosmopolitan pressions of diverse listening bodies.47 negotiation,” through which avant-garde What is important to remember is that musical innovation flowed across genres embodied, danced ways of knowing are within the ethnically diverse social spac- and have long been central to jazz, as they es that fueled multiple emergent mod- are and have been to many forms of Af- ernisms.44 rican American music. As cultural theorist Fred Moten beautifully writes in his To conclude, I would like to turn back to work on the black radical tradition, “It perspectives from dance studies and spe- was always the whole body that emit- cifically performance theorist André Lep- ted sound: instrument and fingers, bend. ecki’s notion of “choreopolitics.” Lep- Your ass is in what you sing. Dedicated to ecki offers choreopolitics as a specifical- the movement of hips, dedicated by that ly resistant mode of engagement with movement, the harmolodically rhyth- those structures enforcing choreograph- mic body.”48 At the same time, ethno- ic constraints, which he terms “choreo- musicologist Matt Sakakeeny’s evoca- policing” or the authoritarian contain- tive account of a silent march against vi- ment of movement that yields “a policed olence in New Orleans demonstrates that dance of quotidian consensus.”45 While a pointed refusal to make joyful noise can it is tempting to position the danced lis- resonate with poignance as can a digni- tening of applejackers as choreopoliti- fied listener engaged in active, defiant cal in a way the concertized, “choreopo- nonmovement.49 Just as sound and si- liced” seated listening more often associ- lence can be both profound and banal, re- ated with bebop is not, it is a temptation sistant and compliant, so too can motion I wish to resist. I posit, rather, that black and stillness. As Foster explains, individ- nonmovement functions as a choreopo- ual performances can respond to chore- litical resistance to the overdetermined ographies on a spectrum ranging from fetishization of black bodies. The perfor- conformity to subversion to total disre- mance of nonmovement, in erasing the gard. These performative responses to body, resists the white gaze as well as the choreographic prescriptions both impact white leftist desire to mobilize the black and are impacted by the particularity of

48 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences their circumstances as, in Foster’s words, Still Matters,” by which I mean the liter- Christopher J. “both choreography and performance al material bodies of jazz’s audiences and Wells change over time; both select from and how those audiences’ modes of listen- move into action certain semantic sys- ing both inform and resist the narrative tems, and as such, they derive their mean- conceits of jazz history. It might also in- ing from a specific historical and cultur- vite contemporary listeners to reflect on al moment.”50 Recognizing jazz music’s the ways we do, and specifically don’t, lis- multiple conjuncturally specific choreog- ten to jazz and offer us more space to play raphies of listening, as well as those au- within and against our own socially em- dience performances that work within bedded choreographies as we consider and against these choreographies, offers how we listen, how else we might choose me a chance to highlight the word “mat- to listen, and why. ter” in this issue’s theme of “Why Jazz endnotes 1 Anna Reguero DeFelice of suny Stony Brook, a fantastic dancer whom I met in New York City’s swing dancing scene long before either of us became a musicologist. The performance in question was Indiana University of Pennsylvania Jazz Ensemble, “Mary Lou Williams: Se- lected Works for Big Band,” American Musicological Society Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, November 7, 2013. This anecdote first appeared in my 2016 post for the Amer- ican Musicological Society’s blog Musicology Now, and I thank the current editors for their blessing to reproduce it here. Christopher, J. Wells, “Choreographies of Listening: Some Thoughts from Doing Jazz History While Having a Body,” Musicology Now, January 6, 2016, http://musicologynow.ams-net.org/2016/01/choreographies-of-listening-some.html. 2 Bernard Gendron, “Moldy Figs and Modernists” in Jazz Among the Discourses, ed. Krin Gabbard (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1995), 33. 3 “Risk,” Jazz, dir. Ken Burns, dvd (Burbank, Calif.: Warner Home Video, 2001). 4 Henry Martin and Keith Waters, Jazz: The First Hundred Years, 2nd ed. (New York: Schirmer, 2005), 174. 5 Ibid., 128. 6 David Stowe, Swing Changes: Big-Band Jazz in New Deal America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), 182. 7 Dizzy Gillespie with Al Fraser, To Be or Not To Bop (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979), 356. 8 Ibid., 359. 9 Frankie Manning and Cynthia R. Millman, Frankie Manning: Ambassador of Lindy Hop (Phila- delphia: Temple University Press, 2007), 203. 10 Scott DeVeaux, “The Emergence of the Jazz Concert, 1935–1945,” American Music 7 (1) (1989): 6. 11 Ibid. 12 “Harlem Band Swings Down in Atlanta,” Chicago Defender, July 2, 1938. 13 Advertisement, Atlanta Daily World, August 4, 1938. Caps in the original. 14 Advertisement, Atlanta Daily World, May 14, 1939; and “‘Cab’ in All-Colored Show Week from Today,” Atlanta Daily World, July 28, 1938. 15 “Cab Calloway’s Coming this Thursday Awaited,” Atlanta Daily World, July 31, 1938.

148 (2) Spring 2019 49 “You Can’t 16 Lawrence Schenbeck, Racial Uplift and American Music, 1878–1943 (Oxford: University of Mis- Dance to It” sissippi Press, 2012). 17 Gamewell Valentine, “Pageant of Race Progress Viewed at City Auditorium,” Atlanta Daily World, July 12, 1938; and Gamewell Valentine, “Tuskegee Choir Presentation Looms Treat,” Atlanta Daily World, April 26, 1938. 18 Susan Leigh Foster, Choreographing Empathy: Kinesthesia in Performance (New York: Rout- ledge, 2011), 4. Foster’s work includes a robust review of the trajectory of the term choreography within dance studies, and thus I will not reproduce it here. 19 Though my discussion here centers on Foster, my thinking is also deeply informed by Kate Els- wit’s concept of “archives of watching” as a means to do close readings of dance spectatorship by blurring the dichotomization of on-stage and off-stage bodies in concert dance spaces, as well as Andrew Hewitt’s notion of “social choreography” as “a way of thinking about the relationship of aesthetics to politics.” Kate Elswit, Watching Weimar Dance (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), xvii–xxiii; and Andrew Hewitt, Social Choreography: Ideology as Perfor- mance in Dance and Everyday Movement (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005), 11. 20 Judith Becker, Deep Listeners: Music, Emotion, and Trancing (Bloomington: Indiana Universi- ty Press, 2005), 71. 21 Jeffrey Magee, Fletcher Henderson: The Uncrowned King of Swing (New York: Oxford Universi- ty Press, 2005), 27–38. I riff on Magee’s argument in discussing black jazz listeners’ demon- stration of aural mastery as a means of racial uplift in Christopher J. Wells, “‘The Ace of His Race’: Paul Whiteman’s Early Critical Reception in the Black Press,” Jazz and Culture 1 (2018): 84. 22 David Krasner has shown that prominent black dancers–specifically Ada Overton Walker– sought to rebrand black embodiment as fundamentally dignified and an expression of control in discipline through cakewalk performances and instruction in the 1910s. David Kras- ner, “The Real Thing,” in Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890–1930, ed. W. Fitzhugh Brundage (Chapel Hill: University of North Car- olina Press, 2011), 109–118. 23 Mark Whalan, “Taking Myself in Hand: Jean Toomer and Physical Culture,” Modernism/ Modernity 10 (4) (2003): 597–607. 24 M. Oakley Stafford, “Informing You,” Hartford Courant, March 18, 1948. 25 LeRoi Jones, Blues People: Negro Music in White America (New York: William Morrow, 1963), 211–212. 26 Guthrie P. Ramsey, Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 51. 27 Mura Dehn interviewed by Maria Kandilakis, typescript, in Mura Dehn Papers on Afro-Amer- ican Social Dance (herafter “Mura Dehn Collection”) (New York: Jerome Robbins Dance Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts), box 20, folder 216, 1. 28 Mura Dehn, “The Bebop Era,” drafts for an unfinished manuscript on jazz dance, Mura Dehn Collection, box 1, folder 6. 29 “Mr. Bishop” quoted by Mura Dehn in ibid. I discuss physical culture as a potent, malleable concept in black corporeality in my work on dance as spatial practice in Harlem ballrooms. Christopher J. Wells, “‘And I Make My Own’: Class Performance, Black Urban Identity, and Depression-Era Harlem’s Physical Culture,” in The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity, ed. Anthony Shay and Barbara Sellars Young (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 21–22. 30 Eric Lott, “Double V, Double Time: Bebop’s Politics of Style” in The Jazz Cadence of American Culture, ed. Robert G. O’Meally (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 461.

50 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 31 In her writings, Dehn alternately identifies it as a trend of the 1940s or early 1950s. She also Christopher J. notes “girls also did Applejack–but seldom.” Handwritten notes for The Spirit Moves, Mura Wells Dehn Collection, box 21, folder 60. 32 This sort of heel-toe motion is a fascinating running thread in African American popular dance including movements ranging from the “tic toc” and Charleston in the early twentieth century through the moonwalk and contemporary “floating” slides in various forms of hip hop dance. 33 Dehn, “The Bebop Era,” 4. 34 Ibid., 1. 35 Mura Dehn, “Bop Time,” unpublished draft manuscript, typescript, Mura Dehn Collection, box 4, folder 80, 1. 36 Dehn, “The Bebop Era,” 2. 37 Stowe, Swing Changes, 11. 38 Ibid., 12. 39 Dolores Calvin, “‘Applejack’ Replaces ‘Jersey Bounce’ with Dancers in the State of Jersey,” Chicago Defender, May 8, 1948. Unbracketed ellipses in the original; bracketed ellipses added by the author. 40 Dave Hepburn, “Bebop: Music or Madness?” Our World 4 (1) (1949): 34–35. 41 Dizzy [John Burks] Gillespie, “Daddy of Bebop Says New Music is Here to Stay; Gives Rea- sons,” Los Angeles Sentinel, July 28, 1949. 42 In an interview with Ronald Welburn, Billy Rowe, formerly an entertainment columnist with the Pittsburgh Courier, claimed that guest columns by famous musicians were often penned by those musicians’ press agents, but that “they would try to stick to how the person would react to this sort of thing and get his opinion and write the story.” See Ronald Garfield Welburn, “American Jazz Criticism, 1914–1940” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1983), 234–235. 43 Scott DeVeaux, The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History (Berkeley: University of Cali- fornia Press, 1997). 44 Brigid Cohen, “Diasporic Dialogues in Mid-Century New York City: Stefan Wolpe, George Russell, Hannah Arendt, and the Historiography of Displacement,” Journal of the Society for American Music 6 (2) (2012): 149. 45 André Lepecki, “Choreopolice and Choreopolitics: or, the task of the dancer,” TDR: The Drama Review 57 (4) (2013): 20. 46 For more on white “slumming” and the political left, see Wells, “And I Make My Own.” For its historiographic resonances, see Ingrid Monson, “The Problem with White Hipness: Race, Gender, and Cultural Conceptions in Jazz Historical Discourse,” Journal of the American Mu- sicological Society 48 (3) (1995): 396–422; and John Gennari, Blowin’ Hot and Cool: Jazz and Its Critics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006). 47 Ingrid Monson, “Hearing, Seeing, and Perceptual Agency,” Critical Inquiry 34 (S2) (2008): S38. 48 Fred Moten, In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 39–40. 49 Matthew Sakakeeny, Roll With It: Brass Bands in the Streets of New Orleans (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2013), 169–173. 50 Foster, Choreographing Empathy, 24.

148 (2) Spring 2019 51 Dave Brubeck’s Southern Strategy

Kelsey A. K. Klotz

Abstract: In January 1960, white jazz pianist Dave Brubeck made headlines for cancelling a twenty-five- date tour of colleges and universities across the American South after twenty-two schools had refused to allow his black bassist, Eugene Wright, to perform. This cancellation became a defining moment in Bru- beck’s career, forever marking him as an advocate for racial justice. This essay follows Brubeck’s engagement with early civil rights–era protests, examining the moments leading up to Brubeck’s cancellation of his 1960 tour of the South. In doing so, I uncover new details in Brubeck’s steps toward race activism that highlight the ways in which Brubeck leveraged his whiteness to support integration efforts, even as he simultaneously benefited from a system that privileged his voice over the voices of people of color. While Brubeck has been hailed as a civil rights advocate simply for cancelling his 1960 tour, I argue that Bru- beck’s activism worked on a deeper level, one that inspired him to adopt a new musical and promotional strategy that married commercial interests with political ideology. Brubeck’s advocacy relied on his power and privilege within the mainstream music industry to craft albums and marketing approaches that promoted integration in the segregationist South. Ultimately, this period in Brubeck’s career is significant because it allows deep consideration of who Brubeck spoke for and above, who listened, and for whom his actions as a civil rights advocate were meaningful.

In January 1960, white jazz pianist Dave Brubeck made headlines after twenty-two colleges and universities across the American South refused to allow his interracial quartet to perform. Initially, eleven of the schools backed out of their contracts with Brubeck upon learning that he and two other white musicians, saxophonist Paul Desmond and drummer Joe Morello, would be performing with African American bassist Eugene Wright. After Brubeck informed the remaining fourteen schools of Wright’s presence in his quartet, eleven more insisted Brubeck replace Wright with a white bassist, leaving only three willing to allow the integrat- kelsey a. k. klotz is a Lectur- er at the University of North Car- ed combo to perform. Brubeck refused to replace olina at Charlotte. She has pub- Wright, forgoing the $40,000 in revenue (worth lished in such journals as Jazz Per- nearly $400,000 today) he would have received spectives and The Common Reader. had he instead performed with a white bassist.

52 Representatives of the various schools in- the primary beneficiaries of their deci- Kelsey A. K. sisted, one after the other, that their can- sions to advocate for racial justice. In oth- Klotz cellations of Brubeck’s contracts were er words, Brubeck possessed the power to not based in prejudice, but on principle choose how and when to protest segrega- and policy. For the schools and their ad- tion, and because of that privilege, his im- ministrators, Brubeck broke his contract; age also benefited from those decisions. for Brubeck, contracts requiring segregation had no legal or moral basis.1 By his 1960 Southern tour, Brubeck had Taken together, these cancellations belong been considered a “respectable” jazz came a defining moment in Brubeck’s ca- musician: a racially coded term indicating reer. Jazz and entertainment newspapers, that Brubeck was an acceptable choice for such as DownBeat and Variety, and black college campuses and concert halls, and newspapers, including the New York Am- could bring “new” (that is, white) audienc- sterdam News, Pittsburgh Courier, Baltimore es to jazz. Though he began the Brubeck Afro-American, Los Angeles Sentinel, and Quartet in relative obscurity in 1951, Bru- Chicago Daily Defender, covered the event beck experienced a steep rise in populari- extensively, and nearly all positioned ty in the early 1950s, primarily through his Brubeck as a kind of civil rights hero.2 Af- performances on college campuses, and in ter his death, many of Brubeck’s obituar- 1954, he was featured on the cover of Time ies remembered him as having stood up magazine–only the second jazz musician for civil rights when he refused to replace to be so featured (Louis Armstrong was Wright in the segregated South. the first in 1949). Brubeck’s image quick- This essay follows Brubeck’s engage- ly reached newsstands across the nation ment with early civil rights–era pro- through other mainstream publications, tests, examining the moments leading up such as Vogue, Good Housekeeping, and Life. to Brubeck’s cancelled 1960 tour of the Brubeck frequently explained in inter- South. I uncover new details in Brubeck’s views that his quartet brought a “new” au- steps toward race activism that highlight dience to jazz music, one that was “seri- the ways in which Brubeck leveraged ous” and that had previously been put off his whiteness to support integration ef- by jazz’s supposedly low-brow, low-class forts, as well as the ways in which he ben- associations.3 On a 1954 television broad- efited from a system that privileged his cast with Dave Garroway, Garroway asked voice over those for whom he advocated. Brubeck if his picture on Time lent “a cer- While Brubeck has been hailed as a civ- tain amount of respectability to the jazz il rights advocate simply for refusing to business,” asking whether or not that re- appear without Wright, I argue that Bru- spectability was good for jazz.4 Brubeck beck’s activism worked on a deeper level, answered, “Well, I think it’s good, be- one that inspired him to adopt a new mu- cause the thing that’s held jazz back has sical and promotional strategy that mar- been the environment. And every time a ried commercial interest with political club is run decently, there’s an audience, ideology. Still, Brubeck’s story is similar a wonderful audience, that usually won’t to those of other “white heroes” of jazz go into a nightclub.” Brubeck explained (such as Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, that groups and musicians like the Bru- and Norman Granz): white bandleaders beck Quartet, Gerry Mulligan Quartet, who though largely well-meaning were and Stan Getz (all white) were helping to ultimately blind to racial politics and “make converts” of nonjazz audiences. power dynamics, and whose careers were Though Brubeck’s response to Garroway

148 (2) Spring 2019 53 Dave was not explicit, words like “respectable” and American primitivism that simulta- Brubeck’s and “decent” signified white spaces, while neously viewed black musicians’ talent Southern Strategy “environment” tended to mean urban, as being primarily emotional, or of the was associated with drugs, alcohol, pros- body.6 Using terminology from the Euro- titution, and crime, and was therefore of- pean concert tradition, including “coun- ten coded black. terpoint,” “passacaglia,” “polyphonic,” In a 1957 interview, Brubeck further “sonata,” “fugue,” and “canon,” and explained that his “fan mail frequent- drawing comparisons between Brubeck’s ly mentions how they have become in- music and that of Bach, Mozart, and Stra- terested in jazz through us, even though vinsky, critics asserted Brubeck’s de- they never liked it before. And that, by cidedly “intellectual” approach to jazz. playing our records, they’ve become in- That they did so in a language that, in the terested in most of the other jazz records 1950s, was primarily reserved for white of serious jazz artists.”5 Brubeck saw his composers and musicians, further en- appeal to “new” jazz audiences (that is, trenched Brubeck’s music in sonic signi- mostly white, economically privileged, fiers of whiteness. and educated audiences) as performing Jazz critics’ use of terminology from a service to the genre; he often cited the European classical music to describe cool fact that, in 1955, he was the first jazz mu- jazz generally, and Brubeck’s music spe- sician asked to speak at the Music Teach- cifically, ultimately determined what ers’ National Convention as evidence sounds passed as white in a typically that he brought nonjazz audiences to jazz, black genre. For instance, in a 1955 article, and he credited his performances at col- Arnold Shaw mapped clear visual imag- leges for students’ interest in other jazz es of whiteness associated with colleges groups, including the Modern Jazz Quar- and concert halls onto Brubeck’s musi- tet, an all-black quartet. Such achieve- cal style: “When you first hear the Bru- ments, according to Brubeck, were nev- beck Quartet you are immediately struck er attributable to his group’s overwhelm- by the novel blending of crew-cut and ing whiteness; he initially seemed to long-hair elements.”7 Shaw elaborated ignore the fact that black jazz musicians’ on the “echoes of Milhaud and Stravin- access to colleges and other education- sky” that listeners could find in Brubeck’s al settings, as well as promotion in main- music, as well as the quotes and influenc- stream magazines, was significantly lim- es from Grieg, Chopin, and Rachmani- ited compared to his own. noff. He explained to his Esquire readers In addition to Brubeck’s media image, that “Brubeck is excited by the devices of critics and audiences also closely linked counterpoint,” and he noted “delightful Brubeck’s sound to sonic signifiers of fugal exchanges” between Brubeck and whiteness. From its earliest recordings, Desmond. These “fugal” exchanges and jazz critics described the quartet in terms counterpoint were often meant to de- that maintained legacies of musical bina- scribe Brubeck and Desmond’s method ries that understood black musicians as of improvising together, which usually natural and emotional and white musi- took the form of “following the leader”: cians as rational and cerebral. That white Brubeck might begin a chorus of impro- critics would consider white jazz mu- vised counterpoint first, and Desmond sicians’ primary musical contributions would follow, playing in the breaks of to be intellectual, or of the mind, stems Brubeck’s solo. It was a method that was from a centuries-long legacy of European extremely familiar and even formulaic for

54 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Desmond and Brubeck, but which critics the Arkansas National Guard to the high Kelsey A. K. overwhelmingly found to be a sonic indi- school to bar the students’ entrance. It Klotz cator of intellect. was not until September 23, when Presi- Descriptions of similar sonic resonanc- dent Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized es of classical music in the music of black the Arkansas National Guard, thereby jazz musicians were rare, even in cases shifting their purpose from preventing to that would have easily warranted them, facilitating integration, that the students such as in recordings by the Modern Jazz were allowed entrance. Quartet.8 Critics and audiences were While jazz musicians such as Louis simply more likely to accept Brubeck as Armstrong, Charles Mingus, and their an intellectual, to accept his music as ce- supporters openly decried the Little Rock rebral, to view him as having credentials integration crisis, Brubeck mounted his as a classical musician, and as being re- own private protest, even as he main- spectable because he was white. This fa- tained his public silence. On September cilitated Brubeck’s entrance to spaces 10, small regional papers around Texas (including colleges around the country began to report that Brubeck and white and segregated institutions in the South) jazz impresario Norman Granz had can- and audiences to which, as a jazz musi- celled their upcoming concert dates at cian, he otherwise would not have had the State Fair Park auditorium in Dal- access.9 However, that same relationship las, Texas. Brubeck and his quartet were to respectability and intellect that came scheduled to perform on September 29, with Brubeck’s whiteness may have also and Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic was had the side effect of making Brubeck’s to perform on October 1. As Ingrid Mon- protest all the more surprising to South- son explains, Granz had been cancelling ern universities and their administrators. Jazz at the Philharmonic concert dates at segregated venues like the State Fair By 1957, Brubeck’s relationship to white Park since the late 1940s, and according culture through image and sound had to newspaper reports, had cancelled this been well established by critics, audienc- date for that reason as well.10 es, promoters, and his own statements, But Brubeck neglected to explain why and Brubeck, as with many musicians, he cancelled the date; all newspaper ac- had made no public announcement or accounts simply write that “Brubeck sent tion against racial prejudice or segrega- word only that his mixed group would be tion. At that time, the civil rights move- unavailable”–an unusual statement, giv- ment was just beginning to take root, en that at that time, Brubeck was regu- spurred in part by the 1954 Brown v. Board larly performing with white bassist Nor- of Education decision, which declared seg- man Bates.11 Brubeck’s cancellation of regation in schools to be illegal, the 1955 the date was only briefly mentioned in murder of Emmett Till, and the 1955– regional papers in Texas, Arizona, and 1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott. Howev- Southern California; major newspapers er, it was the 1957 Little Rock integration such as The New York Times and Los Ange- crisis that garnered the attention of many les Times and black newspapers including jazz musicians. On September 4, nine Af- the Chicago Defender, Daily Defender, and rican American students attempted to New York Amsterdam News mention noth- enter the formerly all-white Little Rock ing about the concert. Brubeck’s Septem- Central High School. However, Arkan- ber 29 concert, the cancellation of which sas Governor Orval Faubus had ordered was announced just one week after the

148 (2) Spring 2019 55 Dave beginning of the Little Rock crisis, is an tent to which musical and political mean- Brubeck’s unstudied moment in Brubeck’s perfor- ing was made at the level of the individu- Southern Strategy mance history that reveals a nearly inau- al; that Brubeck’s cancellation was mean- dible moment in Brubeck’s move toward ingful to Furgerson was enough for her, race activism. even if it was an underpublicized, ambig- By all accounts, the reason for Bru- uous, or invisible act to most of the coun- beck’s cancellation of this single concert try. For Furgerson, it was an affirmation was ambiguous; any publicly stated views of what she had discussed with Brubeck on social justice and racial prejudice were at her mother’s kitchen table, writing, nonexistent. However, a fan letter writ- All this is to thank you for acting like a de- ten to Brubeck a few weeks after the can- cent, feeling human being. You can never cellation suggests that three years prior know how much it means to me to know to Brubeck’s infamous cancellation of his that there are people [who] react positively $40,000 tour of the South, Brubeck was to injustices. Too many of us give lip service already protesting segregation, howev- to it. It’s much easier and less convenient er quietly. In the letter, dated October 22, and more comfortable. It is a terrible thing 1957, Betty Jean Furgerson, a black wom- to have to deny people the beauty of your an from Waterloo, Iowa, thanked Bru- music because they fear unintelligently. beck for cancelling the concert “because of the policy of segregated seating.”12 Furgerson’s words speak to struggles Furgerson’s relationship with Brubeck for racial equality across the century, and went beyond that of a simple fan who in her final sentence, she links Brubeck’s had once asked Brubeck for an auto- music, and his live performances in par- graph. Her family had close connections ticular, to a broader political effort to dis- to members of the Duke Ellington Or- rupt segregationist practices. chestra, with whom Brubeck had toured, One year later, on October 19, 1958, jazz and frequently hosted jazz musicians in critic Ralph Gleason reported that Bru- their home beginning in the late 1940s, beck had turned down a tour of South feeding them and offering them relax- Africa worth $17,000 (approximately ation.13 Iowa musician Roger Maxwell $145,000 today) because the apartheid- recalled meeting Brubeck at Furgerson’s era South African government had re- family’s house in the 1950s, explaining, fused to allow Eugene Wright to perform “It isn’t everyday that you can walk into a with the group–or even to enter the friend’s kitchen and see an international- country. Gleason’s article in the Daily ly renowned musician sitting in a break- Boston Globe, which was subsequently fast nook. Mrs. Furgerson greeted me covered in the Los Angeles Sentinel and the and Betty Jean said, ‘Roger, have you met Philadelphia Tribune, both black newspa- Dave?’”14 Even though Brubeck had not pers, focused on an interview with Bru- told the press why he cancelled the con- beck regarding the cancellation. In it, Bru- cert, Furgerson’s account connected his beck explained the effect his 1958 State actions to a conversation the two had in Department tour of the Iron Curtain had the privacy of her family home. As she on his understanding of racial prejudice explained, “I know from talking with you as detrimental to American foreign inter- that you have deep feelings about such ests within a Cold War context: “Preju- practices.” dice is indescribable. To me, it is the rea- Reading Furgerson’s letter alongside son we would lose the world. I have been Brubeck’s actions demonstrates the ex- through Asia and India and the Middle

56 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences East and we have to realize how many allow Brubeck to perform without los- Kelsey A. K. brown-skinned people there are in this ing state funding: the president of the Klotz world. Prejudice here or in South Afri- college, John Messick, telephoned North ca is setting up our world for one terrible Carolina Governor Luther Hodges, who let down.”15 These words were later re- apparently reminded Messick that “be- printed, without the explicit reference to cause the school had signed a contract for South Africa, to explain why Brubeck had the performance, it would have to pay the refused to appear in the South without band whether they played or not.”16 Ac- Wright in 1960. Though Brubeck’s can- cording to Brubeck, Brubeck’s argument cellation of the South African tour was swayed the dean, who announced to the an explicit foreign policy message from audience that the Brubeck Quartet would a former U.S. State Department–spon- appear after all; Tucker told the waiting sored cultural ambassador, coverage was crowd that “Mr. Brubeck and his quartet again nonexistent in mainstream papers leave tomorrow for a State Department like The New York Times and jazz maga- tour of Europe and we want them to tell zines like DownBeat. the world that North Carolina is not Lit- While Brubeck’s cancellation of his tle Rock.”17 Brubeck’s near miss result- South African tour is notable, its covered in institutional change at East Caroli- age revealed an earlier near cancellation na College: later that month, the Board of a Brubeck performance at East Caroli- of Trustees enacted a new policy, one that na College (now East Carolina Universi- no longer banned black performers out- ty). This event offers a glimpse into the right, and placed the issue of campus per- goals Brubeck had for his Southern performances by black musicians at the dis- formances with Wright, as well as the cretion of the administration, essentially, confidence he might have gained from a though not officially, allowing black mu- successful protest. On February 5, 1958, sicians to perform on campus.18 the Brubeck Quartet was preparing to go Within the context of the civil rights onstage in the ironically named Wright movement, Brubeck’s 1957 cancellation Auditorium when they were stopped by and 1958 near miss may seem small; after the Dean of Student Affairs for East Car- all, it was only Furgerson’s insider knowl- olina College, James Tucker. Tucker in- edge that allowed her to recognize Bru- formed Brubeck that the school’s poli- beck’s cancellation as an act of protest, cy would not allow Wright to perform. not any public statement from Brubeck Brubeck’s account centered on his expe- himself, and the few papers that covered riences with his 1958 tour abroad; he re- the incidents at East Carolina College did ported to Gleason that he told Tucker so many months after the fact. Howev- “that the next morning we were to leave er, though three years is a short period for Europe sponsored by the State De- historically, the difference between the partment to represent this country and racial politics and activism of 1957 and one of the best things we could do was to 1960 is vast: this was the period during show that prejudice was not everywhere which the first lunch counter sit-ins be- in the United States, as we were a mixed gan in Wichita, Kansas (1958), Oklahoma group. And they wanted to do this to us City, Oklahoma (1958), and Greensboro, the night before!” North Carolina (1960), before spreading A retrospective by East Carolina Uni- across the South in 1960 to Richmond, versity demonstrates the levels of bu- Virginia; Nashville, Tennessee; and At- reaucracy the college went through to lanta, Georgia, to name a few high-profile

148 (2) Spring 2019 57 Dave protests, in addition to Northern cities, choice but to cancel the performance. In Brubeck’s such as Waterloo, Iowa, where Furger- press reports, Brubeck called the school’s Southern 19 Strategy son lived. The visibility of Brubeck’s move to cancel the concert “unconstitu- protests likewise gradually shifted during tional and ridiculous,” and he insisted this time period. As Brubeck continued that he would not perform with a white to tour across the South, and with the bassist “for a million dollars.”21 Instead, permanent addition of Eugene Wright Variety reported that Brubeck played a to his quartet, Brubeck eventually made concert at Atlanta’s Magnolia Ballroom, public his commitment to combatting ra- a black venue that became an integral cial prejudice. staging ground for civil rights meetings.22 Brubeck’s cancelled concert reverber- Five months after news of the South Af- ated across the uga campus as students rican tour broke, the Brubeck Quartet took sides debating integration and mu- was scheduled to perform at the Univer- sical performance. The ensuing conver- sity of Georgia (uga) in Athens, Geor- sations make clear the complexity of the gia, on March 4, 1959. Shortly before the student body’s feelings toward integra- concert, Stuart Woods, a senior sociol- tion in an era and place that tended to sim- ogy major and the head of uga’s brand plify them. Woods immediately began new Jazz Society, received publicity pho- a petition to repeal the university’s poli- tos for the quartet that included Wright, cy requiring only segregated performing and he immediately knew there would groups; but by April, it was clear that his be a problem. Two years earlier, in 1957, petition had failed. Though the uga Stu- uga had instituted a policy banning in- dent Council denied his request for the tegrated entertainment groups from per- body to sponsor a campus-wide poll to as- forming on campus; similar policies were certain student opinion on the policy, the implemented in schools across the South Student Council also denied a counter- following the Brown v. Board of Education motion that asked the group to make pub- decision and the crisis in Little Rock in lic its support of the policy.23 Students attempts to formally institute segrega- wrote editorials in the independent stu- tionist policies that had previously been dent newspaper The Red and Black both in standard practice. Furthermore, such support of Brubeck and in support of the pivotal historical moments also affected policy preventing Brubeck’s appearance. performers’ engagement with racial poli- Students in favor of the Brubeck concert tics on the bandstand. As Monson writes, argued that the quartet and other musical “If in the mid-1940s playing with a mixed groups be allowed to play on the basis of band was taken as a sign of a progressive skill and musical worth (a version of the racial attitude, by the mid-1950s a per- “let’s keep politics out of music” argu- former had to refuse to play to segregated ment), or that students be allowed more audiences to meet the rising moral stan- autonomy to set their own policies (a riff dards of the civil rights movement.”20 on states’ rights rhetoric frequently used Stuart Woods had seen the Brubeck in the South to fight against civil rights Quartet perform two years earlier, when laws at the federal level). white bassist Norman Bates was a regu- For students and administrators against lar member, and therefore had not antici- Brubeck’s concert, Brubeck’s near-per- pated any problems. With the addition of formance at uga ignited what historian Wright and uga’s new policies, howev- Carol Anderson refers to as “white rage.” er, uga’s administration gave Woods no As Anderson explains,

58 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences White rage is not about visible violence, but albums full of Southern songs: Gone with Kelsey A. K. rather it works its way through the courts, the Wind, recorded in April 1959 and re- Klotz the legislatures, and a range of government leased in August, and Southern Scene, re- bureaucracies. . . . White rage doesn’t have corded in September and October 1959 to wear sheets, burn crosses, or take to the and released in the spring of 1960. Gone streets. Working the halls of power, it can with the Wind, recorded less than two achieve its ends far more effectively, far months after the uga cancellation and more destructively.24 as a commercial and financial safeguard against the experimental (and ultimate- White rage, Anderson argues, is of- ly wildly popular) Time Out (1959), paid ten triggered by black advancement: “It particular tribute to the state of Geor- is not the mere presence of black people gia through the inclusion of both its ti- that is the problem; rather, it is black- tle track and “Georgia on My Mind.” As ness with ambition, with drive, with pur- Brubeck explained to Ralph Gleason af- pose, with aspirations, and with demands ter schools had cancelled his 1960 tour, for full and equal citizenship.” In other “Let me reiterate: we want to play in the words, those protesting Wright’s pres- South. . . .Therefore, we appeal to them to ence in the quartet objected to the no- help us.”26 tion that Brubeck could not find a white Brubeck’s plan, then, was to motivate musician who could equal Wright’s mu- Southern audiences to accept his inte- sical ability. White rage was palpable on grated group through performances of the pages of The Red and Black: Robert In- popular Southern songs; in doing so, gram, a uga student, suggested that all of Brubeck again banked on his ability to at- Brubeck’s records be broken, explaining tract “new” audiences to jazz. With Gone that, “Accepting the skill of a Negro per- with the Wind and Southern Scene, Brubeck former and even going so far as appreci- and his quartet-mates specifically chose ating it is a giant step toward integration. popular Southern songs, including well- We cannot afford to be the least bit broad known minstrel songs by Stephen Fos- minded–not even for the sake of art.”25 ter (“Swanee River,” “Camptown Rac- The support that uga’s policy banning es,” and “Oh Susanna”), jazz standards integrated performing groups received (“Gone with the Wind” and “Basin across campus should not be surpris- Street Blues”), mainstream hits (“Little ing. After all, as many in the black press Rock Getaway,” “Georgia on My Mind,” would point out, the policy was only two and “Deep in the Heart of Texas”), and years old; in other words, it was enacted popular songs written by white compos- in the same year as the Little Rock inte- ers from the perspective of black musi- gration crisis. Fear, however unfounded, cians (“The Lonesome Road,” “Ol’ Man fueled the rage that ultimately prompt- River,” and “Short’nin Bread”). Near- ed Brubeck’s own struggle against uga’s ly all of the songs performed across both segregationist policies–and further, pol- albums had been performed by popu- icies across the South. lar musicians, such as Bing Crosby, Ray Charles, Julie London, and Frank Sina- Brubeck’s experience with uga set the tra, in addition to well-known jazz musi- stage for his 1960 Southern tour. In the cians like Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzger- lead up to the 1960 concert cancellations, ald, Sarah Vaughan, and Miles Davis. The Brubeck mounted a direct campaign for diverse mix of original composers and Southern audiences that included two subsequent performers in part indicate

148 (2) Spring 2019 59 Dave Brubeck’s interest in promoting musi- inently on these albums, particularly on Brubeck’s cal integration to the widest possible “Ol’ Man River” and “Happy Times,” Southern Strategy audience. is remarkable, and represents Bru- Whereas in Brubeck’s early career, his beck’s most explicit attempt to highlight image and music had been described and Wright’s musical contribution within promoted as decidedly “white,” with the quartet directly to his Southern au- Gone with the Wind and Southern Scene, Bru- diences. For those “in the know,” these beck explicitly advanced an integrated vi- songs represented moments of sonic in- sual image by making Wright especially tegration; for those who were not, the al- visible on both album covers. Gone with bum demonstrated Brubeck’s colorblind the Wind’s cover artwork depicts the Bru- approach to music, in which white and beck Quartet on a covered pavilion sur- black musicians could presumably freely rounded by lush green trees, whose gran- cross what sound studies scholar Jennifer diose archways and pillars evoke a mas- Lynn Stoever has called the “sonic color sive Southern plantation. Brubeck and line.”27 Simultaneously, Brubeck at- Desmond, the group’s more well-known tempted to demonstrate why Wright was members, are foregrounded, with Morel- essential to his quartet’s performances; lo and Wright standing at a pillar in the and further, that Brubeck not only would background. The color photo could not not replace Wright, but he could not re- be clearer: this is an integrated quartet. place Wright. The cover of the later Southern Scene as- According to Brubeck’s autobiogra- serts the group’s integration even more pher, Fred Hall, and liner notes for Gone plainly. Amid illustrations of stereotyp- with the Wind written by Teo Macero, ical scenes of the South (a plantation Wright chose to perform “Ol’ Man Riv- home and a steamboat) is a photo of the er.”28 The Brubeck Quartet’s version is a quartet in the shade of a tree on the bank bass feature that begins in a quick tempo of a river. Desmond, Wright, and Mo- with Wright performing the melody line, rello are seated together, wearing iden- before a sudden transition to a half-time, tical black suits, while Brubeck, in his bluesy improvisation from Wright. The gray leader’s suit, leans over them, hand song ends in a sudden and unaccompa- on Morello’s shoulder. All four men are nied cadenza that tapers off as Wright de- looking at the camera and smiling, and scends in register, as if Wright’s solo, like Wright, surrounded by his three white the Mississippi River, will “just keep rol- bandmates, is at the center of the image. lin’ along.” As musicologist Todd Decker The fact that apparently no one either ob- writes, “Ol’ Man River” is “at its core– jected to or noticed Wright’s presence on about the experience of being black in a Gone with the Wind prior to the 1960 tour segregated America.”29 The Brubeck ver- suggests that Brubeck’s image had pre- sion maintained the primacy of Wright’s viously been established as sufficiently experience in performing a song that had, white to render such an inclusion invis- in its more than thirty-year history, been ible–particularly to school administra- used as both a song of protest and a song tors who may not have followed the quar- of Southern nostalgia. In doing so, the tet closely. quartet forced unwitting Southern segre- Throughout the 1950s, Brubeck’s bass- gationists to hear a song about the black ists were the least frequently featured experience in the South from a black members of the quartet. Therefore, Bru- man, supported by his white bandmates beck’s decision to feature Wright prom- who insisted on Wright’s integral musical

60 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences position within the quartet. That they did though Brubeck described Wright only Kelsey A. K. so in an album packaged for commercial in complimentary terms, the descrip- Klotz audiences simultaneously cushioned the tions also adhered closely to negative ste- quartet from any overt retaliation from reotypes of black men as harmless to the segregationists, and allowed Brubeck to point of subservience: an “Uncle Tom” advance his own subtle political ideology. stereotype represented solely through Brubeck not only highlighted Wright’s Brubeck’s descriptions (not from any in- musical contributions, but also empha- terview or quote from Wright) that nev- sized the qualities of his personality that ertheless may have worked to Brubeck anyone, even audiences outside the mu- and Wright’s advantage with Southern sic business, would understand as valu- audiences ranging from squeamish to en- able character traits. According to lin- raged at the thought of the quartet’s inte- er notes written by Brubeck for “Happy gration. Nonetheless, in these liner notes, Times,” a Wright original and feature on written just months after uga had can- Southern Scene, the song offered listeners a celled its concert over Wright’s presence chance not only to hear Wright’s compo- in the quartet, Brubeck makes the case sition, but to get to know Wright: that Wright is a crucial member of the “Happy Times,” an original by Gene group, explicitly marketing integration Wright, is typical of the relaxed happy to Southern audiences. sound which has been the antidote to the history of trouble expressed in “Nobody As Brubeck navigated early civil rights Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” [the pre- protests, he worked to find an approach vious track]. I think Gene’s bass solo ex- that suited his image and career, which pressed the Wright attitude toward life– he and his wife, managers, record pro- amiable, relaxed and smiling.30 ducers, and advertisers had cultivated for nearly a decade. The result was a new mu- In these notes, Brubeck maps the sical and promotional approach for Bru- easygoing and upbeat theme of “Hap- beck, one that leveraged his whiteness to py Times” onto Wright’s personality. To support integration efforts in the South. hear this song is essentially to enter into As Brubeck’s concert cancellations be- conversation with Wright: the arrange- came more visible, Brubeck became em- ment chosen by the quartet makes it dif- boldened, and his indignation with pol- ficult for listeners to engage with any of icy-makers at Southern colleges and the other musicians, as Brubeck and Mo- universities met the white rage of the seg- rello perform accompanying roles and regationists protesting his performances. Desmond lays out. This allows Wright’s As Wynton Marsalis, trumpeter and ar- voice, performed through his bass, to be- tistic director for Jazz at Lincoln Center, come the auditory focal point. once said, “[Brubeck] is important be- Brubeck does mention the other mem- cause he stood up for Civil Rights, when bers of the quartet in the liner notes, but many of us–sat down.”31 As a white man, these primarily focus on Desmond’s re- Brubeck was able to simultaneously voice actions to a certain take or a technique his anger and maintain a nonthreatening used by Morello, offering little in the way image in ways that, as Marsalis implies, of information about Desmond and Mo- black protesters typically could not. Ul- rello’s personalities and, in particular, timately, this period in Brubeck’s career do not focus on positive traits in as di- is important because it allows deep con- rect a manner as with Wright. However, sideration of who Brubeck spoke for and

148 (2) Spring 2019 61 Dave who he spoke over, who listened, and for criticism, Wright maintained his diplo- Brubeck’s whom his actions as a civil rights advo- matic stance in an interview decades lat- Southern Strategy cate were meaningful. er, as he recounted the story of a school Certainly, the first person for whom that had initially refused to allow him Brubeck spoke was Wright, over whom to perform: “I won’t say the name–that Brubeck cancelled the South African way nobody’ll get hurt.”35 tour, uga concert, and 1960 Southern It seems as if, at least initially, Wright tour. But while Brubeck received glow- had little say in Brubeck’s move toward ing praise for doing so, Wright largely race activism–even when Brubeck’s pro- stayed quiet. In fact, Brubeck seemed to tests positioned Wright as an activist as have shone a spotlight on issues Wright, well. For example, in a 1981 interview, a Chicago native, would rather not define Brubeck spoke about the concert at East him. An article in the Pittsburgh Courier by Carolina College, admitting that Wright George Pitts quotes Wright as explaining had not known that the school was seg- that, “Whatever Dave does is okey [sic] regated and did not want to allow him to by me.”32 Wright continued, “If he wants play; the school had approached Brubeck to make the trip without me, it would be about the issue alone.36 Further, Wright okey. I know he’s all right, and I know if had not known that part of the compro- Brubeck decides to do something it will mise in allowing the quartet to perform not be because of any feeling of his own at East Carolina College was that Wright on race.” Wright’s comments display stay in the background–so when Bru- considerable trust in Brubeck’s decisions, beck called him to the front of the group but they did not have the impact many for a solo, Wright went. Likewise, Bru- black journalists, including Pitts, desired. beck actually knew about the South- While Brubeck was lauded for his ac- ern universities’ requirements for an all- tions, Wright’s experience with the press white group: in a letter from abc book- was more closely related to the criticisms ing agent Bob Bundy to Dave Brubeck faced by Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington, written three months prior to the can- and Louis Armstrong when they failed cellations, Bundy writes that the organi- to live up to the expectations the African zation responsible for the Southern tour American community held for highly vis- “will not accept . . . a mixed group.”37 Even ible black men–expectations that were though Brubeck likely had no intention significantly higher for black musicians of replacing Wright, he continued with than for white musicians.33 Wright was his plans for the tour. Throughout this subtly criticized by the black press for his period, Brubeck made decisions that po- comments: Pitts explained Wright’s ap- sitioned both he and Wright as race ac- parently unsatisfying statements thusly: tivists, without seeming to understand “Wright finally found an opportuni- the difference between what it meant ty to express his feelings, but all Ameri- for a white man to protest racial injustice cans knew his expression would be that in front of a white audience, and what it of most Negroes who long have tasted the meant for a black man to do so. slurs of the Southland.” The Baltimore Wright had the potential to be the fo- Afro-American referred to Wright, a fair- cus of this story, and it certainly seems as ly dark-skinned man, as a “tan bassist,” if some audiences wanted him to be. But which suggests that the writer meant to the fact that it was Brubeck at the cen- criticize Wright for not being supportive ter of this story, with Wright in the lime- enough to racial justice.34 Despite such light, demonstrates the privilege Brubeck

62 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences had in potentially pushing Wright into a take the steps he did. Had Brubeck been Kelsey A. K. protest about which he was at best am- true to Wright’s voice, he may not have Klotz bivalent. Brubeck’s centrality to the sto- cancelled any concerts; as Wright’s com- ry, however, also offered a unique chal- ments above suggest, Wright knew Bru- lenge to audiences unused to hearing beck was “all right.” But though Wright a white man explicitly position a black was the reason for Brubeck’s advocacy, man as an integral part of his own ca- Brubeck ultimately did not take this stand reer. Within the context of the early civil for Wright, but for people like Betty Jean rights era, Brubeck’s voice–as a band- Furgerson, whose letter to Brubeck made leader, as an established musician, and as clear her belief that his actions could sup- a white man whose career and image had port her perspective. He spoke direct- been constructed around implicit norms ly to his Southern supporters, appealing of whiteness–simply weighed more than to their musical tastes, to make the case Wright’s for many black and white audi- for musical integration. He inspired stu- ences, members of the music industry, dents like Stuart Woods, who attempt- and Southern audiences. Further, Bru- ed to reverse uga’s segregationist pol- beck benefited from the lower standard icy, and institutions like East Carolina to which these audiences held him, as a College, which reconsidered discrimina- white performer, on issues of civil rights. tory policies that prevented black musi- William Pollard of the Los Angeles Sentinel, cians from performing. And, ultimate- writing to commend Brubeck, agreed, ly, Brubeck took this stand for himself, arguing that “the majority race needs to possibly for reasons based in both princi- lead the way in this respect,” emphasiz- ple and self-interest. In interviews looking that “the perpetuation of racial dis- ing back on this period, Brubeck’s indig- crimination is of their making.”38 In oth- nance at justice unfulfilled is clear; how- er words, while it may have been Bru- ever, his fear for his own livelihood is also beck’s responsibility to protest racial apparent. But even if Brubeck believed he prejudice and segregation, the response could have lost his career by confronting to his actions reflected his privilege. segregation more directly, and even if he However, there lies an uneasy tension believed he was making a broader stand between Brubeck’s outspoken support of against racism, it was Brubeck–his im- integration and Wright’s relative silence. age and his legacy–that benefited most That tension highlights a primary issue in from his decisions. Brubeck’s advocacy white advocacy for racial justice causes: relied on his power and privilege within namely, that in supporting those whose the mainstream music industry to craft voices have been systematically silenced albums and marketing approaches that throughout history, it can be easy to speak amplified the music and beliefs of the over the very voices advocates mean to African Americans with whom he had amplify. Brubeck’s actions and rheto- grown close. In doing so, Brubeck har- ric were meaningful to countless fans nessed his white image in order to once and organizations, including the Cali- again bring new audiences to jazz–and fornia chapter of the naacp, who wrote to his own music–in the segregationist to DownBeat and Brubeck, thanking Bru- South. beck for taking a visible stand against prejudice, and clearly Wright supported Brubeck’s decisions as bandleader. How- ever, for Wright, Brubeck did not need to

148 (2) Spring 2019 63 Dave author’s note Brubeck’s Southern I gratefully acknowledge the Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Emory Strategy University, which supported the writing of this essay. Research for this essay was generously funded by the Brubeck Collection Research Travel Grant from the Holt-Atherton Special Collections at the University of the Pacific. Many thanks are also due to Ingrid Monson and Stephen Crist for their thoughtful comments.

endnotes 1 Ralph J. Gleason, “An Appeal from Dave Brubeck,” DownBeat, February 1960. 2 One exception was Norman Granz, who, as founder of Jazz at the Philharmonic, had been cancelling concerts at venues with segregated audiences since the 1940s. For Granz, Brubeck’s insistence on performing in an integrated ensemble had not gone far enough: by 1960, Bru- beck should have insisted that the audiences be integrated. Norman Granz, “The Brubeck Stand: A Divergent View By Norman Granz,” DownBeat, July 1960. 3 Nat Hentoff, “Review of Jazz at Oberlin, by Dave Brubeck,” DownBeat, December 1953; Dave Brubeck, “The New Jazz Audience,” Playboy, August 1955; Ralph J. Gleason, “Brubeck: ‘I Did Do Some Things First,’” DownBeat, September 1957; C. H. Garrigues, “Brubeck’s Fans Learned About Jazz in College,” San Francisco Examiner, November 3, 1957; and “Jazz Climbs Up the Social Ladder–With a Mighty Shove from Dave Brubeck,” New York National Enquir- er, March 16, 1958. 4 Dave Garroway, Friday with Garroway, November 12, 1954, nbc Radio Collection, Motion Pic- ture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 5 Gleason, “Brubeck,” 14. 6 Mariana Torgovnick argues that Homer’s Odyssey anticipated later colonial encounters with the “primitive” Other. However, such binaries were widely used across the centuries by phi- losophers, historians, and critics to designate and denigrate an Other, whether defined by race, gender, sexuality, or other characteristics. Also see René Descartes, “Part IV,” in A Dis- course on the Method, trans. Ian Maclean (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 28; Simon Frith, “Rhythm: Race, Sex, and the Body,” in Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), 123–144; Ted Gioia, “Jazz and the Primitivist Myth,” in The Imperfect Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); and Mar- iana Torgovnick, Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives (Chicago: University of Chi- cago Press, 1990). 7 Arnold Shaw, “West Coast Jazz,” Esquire, September 1955, 127. 8 The Modern Jazz Quartet employed strict fugal arrangements and a blend of improvised and precomposed counterpoint, particularly between John Lewis (piano) and Milt Jackson (vi- braphone). These include a strict fugue, “Vendôme,” and the quartet’s direct quotation of J. S. Bach’s Musical Offering in “Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise.” 9 Of course, being called “intellectual” was not a benefit within most jazz circles; “intellect” countered the improvisation required for “authentic” jazz performances. Therefore, Bru- beck tended to promote the spontaneity of his music over his precomposition, explaining many times throughout his career that “composition is selective improvisation” (a quote he misattributed to Igor Stravinsky). 10 Ingrid Monson, Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa (Oxford: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2010), 63–64. The Dallas State Fair Park was a site of frequent protest for black activists fighting segregation on the grounds. In addition to the segregation of many of the rides and food establishments within the park, the State Fair held a “Negro Achievement Day,” the only day in which black patrons could fully participate in the State Fair. Martin Herman Kuhlman, “The Civil Rights Movement in Texas: Desegregation of Public Accommodations, 1950–1964” (Ph.D. diss., Texas Tech University, 1994); Donald Payton, “Timeline: A Concise

64 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences History: Black Dallas since 1842,” D Magazine, June 1998, http://www.dmagazine.com/ Kelsey A. K. publications/d-magazine/1998/june/timeline-a-concise-history; and Kathryn Siefker, Klotz “naacp Youth Council Picket Line, 1955 Texas Sate Fair,” Bullock Texas State History Museum, https://www.thestoryoftexas.com/discover/artifacts/naacp-state-fair-spotlight-012315. 11 “Brubeck Cancels Dallas Booking,” The Daily Journal, Commerce, Texas, September 10, 1957; “Brubeck Band Cancels Out Dallas Date,” The Times, San Mateo, California, September 10, 1957; “Jazz Combos Cancel Dallas Bookings,” Tucson Daily Citizen, September 10, 1957; “Jazz Groups Skip Trips over South,” Corsicana Daily Sun, September 12, 1957; and “Jazz Concerts Cancelled over Racial Issue,” The Galveston Daily News, September 12, 1957. 12 B. J. Furgerson, personal letter to Dave Brubeck, October 22, 1957, Brubeck Collection, Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library, Stockton, California. 13 Betty Jean Furgerson, “Jazz in Iowa: Betty Jean (bj) Furgerson’s Memories,” Iowa Public Tele- vision, http://www.iptv.org/jazz/bj_furgerson.cfm (accessed October 31, 2015). The Elling- ton Orchestra’s frequent stops could have been due to policies of segregation and discrimination in the area. Even though Iowa passed one of the first state statutes banning discrimination in the 1880s, the statute was not enforced in the 1950s, and many restaurants, cafés, and hotels in Waterloo–one of the state’s most segregated cities, then and now–denied service to blacks and other minority citizens. As Furgerson remembers, “I learned they came to those dinners because we only had family members other than band members. They knew they did not have to be on stage and/or talk or be the entertainment. They could relax!” Bruce Fehn, “The Only Hope We Had: United Packinghouse Workers Local 46 and the Struggle for Racial Equality in Waterloo, Iowa, 1948–1960,” The Annals of Iowa 54 (3) (Sum- mer 1995): 185–216; Kyle Munson, “Black Iowa: Waterloo Rallies to Combat Violence, Ra- cial Divides,” Des Moines Register, July 13, 2015, http://dmreg.co/1IRVhIe (accessed Novem- ber 28, 2015); and Theresa E. Shirey, “Common Patters in an Uncommon Place: The Civil Rights Movement and Persistence of Racial Inequality in Waterloo, Iowa” (honors project, Bowdoin College, 2014). 14 Roger Maxwell, “Jazz in Iowa: Backstage Conversations, Impressions and Remembrances, My Experiences with Popular and Jazz Artists,” Iowa Public Television, http://www.iptv .org/jazz/backstage.cfm#brubeck (accessed October 31, 2015). 15 Ralph Gleason, “Brubeck Cancels South Africa Because of Negro Artist Ban,” Daily Boston Globe, October 19, 1958. 16 Steve Tuttle, “When Music Broke the Color Barrier,” East 12 (1) (2013): 14. 17 Gleason, “Brubeck Cancels South Africa.” 18 Tuttle, “When Music Broke the Color Barrier,” 14. 19 Fehn, “The Only Hope We Had,” 213. 20 Monson, Freedom Sounds, 61. 21 John Keasler, “Jazz Society Cancels Brubeck Appearance for Campus Concert,” The Red and Black, February 26, 1959. 22 “U. of Ga. Nixes Brubeck (Bassist a Negro) but ok at Atlanta ‘Race’ Spot,” Variety, March 4, 1959, 49. 23 “Council Discusses Jazz Club Petition,” The Red and Black, April 16, 1959. 24 Carol Anderson, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016), 3. 25 Robert Ingram, “Letters to the Editor,” The Red and Black, February 26, 1959. 26 Gleason, “An Appeal from Dave Brubeck.” 27 Jennifer Lynn Stoever, The Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening (New York: New York University Press, 2016).

148 (2) Spring 2019 65 Dave 28 Fred M. Hall, It’s About Time: The Dave Brubeck Story (Fayetteville, Ark.: University of Arkan- Brubeck’s sas Press, 1996), 63; and Teo Macero, liner notes for The Dave Brubeck Quartet, Gone with the Southern Wind, Columbia Records, 1959. Strategy 29 Todd Decker, Who Should Sing “Ol’ Man River”? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 14. 30 Dave Brubeck, liner notes for Southern Scene, Columbia Records, 1960. 31 Wynton Marsalis, “The Life and Music of Dave Brubeck,” concert featuring the Jazz at Lin- coln Center Orchestra, April 12, 2014, Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York, https://youtu.be/PQ-yXQItCGg (accessed October 30, 2015). As for Brubeck, he firmly believed that jazz had “always been an example set to the world of true integration.” “Editori- al,” San Francisco Chronicle, n.d., c. 1960, Brubeck Collection, Holt-Atherton Special Collec- tions, University of the Pacific Library, Stockton, California. 32 George E. Pitts, “Give Brubeck Credit for a Slap at Bias,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 12, 1960, 12. The “[sic]” is original to Pitts’s quotation of Wright. 33 Monson, Freedom Sounds, 29–65. 34 “Tan Bassist given ok in Memphis,” Afro-American, January 23, 1960. 35 Hall, It’s About Time, 87. 36 Dave Brubeck, interview with Kerry Frumkin, wfmt, October 17, 1981, Brubeck Collection, Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library, Stockton, California. 37 Bob Bundy to Dave Brubeck, personal letter, October 6, 1959, Brubeck Collection, Holt-Ather- ton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library, Stockton, California. Many thanks to Stephen Crist for bringing this document to my attention. 38 William E. Pollard, “Labor’s Side,” Los Angeles Sentinel, January 28, 1960.

66 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Keith Jarrett, Miscegenation & the Rise of the European Sensibility in Jazz in the 1970s

Gerald Early

Abstract: In the 1970s, pianist Keith Jarrett emerged as a major albeit controversial innovator in jazz. He succeeded in making completely improvised solo piano music not only critically acclaimed as a fresh way of blending classical and jazz styles but also popular, particularly with young audiences. This essay ex- amines the moment when Jarrett became an international star, the musical and social circumstances of jazz music immediately before his arrival and how he largely unconsciously exploited those circumstances to make his success possible, and what his accomplishments meant during the 1970s for jazz audiences and for American society at large.

By the late 1960s, when pianist Keith Jarrett was establishing his international reputation as a professional jazz musician, jazz itself was facing a crisis. The crisis, for both players and critics, was twofold: First, was jazz technically exhausted? That is to say, after the stylistic innovations of the post–World War II generation of artists–like saxophonist Char- lie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie’s bebop revolution; Jimmy Smith “squabbling” on the Ham- mond organ;1 bandleader Sun Ra, saxophonists Or- gerald early, a Fellow of the American Academy since 1997, nette Coleman and Albert Ayler, and pianist Cecil is the Merle Kling Professor of Taylor in free, avant-garde jazz music; and Miles Da- Modern Letters and Editor of vis and his minions in modal jazz, “freebop,” elec- The Common Reader at Washing- tric jazz, and jazz-rock–was there anything else that ton University in St. Louis. He is jazz could do? What was left for a saxophonist to the author of A Level Playing Field: achieve after what John Coltrane had done with his African American Athletes and the instrument? What more could a trumpeter do after Republic of Sports (2011), One Na- tion Under a Groove: Motown and Clifford Brown, Miles Davis, and Freddie Hubbard American Culture (rev. ed., 2004), but repeat with variations what these musicians had and This is Where I Came In: Black done? Or as black writers/intellectuals Ralph El- America in the 1960s (2003). lison and Albert Murray questioned, had jazz even

67 Keith Jarrett, progressed after Duke Ellington?2 Had classified by record companies and record Miscegenation not Ellington in fact already done every- stores as popular music? If jazz ceased & the Rise of European thing that the modernists were claim- to be popular music when it ceased to Sensibility ing was so progressive or free? Since jazz be primarily dance music, then what did in Jazz prided itself on the originality of its great it mean to be art music?6 Was jazz now soloists, the questions by the end of the mood music used for background, wheth- 1960s were: Had originality and virtuosi- er for romance or for film? If jazz artists ty reached its limits in this form of music? in the 1960s were striving to be literally as Was there anything new to be mined? Was noisy as possible, with ever-increasing ex- jazz, like so-called classical music, which perimentation with dissonance, atonali- many felt faced the same problem, dead to ty, and, ultimately, electronics, then sure- its own future, condemned to mere virtu- ly many jazz musicians did not wish their osic variations of its past? Jazz could con- music to be relegated to the background. tinue to produce styles and forms of mu- But inasmuch as it aspired to art, jazz was sical fusions, its own type of artistic sec- increasingly becoming an art form that tarianism matching the sectarian fury of was no longer relevant. Protestantism, but had the music reached As philosopher Theodor Adorno has an endpoint? Protestantism had not really pointed out, one of jazz’s strongest claims come up with any concept better than the as the music of the twentieth century Trinity; was jazz going to come up with was that it was modern, even that it de- anything better than Parker, Ellington, or fined the sound, the aesthetic of moder- Louis Armstrong? nity. Jazz was, above all else, the sound of As pianist Paul Bley put it in 1974, “If the new. After all, it was jazz musicians, you accept the fact that everything left to record companies, and critics who used be done has been done and been done well, terms like “progressive jazz” and “mod- then in terms of improvising in the jazz id- ern jazz” to characterize how current, iom, there are only a few little corners that how much in the vanguard, certain styles were overlooked that are still workable.”3 of jazz after World War II were supposed What were these “few little corners”? to be. But with the rise of rock music and The second aspect of the crisis facing its various offshoots, jazz could no longer jazz was social obsolescence. Was the make that claim of being the most pro- music still relevant to the audiences that gressive or modern contemporary music. made jazz matter in the past? The answer Rock, with its electronic and amplified in- was not quite no–there were still students strumentation, its anarchist pretensions, and counterculture, antibourgeois-yet- its blatant sexuality, was not only literal- affluent types who enjoyed it–but cer- ly a bigger noise than jazz, but it was also tainly jazz was tending toward being an far more exciting as a performance art, art form that was no longer popular, par- as a visual spectacle. Moreover, as rock– ticularly with large swaths of the young.4 with performers like the Beatles and Bob Indeed, the fact that jazz was considered Dylan–moved away from being a teen art music at all posed a problem for a mu- dance music (or a dance music at all), it sic that had once been played by dance began to challenge jazz on its own turf bands and enjoyed a period of astonish- as a listening music. In short, by the late ing popularity during the big band era.5 1960s, jazz was not, for many, the music Swing music may have been a distortion, of the modern, although it was still try- an aberration, a mistake. Was jazz not ing very hard to be that. As audiences for supposed to be popular music? Was it not jazz shrank and venues for playing jazz

68 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences disappeared, the question arose: Who that jazz’s attempt at “the reconciliation of Gerald needs jazz? art music and music for common use [Geb- Early Like other forms of popular music, jazz rauchsmusik], of consumability and ‘class,’ has long had an internal conflict over com- of closeness to the source and up-to-date mercialism. Ardent fans and many jazz success, of discipline and freedom, of pro- musicians across eras have complained duction and reproduction” was never hon- about commercialism ruining the authen- est.7 In other words, jazz’s attempt at being ticity or essence of jazz, although there has a synthesis of both popular entertainment always been disagreement over what ex- and high art always made it inauthentic as actly made jazz authentic or true to itself. a form of music. Jazz musicians would not Jazz has had various schools of adherents: have expressed it in this way at the end of some believe that true jazz is Dixieland or the 1960s, but it was something that many New Orleans style; others favor swing and of them may have intuitively or subcon- the big band era; while others prefer be- sciously felt. Was jazz reaching its limits bop or cool or soul jazz or the avant-garde. because it was too ambitious in trying to For those who believe that jazz’s authen- be for both the masses and the elite? Was it ticity rests in a particular era or style, the inherently fraudulent and overly self-con- rest of jazz is simply noise or, worse still, scious in what it had to offer as art? a kind of declension or even decadence. At this moment of identity turbulence But even as jazz feared the corrupting forc- and philosophical self-examination, es of the market, it desired the social and against the backdrop of a supercharged economic relevance that the market could consumer society, one of the major jazz bring to the music. Jazz musicians wanted musicians to emerge was Keith Jarrett, not just cult fans but a broadly appreciative whose presence offered solutions to the audience, people who could understand crisis as well as another set of conflicts. and enjoy the music for its own sake. This led many older jazz musicians to denigrate To be sure, authenticity in jazz was al- rock as technically inferior, inauthentic ways tied to race. Is jazz black/African music and, of course, to dismiss the taste American music? The obvious answer of the audiences who preferred rock and would be an emphatic yes. Black Amer- teen pop music. If jazz could not keep a siz- ican musicians, from Louis Armstrong able audience, it wanted to keep its status. and Duke Ellington to Charlie Parker and The fact that jazz was undeniably superi- Miles Davis, have been the major inno- or in a technical sense to rock and teen pop vators in this art form. Black Americans music was, for many jazz musicians, a sign conceived this music and it grew direct- of jazz’s authenticity as music and its wor- ly out of their culture. On the other hand, thiness as an artistic endeavor. the first jazz recording, made in 1916, was The success of rock music in the 1960s “Livery Stable Blues” by the Original exposed the unstable foundation of con- Dixieland Jazz Band, a white band. Paul tradictions upon which jazz was built and Whiteman’s band, one of the most influ- its long struggle to reconcile these con- ential in the history of American music and tradictions: jazz wanted to be accessible a great purveyor of jazz, was a white band. to the market in its immediacy and ap- In fact, one could write a credible stylis- peal and yet transcend the market in its tic history of jazz from its beginnings to technical complexity and moral superi- the 1960s spotlighting only its major white ority as uncompromised music. Adorno performers: the New Orleans Rhythm summed up this problem when he wrote Kings, Paul Whiteman, Bix Beiderbecke,

148 (2) Spring 2019 69 Keith Jarrett, Frankie Trumbauer, Eddie Condon, June life.9 For most of the music’s history, au- Miscegenation Christy, Mildred Bailey, Joe Venuti, Djan- diences considered the jazz listening ex- & the Rise of European go Reinhardt, Eddie Lang, Harry James, perience as essentially anti-intellectual. Sensibility Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Artie In fairness, people generally come to in Jazz Shaw, Stan Kenton, Bill Holman, Char- nearly all forms of music as an anti-intel- lie Barnett, Woody Herman, Gene Krupa, lectual, highly personal, and nonrational Chris Connor, Lennie Tristano, Stéphane experience, but for much of the audi- Grappelli, Jimmy Giuffre, Chet Baker, ence that jazz attracted, jazz intensified Bud Shank, Dave Brubeck, George Shear- these feelings. African American culture, ing, Stan Getz, Paul Desmond, Lee Konitz, which many people, white and black, saw Louie Bellson, Lee Konitz, Shelly Manne, as being more instinctual than intellectu- Shorty Rogers, Bob Brookmeyer, Jim Hall, al, had to be the true source for jazz as an Gerry Mulligan, Buddy Rich, Gary Bur- aesthetic expression. Whites were simply ton, Ran Blake, Zoot Sims, Dodo Marma- too intellectual and too inhibited, “too rosa, Bill Evans, Chick Corea, Helen Mer- tight-assed,” as the expression goes, to be rill, Carla Bley, and Steve Swallow, among really good jazz players. others. Indeed, whites have always made By the 1960s, considerable racial tension up a significant portion of jazz’s audience, began to emerge in jazz circles, sparked by often the majority of the audience (a com- the civil rights movement and the grow- mon observation made today), and whites ing militancy of African Americans. Black have always played this music. It can, in musicians, who felt that the music indus- fact, be safely said that probably more try had shortchanged them and awarded whites have played this music than blacks, white musicians the lion’s share of fame simply because there are many more and money, began to promote actively the whites in the United States than blacks. idea that they were superior to white play- (Certainly, during the swing era, there is ers, that the whites were interlopers, inau- no question that there were more white thentic, fakes–the greatest perpetrators than black swing bands.) One could argue of art forgery in the history of Western art. that the roots of jazz are just as much in In addition, some jazz venues began to fa- marching band music, American musical vor black musicians, or were thought to, theater, American vaudeville music, and because audiences believed black players Jewish Klezmer music as they are in Afri- were hipper. White critics and many white can American culture. But while this argu- musicians claimed reverse discrimination, ment could credibly be made, it is not like- Crow Jim, as it was designated, adumbrat- ly that anyone in jazz criticism or scholar- ing the same charge that would be brought ship circles these days would make it.8 against affirmative action in the 1970s and It has been, however, a common belief 1980s, although in this case it was not be- among both black and white musicians ing made as a question of the black musi- that blacks were the best players, the most cians being less qualified but rather that authentic. Whites, at least some of them, the music should not be politicized in this may have been superior musicians tech- way.10 Jazz, in other words, should be col- nically, but blacks played with more soul, orblind: ironically, another kind of myth more feeling, with more rhythm–so most that has attached itself to this music over people thought–because blacks were the years in addition to the idea that a jazz more authentically in touch with their performance symbolizes democracy in its feelings and emotions, had fewer of the structure and organization. These liber- hang-ups of civilized, white, bourgeois al pieties only made racial conflict in the

70 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences music in the 1960s more fraught. Eventu- Keith Jarrett would become the sym- Gerald ally, many white critics were denounced bol of European support for a new vision Early by some of the younger, more militant of a mixed-race or racially transcendent black jazz musicians as writers who did jazz because he himself seemed so racial- not understand jazz or black people. ly miscegenated, as a player and as a pres- This tension, often displayed on the pag- ence. Many listeners and even fellow mu- es of DownBeat, the leading American mag- sicians thought Jarrett was black or bira- azine on jazz, did two things: First, the racial, which, in the United States, amounts cial rift underscored the sense, especial- to about the same thing. Jarrett wore his ly for young whites, that jazz was mired wiry hair as an afro, although this alone in the past, fighting the last war. The jazz was not what convinced people like sax- that would become the most attractive for ophonist Ornette Coleman and arrang- young audiences in the 1970s would not be er Quincy Jones that Jarrett was black.11 It black jazz or white jazz but integrated jazz, was not uncommon for some white men for which Keith Jarrett would become an in the late 1960s and early 1970s to wear important symbol. Second, the racial riff their hair puffed out like an afro. For in- underscored for black and white musi- stance, Goldy McJohn, the keyboard play- cians what most of them already believed, er for the famous 1960s rock band Step- in different ways: that Europe was more re- penwolf, styled his hair in this way, as did ceptive to and appreciative of jazz because Magic Dick, the harmonica player for the Europe was a less racially hostile environ- J. Geils Band, another noted rock group of ment; Europe was where an integrated the period. But Jarrett was also known for jazz could take form. Since the 1920s, black his gospel-inflected melodies, which ap- musicians have traveled to Europe to find peared to add substance to assumptions that they were much more respected than that he was black. Jarrett’s playing has al- in the United States, and that jazz seemed ways been highly rhythmic; indeed, in more highly regarded. Black American some reviews of Jarrett’s classical mu- male musicians were also able to more eas- sic recordings in a leading classical mu- ily enjoy interracial sex. White musicians, sic magazine, Jarrett’s rhythmic panache too, thought jazz was more respected in is duly noted, even highlighted.12 Final- Europe, with more enthusiastic audienc- ly, Jarrett was (and is) an animated per- es. Europeans seemed much more amena- former: crouching, bending, standing, ble to listening to challenging instrumen- and gesticulating while he played, accent- tal music, much more willing to accept jazz ing his playing, and even filling the silenc- as a significant art form. That Europe was es, with his moaning and expressive vocal- the political and intellectual place of origin izations.13 (Classical pianist Glenn Gould of philosophical racism, scientific racism, and jazz pianist Errol Garner were known and colonialism, of the idea of the superi- to hum or occasionally vocalize along ority of European culture, of the mythol- with their playing but not nearly to the ogy of so-called classical music, yet could extent that Jarrett does.) These tenden- be so seemingly broad-minded about the cies seemed histrionic to some, but they presence of African American musicians also fit with stereotypes of black perform- and about jazz, could exhibit such excep- ers “feeling more” of the music, becoming tionalism in its acceptance of racial and ar- possessed by the nonintellectual or spiri- tistic diversity in this regard, is a puzzling tual aspects of the music. In other words, contradiction, the exploration of which is Jarrett might be said, to use an old-fash- beyond the scope of this essay. ioned jazz phrase, “to be getting hot”

148 (2) Spring 2019 71 Keith Jarrett, when he started gyrating and moaning. leading figures in the jazz-rock revolu- Miscegenation It clearly made Jarrett distinctive, wheth- tion of the 1970s. Another was Hungar- & the Rise of European er one liked the gyrations and groans. This ian guitarist Gabor Szabo, whose tunes Sensibility combination of factors probably led many “Gypsy 66” and “Lady Gabor” would be- in Jazz of his peers and many in his audiences, come popular among college and hip high especially during the early days of his ca- school students of the period, both black reer, to think that he was black. and white. But the Hamilton band member who developed the largest youth- The most obvious way for jazz to avoid ful audience was saxophonist and flutist becoming a marginal music was to appeal Charles Lloyd, who wrote “Forest Flow- to the young. And despite losing a good er” for Hamilton, but made it wildly pop- share of its audience in the 1960s, it must ular with his own band’s recording in be remembered, first, that jazz was still be- the late 1960s. Lloyd’s band played not ing played on the radio at this time; sec- only in jazz venues but rock palaces like ond, that jazz was still being featured in the Fillmore West and the Fillmore East. movie and television soundtracks; and Trumpeter Miles Davis noticed Lloyd’s third, that jazz was still capable of pro- success when his band shared a bill with ducing commercial hits like pianist Vince Lloyd’s at the Village Gate in 1967: “Man, Guaraldi’s “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” the place was packed,” Davis wrote in his Ramsey Lewis’s “The In Crowd,” Jim- autobiography.14 Lloyd became extreme- my Smith’s version of “Walk on the ly popular in Europe as well as the United Wild Side,” Eddie Harris’s “Listen Here,” States. His band, for instance, was among Richard “Groove” Holmes’s version of the first to play in the Soviet Union. Most “Misty,” Hugh Masekela’s “Up, Up, and important, Lloyd’s quartet featured pia- Away,” and Herbie Hancock’s “Watermel- nist Keith Jarrett. Charles Lloyd was black on Man,” to name only a few. These jazz and Keith Jarrett was white, although he hits were enjoyed not only by adults on re- did not quite seem white; and both men cord and on jazz radio stations, but also by were young, playing jazz music that did young people who heard them played on not seem exactly black or white–just top 40 or pop radio, then the main source hip and modern (yet accessible). Jarrett’s of music for young people in the United work with Lloyd was a kind of marriage States and parts of Western Europe. of sensibilities that made it possible for There were also certain jazz bands that Jarrett to become a change agent for jazz appealed to teenagers who thought of and for how Europe would influence jazz. themselves as particularly hip. Among About the future of jazz, Paul Bley pre- those bands were the mid-1960s ensem- dicted in 1974 that “in terms of what im- bles of black West Coast drummer Chico provisation is going to be about, there is Hamilton. Hamilton, who had led an inno other place for it to go, except to elec- tegrated “cool” jazz quintet in the 1950s tronics.”15 No jazz musician of the period that featured a cellist, was always inter- was more associated with electronics and ested in being cutting edge. (The cool particularly the sound of rock, the music quintet was featured significantly in the most associated with electronic instru- 1957 filmSweet Smell of Success, starring ments, than trumpeter Miles Davis, who Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster.) Among Chico Hamilton called “jazz’s only super- the young players featured in Hamilton’s star.”16 Beginning in the late 1960s, Da- 1960s bands was electric guitarist Larry vis introduced electronic instruments in Coryell, who would become one of the his recordings, at first, just an electronic

72 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences piano or electric guitar. But soon, with al- both the sound and the reception of Hen- Gerald bums like In a Silent Way (1969) and Bitches drix’s band changed when he replaced Early Brew (1970), the latter the most commer- Mitchell and Redding with Buddy Miles cially successfully record Davis would re- and Billy Cox, both black. White players lease after Kind of Blue, Davis was employ- like McLaughlin, Jarrett, Zawinul, Corea, ing several electric keyboardists, an elec- Dave Holland, Mike Stern, Dave Liebman, tric guitarist, and an electric bass player. and Steve Grossman all played jazz-rock Eventually, Davis would amplify his with Davis. trumpet as well. Davis had become the fa- The fact that Davis’s jazz-rock bands ther of the jazz-rock movement, regularly featured gifted young white players made playing rock venues with bands featuring it seem that much more cutting edge, a new generation of international musi- while also making it even easier for Da- cians of racially diverse backgrounds invis to cross over to young white rock fans. terested in electronics and rock. Davis had already associated with white Among those players was Keith Jarrett, musicians at critical points in his career: whose stay with Davis in the early 1970s his Birth of the Cool recordings in the late was not very long: less than a year be- 1940s made use of mostly white bands; tween 1970 and 1971. Davis had been after his collaborations with arranger Gil Evans Jarrett to join his band for some time. “The produced some of his most impressive or- main reason I joined the band was that I chestral albums; and his relationship with didn’t like the band. I liked what Miles was pianist Bill Evans was central to one of the playing very much and I hated the rest of most famous albums in post–World War the band playing together,” Jarrett said in II American jazz, Kind of Blue in 1959. an interview in 1974, a few years after he left Davis.17 Davis’s band spawned most It was out of this moment of crisis, of the major jazz-rock groups of the peri- change, and opportunity that Keith Jar- od: Chick Corea’s Return to Forever, Her- rett emerged as a star. But unlike his Da- bie Hancock’s Headhunters, Weather Re- vis bandmates, he would renounce elec- port with Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter, tronic instruments and would avoid the the Mahavishnu Orchestra with John Mc- jazz-rock movement entirely. On his ear- Laughlin, and Tony Williams’s Lifetime. ly opposition to electric music, Jarrett Williams, McLaughlin, Shorter, Zawinul, explained, Hancock, and Corea all played with Da- vis during the late 1960s and early 1970s. It’s not going to change because for me it’s At the time, everyone thought electronic the answer. It may not apply to somebody music was the way of the future and that else, although I could go into the philosoph- rock was the best vehicle not only to use ical aspects of it and make it almost an ob- electronic instruments but to make jazz jective argument whereby playing electric modern again by attracting young people music is bad for you and bad for people lis- with the sound young people liked. But tening, which I do believe. I don’t feel any Davis’s various bands of this period were strong emotional thing about electric mu- modern also because they were integrat- sic being offensive, and I am certainly not ed. Remember how startling and edgy was afraid of electric instruments because I the debut of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, think there’s something unknown and vast a trio with two white English musicians, about them. I don’t think they’re any more vast than a flute, but they give you the feeling drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel 18 Redding. And remember how significantly that you’re dealing with something vast.

148 (2) Spring 2019 73 Keith Jarrett, Jarrett distinguished himself in the rat- record of his career–Jarrett was recog- Miscegenation tle and hum of jazz-rock and amplified nized in DownBeat’s 1974 annual critics & the Rise of European jazz by becoming the rather petulant pa- poll as the best pianist in jazz. Elsewhere Sensibility tron saint of acoustic jazz music as con- in the music press, because of his impact in Jazz cert art music. as a player, a composer, and a bandleader, Between 1971, when Jarrett recorded he was compared to a young Duke Elling- his first solo piano record,Facing You, for ton. There was no question that to a large the European record label ecm, and 1976, swath of young jazz fans, or more precise- when Bop-Be, nearly the last of his record- ly, young music fans, since many of his ar- ings for Impulse! Records, an American dent admirers were rock devotees, Jarrett label, came out, Jarrett released about was a genius. Many jazz critics, and espe- twenty-five albums on four different la- cially the younger ones, agreed. But not bels–Atlantic, Impulse!, Columbia, and all of Jarrett’s peers were impressed: pi- ecm–a staggeringly prolific rate of pro- anist Horace Silver, in a DownBeat “blind- duction, averaging over four albums a fold test” (a feature in which established year, some of them multi-record sets.19 musicians give their reactions to record- What is even more astonishing is that ings played for them, without being told Jarrett performed his own compositions, who the performers are), did not like the improvised or written, for nearly all of Paul Bley solo piano tune that was played these records. At this stage in his career, for him, thinking it was Keith Jarrett.22 Jarrett rarely, if ever, performed or re- And in an interview, pianist Oscar Peter- corded jazz standards, either tunes from son refused to place Jarrett among the top the Great American Songbook or origi- three young jazz pianists currently on the nals by other jazz musicians.20 Normal- scene. Peterson strongly preferred Herbie ly, no musician would put out this much Hancock over Jarrett.23 I believe it was pi- product in such a short period of time for anist Joe Zawinul, a key member of Miles fear of flooding the market and overexpo- Davis’s early electric bands, a leading sure. But Jarrett had such a legion of fans, proponent of jazz fusion, and who per- and the recordings were so various–solo sonally and professionally lived a highly piano, piano-drum duets, piano trio, pia- miscegenated life, who thought Jarrett’s no quartet, orchestral pieces of “serious anti-electronic music position was reac- music,” pipe organ solos–that Jarrett’s tionary. A younger pianist, Anthony Da- followers were scarcely satisfied. Not all vis, himself highly regarded at the time, of his fans liked everything he recorded found Jarrett imitative and superficial.24 –some of the records are a lot more accessible than others–but his fans were There is no question that it was Jarrett’s certain of the importance of everything recordings with ecm during this period he recorded. Rather than alienate his au- that shaped his reputation and his career. dience, this variety actually enhanced ecm not only made Jarrett a crossover star Jarrett’s standing as a significant artist. with a huge following in Europe–initial- DownBeat’s review of his “serious music” ly, ecm records were more easily accessi- album In the Light (1973) compared Jarrett ble in Europe than in the United States– as a composer to Beethoven.21 Even be- but also established Jarrett as an Ameri- fore the 1975 release of Jarrett’s impro- can jazz star with a European sensibility. vised solo piano recital The Köln Concert– It would be hard to call many of Jarrett’s which would become the most commer- ecm records “jazz” in our conventional cially popular and critically celebrated understanding of that term. If by jazz we

74 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences mean music that “swings,” music that has of jazz without swing was pianist Bill Gerald a driving 4/4 pulse, a groove, something Evans, whose impact can be traced to one Early akin to the big band music of Count Basie recording: a six-and-a-half minute solo or a bebop-oriented small group like Art piano improvisation called “Peace Piece.” Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, or something Evans recorded “Peace Piece” in 1958 like Ahmad Jamal’s or John Bunch’s mu- for his album Everybody Digs Bill Evans, one sic, then much of Jarrett’s ecm output of year before joining Miles Davis to record the period was not jazz. If swing was the “Kind of Blue,” whose closing track “Fla- major characteristic that blacks brought menco Sketches” was heavily influenced to jazz, then the above examples would by Evans’s composition. “Peace Piece,” have to be considered black jazz, whether which came about as Evans was rehears- played by black or white musicians. And ing to play the Comden and Green tune Jarrett was more than capable of playing “Some Other Time,” does not swing at all. this sort of straight-ahead jazz. He had, It is, in fact, quite static, using the open- in fact, done a stint with Art Blakey’s Jazz ing chords of “Some Other Time” as a re- Messengers, and his American recordings petitive figure over which Evans impro- with Impulse! and Atlantic were closer to vises. If there is any single piece of music standard jazz or the experimental music that could be used as a possible source for associated with the black avant-garde as Jarrett’s solo concerts it would be “Peace Jarrett was deeply influenced by Ornette Piece.” Evans, who was quite capable of Coleman. (Two of Coleman’s sidemen, playing swinging piano and frequently bassist Charlie Haden and saxophonist did, became a highly influential pianist, Dewey Redman, played in Jarrett’s Im- particularly among white jazz musicians; pulse! bands.) in fact, during the 1960s, some avant- But more than any other single jazz art- garde black jazz musicians like saxophonist, Jarret legitimized a so-called jazz sound ist Archie Shepp harshly criticized Evans or type of improvisational music that did as simply being a derivative of Debussy, not swing. Jarrett surely did not create an beloved by white critics because his art interest among musicians for jazz without music influences validated critics’ own swing: as early as the 1920s there was con- Eurocentric cultural assumptions.25 In siderable passion on the part of serious Eu- the New Age music that arose in the late ropean composers as well as some Ameri- 1970s and early 1980s, largely inspired by can jazz players, both black and white, to Jarrett’s solo concerts, “Peace Piece” be- create a symphonic jazz. After World War came something of an anthem, record- II, the Third Stream movement, led by ed, for instance, by popular New Age pi- musicians like Gunther Schuller and pianist Liz Story, among others. (Jarrett anist John Lewis, who formed the Mod- also became an icon for something called ern Jazz Quartet in the early 1950s and de- “folk” piano whose leading practitioners voted that all-black band to many Third are George Winston and Ken Burns docu- Stream efforts, renewed attempts to mar- mentary film scorer Jacqueline Schwab.) ry jazz and classical music. Stan Kenton ecm sold and popularized this sound and many white musicians on the West through its hundreds of recordings of Coast in the 1950s were quite devoted to musicians, mostly European and most- highly experimental forms of jazz, blend- ly white–from American guitarist Ralph ing improvisation with modern atonal Towner to English saxophonist John Sur- Western art music. But probably the single man to German bassist Eberhard Weber most important figure in the movement to Israeli pianist Anat Fort–who do not

148 (2) Spring 2019 75 Keith Jarrett, swing. Jarrett, as a kind of miscegenated took the shape of long blocks of uninter- Miscegenation presence, in effect legitimated white jazz rupted playing, sometimes punctuated by & the Rise of European as something that does not swing but that moments of dissonance and atonal mod- Sensibility is just as much jazz as its black counter- ernism, but usually quite accessible with in Jazz part.26 The fact that there was such ambi- attractive and melodic (in a strangely guity about Jarrett’s race and that he per- old-fashioned way) folk- and gospel-like formed this type of music through a Eu- themes bubbling up in Jarrett’s current of ropean record company may have had sound. Jarrett was stunningly capable of much to do with his success. There was combining the modern with the nostalgic, something about this music coming from perhaps better than any other performer Europe that gave it a certain gravitas and in jazz, what was referred to in the 1970s something about this music coming from as Jarrett’s “homesick lyricism.”29 To someone whom many people thought young audiences, the solo concerts sound- was black. ed fresh, highly rhythmic, and poignant, Jarrett’s solo piano concerts are the with a visibly agitated young person play- most important and the most popular re- ing the piano as if possessed by his own cordings of his ecm output, and The Köln music. With the solo concerts, Jarrett be- Concert is the milestone. It has sold about came, in many respects, a sort of jazz-like four million copies, more than any oth- version of Franz Liszt. Jarrett played with er recording of solo piano music of any such brio that no one could accuse jazz- type. Musicologist and musician Peter without-swing of being feckless.30 Elsdon has written an entire book on The Köln Concert, and I refer you to it for de- Jarrett’s solo concerts did three things that tails about the recording’s importance in significantly changed our understanding the history of both American and Europe- of jazz: Jarrett made jazz-without-swing an music.27 The work has clearly been sug- a legitimate force in jazz performance, a gestive to me and some of the assertions movement in European jazz that made Eu- I have made in this essay. The Köln Concert ropean jazz a force in the global jazz mar- was the follow-up to Jarrett’s highly ac- ket starting in the 1970s. Second, Jarrett claimed Solo Concerts: Bremen/Lausanne, made solo piano playing commercially vi- a three-record set spanning two concerts able by showing that there was a consider- released in 1973. The Köln Concert was fol- able audience for it. Many jazz musicians lowed by a ten-record set of solo perfor- shied away from solo jazz recordings ei- mances from Japan released in 1978 called ther because they felt uncomfortable play- The Sun Bear Concerts, which despite its ing without the support of other players cost, indeed, the sheer audacity of releas- or because they thought the public con- ing ten records of solo piano playing, be- sidered such recordings “dinner music.” came a bestseller. When the set was re- (Bassist Charles Mingus put out the solo leased, Rolling Stone, in the illustration ac- piano record Mingus Plays Piano in 1963 be- companying its review, pictured Jarrett as cause he felt more jazz pianists should be Mozart. (Ironically, the review itself was playing solo piano as a test of their inge- largely negative.)28 Jarrett’s solo concerts nuity and stamina. “All I can say is that if have changed over time, but the general a bass player can attempt what I’ve done content is the same: with no preconceived here, by myself, some of the other musi- notions or ideas, Jarrett simply improvises cians who are full-time pianists ought to music. In the solo recordings of the 1970s at least consider practicing more,” Min- and 1980s, these improvisations usually gus said about this recording.)31 Jarrett

76 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences proved that the public was willing to take of authenticity coupled with the notion of Gerald such records seriously and, as a result, privilege. Was being white an advantage Early the record companies flooded the market for Jarrett that explains his success? Did with solo piano records, some good, many Jarrett wind up reaffirming jazz as a white bad. The advantage for the record compa- music? Is Jarrett somehow fraudulent be- ny was that solo piano records were cheap cause he is white? Did Jarrett become to make. They required only a competent self-conscious of his race as Marsalis grew pianist and a well-tuned piano. But the rise in popularity and was acclaimed the savior of the solo piano record in the 1970s and of jazz in the 1980s and 1990s, which led 1980s also did much to turn young jazz au- to his conflicts with the trumpeter? (Both diences away from electronic instruments Marsalis and Jarrett would be accused of and jazz-rock and to accept jazz as an being reactionaries, of misunderstanding acoustic art, much in same way audienc- what jazz represented. Jarrett, in the 1970s es accepted classical music. This occurred at least, wanted jazz performance to have before trumpeter Wynton Marsalis came the aura of classical music and the classical on the scene as a major force; he is often music experience; Marsalis wanted jazz and I think wrongly given credit for this music itself to be considered classical mu- turn in jazz music.32 If anything, Marsalis sic: for Ellington, Armstrong, and Parker was following the retromodernist move- to be the equivalents of Mozart, Bach, and ment that Jarrett had started. Third, Jar- Brahms and for their music to be endlessly rett made the marriage between classical honored and performed. Jarrett was a syn- and jazz more viable than had any other thesizer; Marsalis a consolidator and can- jazz musician before him: not by trying to on builder. For those who disliked either blend classical and jazz in his playing and of these approaches, jazz was contrarily a composing, although he did do this with tradition and that impulse that abhors tra- varying measures of success, but by mar- dition. Jazz does not seek middle-class re- rying jazz and classical music together as spectability; it is essentially something a seamless, common sensibility of acous- oppositional to the middle class.) tic art. Jarrett gave jazz a true feeling of The question I posed at the start of this being concert hall music, not simply be- essay–“Who needs jazz?”–returns in cause it was being played in a concert hall, the end. Jazz might be defined as an in- but because of the stature of the perform- strumental music characterized by signif- er and the sacred act of his performance. icant moments of improvisation, that is In short, Jarrett did much to solidify jazz’s not attempting to be recognizably com- reputation as, to use an old-fashioned mercial, that a sizable segment of the pub- term, a middlebrow art that validated lic and the critics feel is emotionally excit- both the middlebrow critics and audienc- ing enough to offer new and fresh ways to es who adored him. It was jazz that made engage music itself and our own identities. you feel good and listening to it was ele- But who made the music, how we see that vating, good for you. Jarrett momentari- person in relation to the social and politi- ly solved some issues pressing jazz in the cal contexts of our time, is equally impor- late 1960s, but ultimately, because he was tant. Jarrett, in the 1970s, made a number of white, he could not become jazz’s hero or people “need” jazz in how he approached redeemer. He did not intentionally pose as making piano, or in a larger sense, key- a black, but once his audience came to rec- board music. (In some respects, his suc- ognize his whiteness in the late 1970s, he cess may have been possible, in part, be- had in some ways reinscribed the problem cause he played the piano, an instrument

148 (2) Spring 2019 77 Keith Jarrett, that has a special, mythologized place in of whites to find their way into jazz and Miscegenation Western art-making.) Inasmuch as Jar- their place in it without imitating blacks. & the Rise of European rett’s audience became devotees, listen- But of course this is all complicated by Sensibility ing to his music, particularly the solo con- the fact that he sometimes sounded like a in Jazz certs, as if they were a religious experi- black player and that he was, for a time, ence, something transcendent, Jarrett be- thought to be black. Nonetheless, Jarrett came both a preacher and a therapist.33 the American validated Europe through As Elsdon points out, Jarrett made jazz a his jazz. Drummer Chico Hamilton once truly trans-Atlantic phenomenon, open- said, “There is virtually nothing new ing new and young audiences throughout about music. We are still playing the Eu- Europe to the music.34 But perhaps Jar- ropean School.”35 Jarrett’s approach to rett did something more. He made a Eu- jazz may remind us that we Americans, ropean-sounding jazz something hip and both black and white, despite our inde- even profound for audiences. Perhaps he pendence, never really, for good and for made it easier for a considerable segment ill, escaped Europe after all.

endnotes 1 Squabbling is an approach to organ playing using Errol Garner’s piano technique. 2 See Albert Murray and John F. Callahan, eds., Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Elli- son and Albert Murray (New York: The Modern Library, 2000). “I finally saw that Chico Hamilton with his mannerisms and that poor, evil, lost little Miles Da- vis, who on this occasion sounded like he just couldn’t get it together. Nor did Coltrane help with his badly executed velocity exercises. These cats have gotten lost, man. They’re trying to get hold to something by fucking up the blues, but some of them don’t even know the difference between a blues and a spiritual–as was the case of Horace Silver who went wanging away like a slightly drunken gospel group after announcing a blues. . . . Taste was an item conspicuously missing from most of the performances, once again I could see that there’s simply nothing worse than a half-educated Mose unless it’s a Mose jazz-modernist who’s convinced himself that he’s a genius, maybe the next Beethoven, or at least Bartok, and who’s certain that he’s the only Mose jazzman who had heard the classics or attended a conservatory. . . . These little fellows are scrambling around trying to get something new; Duke is the master of a bunch of masters and when the little boys hear him come on they know that they’ll never be more than a bunch of little masturbators and they don’t want to think about it.” Ellison’s letter to Murray on attending the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, ibid., 193–194 (emphasis Ellison). “By and large, I’m afraid that too many of these cats, some of whom have real potential, get so carried away with being modern and experimental and serious that they not only forget what jazz is they don’t even remember what music is supposed to do anymore. . . . Anyway, Duke and Count are still the bands to hear these days. They have assimilated about as much of the so-called Modern as will probably last anyway, and they still have the old identity and the old drive. A master is a goddamned master, man. It’s just as true now as it ever was: when you start fucking around with that goddamned Duke Ellington, you’re subject to have yourself a new asshole cut.” Murray’s letter to Ellison, ibid., 155. Ellison’s dislike of the modernist and progressive turn in jazz after World War II and his distrust of sociology explains why he so disparagingly reviewed poet/playwright/critic LeRoi Jones’s study of black music, Blues People (1963) in Ralph Ellison, “Blues People,” in Shadow and Act (New York: Vintage, 1965), 247–258. Jones was a modernist and his book was highly sociological. 3 “Focus on Paul Bley,” DownBeat, January 1974. 4 Jazz’s biggest breakthrough with the young during the 1960s was not with college students or young adults but rather with children through the success of jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi’s

78 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences soundtracks for the Charlie Brown (Peanuts) television specials, starting with A Charlie Brown Gerald Christmas in 1965. See Gerald Early, “How Innocence Became Cool: Vince Guaraldi, Peanuts, Early and How Jazz Momentarily Captured Childhood,” in The Peanuts Papers: Charlie Brown, Snoopy & the Gang, and the Meaning of Life, ed. Andrew Blauner (New York: Library of America, Fall 2019). 5 Standard histories of jazz discuss this transformation at length; one important study devoted entirely to the transformation itself is Paul Lopes, The Rise of a Jazz Art World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), esp. chap. 4 and 5. 6 Note that big bands like Ellington’s, Count Basie’s, Woody Herman’s, and others still played dance gigs well into the 1960s. For instance, in the 1964 film, The Pleasure Seekers, Count Basie’s band is featured playing dance music for young swingers. Get Yourself a College Girl (1964) features college students dancing to a jazz band. And Cal Tjader’s band performs to a dancing audience in the 1968 filmFor Singles Only. There are several other such moments in films of the 1960s. 7 Theodor W. Adorno, “Farewell to Jazz,” in Essays on Music, ed. Richard Leppert, trans. Susan H. Gillespie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 498. “The elements of jazz in which immediacy seems to be present, the seemingly improvisational moments–of which syncopation is designated as its elemental form–are added in their naked externality to the standardized commodity character in order to mask it–without, however, gaining power over it for a second. Through its intentions, whether that of appealing to an elevated ‘style,’ individual taste, or even individual spontaneity, jazz wants to improve its marketability and veil its own commodity character which, in keeping with one of the fundamental contradic- tions of the system, would jeopardize its own success if it were to appear on the market un- disguised.” Theodor W. Adorno, “On Jazz,” in Essays on Music, 473. 8 A book on the history of the white jazz musician has been written. Richard M. Sudhalter, Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contributions to Jazz, 1915–1945 (New York: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 1999). It is a worthy study, although the subject matter deserved a more coherent, better edited narrative. 9 Noted novelist Ralph Ellison, who was also a jazz critic and had ambitions as a youth of becoming a professional musician and composer, said this about the creative relationship of black and white musicians as he understood them growing up in the Midwest in the 1920s: “This argument about who did what and who influenced whom imposes racial consider- ations which don’t belong to discussions of culture. In those days when a musician was learning his instrument and trying to develop his own style he listened to any musician who had something to offer, who excited him; they weren’t fighting the race problem but assim- ilating styles and techniques. The Ellington sidemen interviewed by Stanley Dance mention a number of white jazzmen who influenced their styles. It was the music, the style, the ability to execute that was important. If a white musician sounded good; if he had the facility with his instrument you took what you could use–just as they took what they could use from us. Jazz is Afro-American in origin, but it’s more American than some folks want to admit.” Ron Welburn, “Ralph Ellison’s Territorial Vantage,” in Conversations with Ralph Ellison, ed. Maryemma Graham and Amritjit Singh (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995), 310. 10 Pianist Bill Evans, one of the most noted white musicians of this period, had this response to the suggestion of jazz being black music in a 1976 DownBeat interview: “There’s a sense of the hurt child in the people who want to make this only a black music. They haven’t had much so they want to make jazz 100% black. Historically, I suppose, the black impetus was primarily responsible for the growth of jazz, but if a white jazz artist comes through, it’s just another human being who has grown up loving jazz and playing jazz and can contribute to jazz. It’s sad because all that attitude does is to turn that prejudicial thing right around. It makes me a bit angry. I want more responsibility among black people and black musicians to be accurate and to be spiritually intelligent about humanity. Let the historians sort out whether it’s 67.2 percent black influenced or 97 percent. To say only black people can play jazz is just as dangerous as saying only white people are intelligent or anything else like that.”

148 (2) Spring 2019 79 Keith Jarrett, When pressed by the interviewer who clarified that he meant to ask about whether blacks Miscegenation were the true innovators in jazz, Evans continued: & the Rise of European “An innovator. That’s even more ridiculous. . . . But to say only black musicians can be inno- Sensibility vative is so utterly ridiculous I can hardly consider the question. To be a human being is to in Jazz have creative potential, and where this is realized is a matter of what a person commits himself to and is dedicated to. White, yellow, black, green or whatever, a person who loves and dedicates himself to jazz music can be creative, depending on his talent and commitment.” Len Lyons, “New Intuitions: Bill Evans,” DownBeat, March 1976, 36. Needless to say, these remarks were controversial at the time (which is why DownBeat’s editor used some of them as pull quotes) and, if anything, would be more controversial today. But this underscores as well that the ambiguity surrounding Jarrett’s race was helpful to Jar- rett until this ambiguity was largely cleared up by the 1990s, particularly when Jarrett’s feud with trumpeter Wynton Marsalis became something of an item in jazz circles. The racial di- mensions of that feud were immediately apparent. See Gerald Early, “White Noise and White Knights: Some Thoughts on Race, Jazz, and the White Jazz Musician,” in Jazz: A History of America’s Music, ed. Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns (New York: Alfred Knopf, 2000), 324–331. That essay juxtaposed bandleader Stan Kenton and Jarrett as two particular white career possibilities in jazz: one who absolutely refuses to “go native” in defense of whiteness in jazz and the other who “goes native” in a way that seems to transcend race. 11 For Ornette Coleman’s belief that Jarrett is black, see “Interview with Jazz Pianist Keith Jar- rett,” Fresh Air with Terry Gross, September 11, 2000. Quincy Jones expressed his belief that Jarrett is black in a conversation he had with me in May 2008 during the occasion of his visit to Washington University in St. Louis to receive a honorary degree. Two near-contemporaries of Jarrett’s–guitarist Kenny Burrell and saxophonist Jackie Mc- Lean–represented racial ambiguity of another sort: they were light-skinned African Amer- icans who could have passed for white but who identified as black and played almost exclu- sively with black musicians and in a style that audiences considered black. I remember some of my black childhood friends thinking that these musicians were white and being informed in no uncertain terms by the black adults around us that they were not. Jarrett has played with black musicians during his career but has not gone out of his way to do so. In the three regular working bands he has had over his career–the American quartet, the European quartet, and the “Standards Trio”–two of the musicians were black: drummer Jack DeJohnette and saxophonist Dewey Redman. Jarrett also never identified himself as “going native” as did Austrian pianist Joe Zawinul, who made a point of saying in interviews in the 1970s that he was interracially married, that he had biracial children, that he enjoyed being around black people and black musicians, and that he enjoyed being mistaken for being black. “When I was with Cannonball’s [Adder- ley] band, I stayed in this one house in Florida with this little old [black] lady about 75. And she never knew that I wasn’t black. I always had a tan and looked kinda funny, you know– ‘That light-skinned boy sure is nice!’” Quoted in Conrad Silvert, “Joe Zawinul: Wayfaring Genius,” DownBeat, June 1978. Also see, Conrad Silvert, “Joe Zawinul: Wayfaring Genius, Part II,” DownBeat, June 1978; and Ray Townley, “The Mysterious Travellings of an Austrian Mogul,” DownBeat, January 1975. Jarrett was never interracially married, nor ever presented himself as an insider among blacks. Therefore, the belief that he was black was based solely on his appearance and the charisma of his piano playing. In this regard, it can be said that those who believed him to be black, wanted him to be black. By the way, in photographer Valerie Wilmer’s The Face of Black Music (New York: Da Capo Press, 1976), a collection of her photos of black musicians, is a photo of Jarrett performing in a recording studio. The book has no page numbers but the photo is opposed one of saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and appears toward the end of the book. Surely, it was instances such as this that led many people to think that Jarrett was black. 12 See a review of Keith Jarrett’s recording of Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2,” Gramo- phone, September 1991; and “Collection: Bach’s Goldberg Variations,” Gramophone, October

80 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 1996, which features brief comments on Jarrett’s recording of the Variations. On the whole, Gerald Jarrett’s classical recordings have generally been well-reviewed in classical music publications Early like Gramophone. The most scathing attack against Jarrett in Gramophone appeared in a review of a solo recording by American composer and improviser Alvin Curran in which the reviewer called the solo performances for which Jarrett had become famous “anaemic [sic] vamps and arpeggios with which [he has] managed to persuade gullible audiences he was touching the divine when, in fact, he was manipulatively deploying melodic hooks and tried-and-tested harmonic sequences all designed to push the right emotional buttons.” Gramophone, June 2011. 13 Some of this theatricality may have been Jarrett coming to grips physically with the piano. Bill Evans notes: “The piano is very mechanical and you’re separated from it physically. You can only control it by touching it, striking it, and pushing a key down. Playing a wind or a stringed instrument is so much more expressive and so much more vocal because of its contact with the player.” Lyons, “New Intuitions.” 14 Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe, Miles: The Autobiography (New York: Touchstone Books, 1990), 291. 15 “Focus on Paul Bley,” DownBeat, January 1974. 16 Gregg Hall, “Miles: Today’s Most Influential Contemporary Musician,” DownBeat, July 1974. 17 Bob Palmer, “The Inner Octaves of Keith Jarrett,” DownBeat, October 1974. 18 Ibid. 19 For Impulse!, see Fort Yawuh (1973), Backhand (1974), Death and the Flower (1974), Treasure Is- land (1974), Shades (1975), Mysteries (1975), Byablue (1976), and Bop-Be (1976). For Columbia, see Expectations (1972). For Atlantic, see Birth (1971), The Mourning of a Star (1971), and El Juicio (1971). For ecm, see Facing You (1971), Ruta and Daitya (1971), Solo Concerts: Bremen/ Lausanne (1973), In the Light (1973), Belonging (1974), The Köln Concert (1975), Luminessence (1975), Arbour Zena (1975), The Survivors’ Suite (1976), Staircase (1976), Eyes of the Heart (1976), Hymns/Spheres (1976), and Sun Bear Concerts (1976). Another point to be made about this den- sity of recording activity is the idea of repeatability, which Peter Elsdon writes about in his book, Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). In particular, Elsdon explores questions of Jarrett’s repeating musical ideas in connection with the The Köln Concert’s “myth,” if you will, of being pure spontaneous originality. Jarrett would claim in his liner notes to Bremen/Lausanne that nothing is ever repeated in his solo concerts. And certainly in the first eight or so years of his recording career, virtually nothing was repeated on any of his records, as if he were intent on building a reputation as a musician whose output was like one big live concert, or whose mind was so fertile that he did not return to anything, so wondrous was his nonrepeatability. Of course, the truth about the solo concerts was that material, particularly in the encores, was repeated. Also, Jarrett’s solo performance as a concept developed a sound, a style, and a set of habits that became repeatable. If one listens to Jarrett’s solo concerts over the course of his career, certain types of figures, chords, and rhythms are used over and over; in some instances, he comes perilously close to playing something he played before. His own limits and inclinations, and his preferences and avoid- ances dictate this as they would for any musician. 20 The fact that Jarrett did not perform the traditional jazz repertoire at this time does not mean that he did not know it. “During his time as a bar-room pianist in Boston in the 1960s, Jarrett had learned as many songs as possible, and had built up a large repertoire of standard tunes.” Ian Carr, Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music (New York: Da Capo, 1992), 145. 21 “I think the direction that Jarrett has taken is as revolutionary as the one Beethoven introduced.” “Review of In the Light,” DownBeat, May 1974. 22 “Blindfold Test: Horace Silver,” DownBeat, February 1975. 23 Len Lyons, “Oscar Peterson: Piano Worship,” DownBeat, December 1975. 24 Francis Davis, “Anthony Davis: New Music Traditionalist,” DownBeat, January 1982.

148 (2) Spring 2019 81 Keith Jarrett, 25 For more on black musicians, especially Charles Mingus and Shepp, and their battles with Miscegenation the white critical establishment of jazz, see Eric Porter, What is this Thing Called Jazz? African & the Rise of American Musicians as Artists, Critics, and Activists (Berkeley: University of California Press, European 2002), esp. chap. 3 and 5. Sensibility in Jazz 26 Consider this remark by Joe Zawinul that endorses the mythology of the superiority of the hybrid: “Did you know there was a lot of African influence on Europe, classical music, in the old days? I mean Beethoven was a half-breed, you know. Friedrich Gulda told me this, and he’s one of the great Beethoven interpreters. He said it is proven that Beethoven’s grandfa- ther was a blackman [sic] from Africa. And Beethoven was also Germanic. This mixture is what makes it.” Ray Townley, “Joe Zawinul: The Mysterious Travelings of an Austrian Mo- gul,” DownBeat, January 1975. 27 Elsdon, Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert. 28 Bob Blumenthal, “Keith Jarrett’s Ego Trip: Ten lps!” Rolling Stone, March 1979. “Actually, the pianist’s claim that music flows of its own will through his black receptiveness is just another variation on the New Narcissism.” 29 There has always been an element of nostalgia associated with Jarrett’s music by marketers. Consider, for instance, the cover and title of his early trio album, Somewhere Before (1968), which features tunes called “New Rag” and “Old Rag,” and where the group played occasionally like an old-fashioned jazz band. On the album El Juicio (recorded 1971, released 1975), there is an old-styled-like performance called “Pardon My Rags.” On the 2007 album My Foolish Heart, Jarrett’s trio performs two Fats Waller’s songs, “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Hon- eysuckle Rose,” almost as a parody of a swing-era small combo. 30 Early on, some critics challenged Jarrett’s claim that the solo concerts were something experimental in jazz or contemporary music: “And what was so experimental about a pianist giving a recital? It could be the fact that classical pianists do not usually improvise but interpret somebody else’s music, and jazz pianists almost never play solo (i.e. without rhythm accompaniment) for an entire evening. The experimental quality of [Jarrett’s] venture fits the first case more readily than the second, for he, at least by virtue of the kind of music he made in the course of the discussed event, rarely answered the description of a jazzman. And once we disassociate him from jazz, we would be permitted to regard him as a generously endowed musician who revives the lost art of ‘classical’ improvisation–one that could have come about some hundred years ago.” Ilhan Mima- rogly, “Keith Jarrett Mercer Arts Center, New York City,” DownBeat, January 1973. 31 Nat Hentoff, liner notes to Charles Mingus, Mingus Plays Piano, Impulse!, 1963. 32 The other musician, a contemporary of Jarrett, who was important in the turn from electronics and rock, was pianist McCoy Tyner, who recorded extensively during the 1970s.Tyner made his name as a member of saxophonist John Coltrane’s band in the 1960s and Coltrane himself was probably the most lionized and influential jazz musician of the 1960s. Interest- ingly, Tyner won more DownBeat readers’ polls and critics’ polls in the 1970s as “Best Pianist” than Jarrett did. He also won more of these polls during this decade for “Jazzman of the Year” than Jarrett. Jarrett’s thoughts in the 1970s on Coltrane’s importance are noteworthy: “One thing I can say is that Coltrane’s influence after he died was very negative, mostly because he couldn’t control it any more. He didn’t intend there to be a big gap, he intended that there be more space for everyone to do what they should do. That’s what his music represents to me, that there is a much greater potential than anyone thought before for a human being and an instrument.” Bob Palmer, “The Inner Octaves of Keith Jarrett,” DownBeat, October 1974. 33 See Neil Leonard, Jazz: Myth and Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987) for his discussion of the cult-nature of various schools or approaches to jazz and how the successful jazz performer often speaks with the authority and charisma of a shaman. See also the classic study, Phil- ip Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith after Freud (New York: Harper & Row, 1966). 34 Elsdon, Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert, chap. 1 and 2. 35 “Youthful Time: An Interview with Chico Hamilton,” DownBeat, March 1971. 82 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Ella Fitzgerald & “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” Berlin 1968: Paying Homage to & Signifying on Soul Music

Judith Tick

Abstract:“If you don’t learn new songs, you’re lost,” Ella Fitzgerald told The New York Times in 1967. This essay is a close reading of one performance of “I Can’t Stop Loving You” she gave at a concert in Berlin on February 11, 1968. The song, which had already become a global hit through a version by Ray Charles in 1962, turned into a vehicle through which Fitzgerald signified on “Soulsville,” or soul, a black popular style then sweeping the American music scene. References to Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” and Vernon Duke’s “I Can’t Get Started With You” are examples of the interpolations included here. The essay challenges the idea that the late 1960s were a fallow period in Fitzgerald’s career by highlighting the jazz techniques she used to transform one song into a self-revelatory theatrical tour de force.

This essay depends upon a virtual community of semianonymous uploaders who have Web-posted Ella Fitzgerald’s Berlin 1968 concert in its entirety. Held on February 11, 1968, at the Deutschlandhalle, a roughly nine-thousand-seat arena in the Amer- ican sector of Berlin–a divided city in a divided country–the concert was televised by and broadcast on West-German public television. As of Feb- judith tick, a Fellow of the ruary 2019, the YouTube clips of the concert have American Academy since 2004, 1 is the Matthews Distinguished been viewed a combined 240,000 times. University Professor Emerita of Berlin 1968 challenges the idea that the late Music History at Northeastern 1960s were a fallow period for Fitzgerald’s artistic University. She is the author of achievement, a period in which her albums com- Ruth Crawford Seeger: A Composer’s promised her art to accommodate new trends in Search for American Music (1997) American popular music. It offers living proof, so and Women Making Music: The to speak, that she had much to say about the po- Western Art Tradition, 1150–1950 (1987) and editor of Music in the tential interactions between pop and jazz and that USA: A Documentary Companion old categories of “commercial” versus “authentic” (2008). She is currently writing a cannot grapple with the individuality of her ap- biography of Ella Fitzgerald. proaches. To be sure, she acknowledged her own

83 Ella Fitzgerald receptivity to contemporary pop: “If you we hope you enjoy them as much as we & “I Can’t Stop don’t learn new songs, you’re lost,” she enjoy trying to sing them. The new rock Loving You,” Berlin 1968 told an interviewer in 1967. and soul.” That was how Fitzgerald intro- Unless you sing today’s songs, all there is duced one of her earliest forays into sig- is the standards, the old show tunes. What nifying on soul music on June 30, 1967, new show tunes are there? “Hello, Dol- in Oakland, California. This impor ly”? It has that old beat, it’s an old type tant concert in her own history marked song. Can you think of anything else that’s the last official appearance of Norman come off Broadway? Or out of the movies? Granz’s touring ensemble, Jazz at the Would the average kid want to sing “The Philharmonic, her home base for jazz Shadow of Your Smile”? It’s an old type from around 1949 through 1957, which song. No matter where we play, we have made its farewell trek through the Unit- some of the younger generation coming to ed States that spring along with Duke El- the club. It’s a drag if you don’t have any- lington and Oscar Peterson. thing to offer them.2 Who would have expected, as one of her last numbers, that a bop version of “I Can’t Stop Loving You” was not ex- Duke Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing actly a “new song” in 1968, but Fitzgerald’s (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” would shift subversive interpretations reaffirmed the gears and proclaim, “It Don’t Mean a verse of a swing song she had recorded Thing If It Ain’t Got That Soul”? Was with Chick Webb in 1939: “’Tain’t What she capitulating to its market suprema- You Do (It’s The Way That Cha Do It).” cy while demonstrating her mastery of “This is not the Ella I know,” remarked a competitive singing style? Hardly. In- one attendee at the 2014 Boston Universi- stead, she was exposing the gulf between ty conference on “African-American Mu- two kinds of vocality: the vernacular ver- sic in World Culture,” upon viewing the sus the cultivated voice, a dialectic run- 1968 performance of “I Can’t Stop Loving ning through American music history You.”3 She and others in the audience ex- overall.4 As has often been (over)stat- pressed surprise at the sensuality on dis- ed, rock and soul disdained convention- play and the singer’s use of soul music as a al “prettiness,” proclaiming authenticity vehicle for irony and self-exposure. through vernacular ties. In contrast, mid- In this essay, I argue for recogniz- century popular music, honed on theater ing the productive creativity that came songs from Broadway musicals and stan- from Fitzgerald’s involvement with soul dards from Tin Pan Alley, embraced sonic through a close reading of this one per- ideals of beauty and tone. That said, what formance. While there are other exam- matters here is the way Fitzgerald, whose ples, her ten-minute excursion at Berlin repertory was so identified with what 1968 was a particular tour de force: such a we now call “The Great American Song- work of theater that it makes the case for book,” exploited this sonic opposition. Fitzgerald’s relationship to the pop music The straight version of the tune could of her time as inspiration for self-revela- not have been more sophisticated main- tion and innovation. Two precedents be- stream jazz, beginning with her own scat- fore Berlin 1968 shape the frame. ting and then turning into a display piece for hard-charging solos from each mem- “ We’d like to, and it’s all in fun, ladies ber of the background trio: Jimmy Jones and gentlemen, we’d like to give you our on piano, Bob Cranshaw on bass, and interpretations of the new sounds, and Sam Woodyard on drums. As she bent

84 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences the lyrics, she recast her vocal style, min- was on the bill that evening. The audi- Judith gling enough “wha whas” to evoke Janis ence in Oakland, which drew on its large Tick Joplin’s version of Big Mama Thornton’s African American population, and young blues song, “Ball and Chain,” and emu- people from nearby Berkeley, its cam- lating the expressionistic screams and pus of the University of California a cen- wails of James Brown. She threw in the ter for student activism and pop aware- phrase about keeping the faith then as- ness, adored the parody version and had sociated in particular with Adam Clayton to be stilled. Post applause, whistles, and Powell’s unsuccessful bid for retention as cheers, she announced: “We’re so glad a congressman (after having been ejected you enjoyed that. We’d like you to know from the House a few months earlier), as we enjoy soul, too.” well as with the fervor of the civil rights and black power movements. A few months later Fitzgerald ventured deeper into contemporary black popu- You’d better believe, you’d better wha wha lar music, again referencing soul, making wha wha wha, it explicit before a very different, most- It makes no difference, [under her breath] ly white audience at a concert at the New to James Brown, if it’s sweet or hot, York Philharmonic Hall in November 1967.6 After singing the title song from You’d better keep the faith, baby, keep the the musical “On a Clear Day You Can See faith, baby, and everything will be alright, Forever” (praised by New York Times critic I tell you, it don’t mean a thing if you ain’t John Rockwell for its “lines of pure sound” got no soul, daddy. and “melting beauty”), she prefaced her I couldn’t beat ’em, baby, that’s why I join performance of “I Can’t Stop Loving You” ’em. with a shout-out to what she called Souls- ville. Rockwell labeled it a “boisterous ex- Even the lyrics demonstrate Fitzgerald’s cursion.” Too bad no tape from this con- ease in signifying. As a theorized aesthet- cert is known to this author to hear what ic, signifying now enjoys such wide cur- “boisterous” meant that evening. rency in many kinds of cultural produc- Choosing “I Can’t Stop Loving You” as a tion (having expanded its purview from vehicle was a shrewd but unusual choice. its original home in folklore and literary By the time she sang it, the song techni- criticism) that for the purposes of my ar- cally did not qualify as a new song. On the gument, we need only clarify its relation- contrary, it was a standard. Originating ship to black vernacular music by quoting as a country music hit (as debuted by its the music historian Samuel Floyd as he composer Don Gibson in 1958), its poten- references Henry Louis Gates: signifying tial was tapped in 1962 when Ray Charles is a process, practiced through “the trans- brilliantly reinterpreted it through gospel formation of pre-existing musical mate- idioms. Introduced on his album, Mod- rial by trifling with it, teasing it, or cen- ern Sounds in Country and Western Music, suring it . . . demonstrating respect for or Charles catapulted the song into one of poking fun . . . through parody, pastiche, the top 10 “Hits of the World,” popular implication, indirection, humor, tone in Britain, Belgium, Chile, Ireland, Hol- play or word play.”5 These techniques land, and Spain in the summer of 1962.7 were employed here by Fitzgerald in her It had even been covered in German by version of Ellington’s signature tune, es- the Yugoslavian singer Ivo Robic, whose pecially wicked since the Duke himself version, titled “Ein Ganzes Leben Lang

148 (2) Spring 2019 85 Ella Fitzgerald (A Whole Life Long),” made the German “Respect” became an anthem of inter- & “I Can’t Stop top 20 as of September 29, 1962.8 By the sectionality, in which both gender and Loving You,” Berlin 1968 late 1960s, the song had already been cov- race shaped its reception, reaching black ered by about fifty pop singers and sever- and white women, both within and sepa- al jazz musicians, including Count Basie rate from the women’s liberation move- (for whom its arranger Quincy Jones won ment coalescing at that time. Well aware his first Grammy) and Duke Ellington. of Aretha Franklin, whom she had met as Now it was her turn to explore the mean- a young girl at her home in Chicago, Fitz- ing of Soulsville at a time when it was no gerald used “I Can’t Stop Loving You” as longer contained by Ray Charles’s genre a way to express competition, admira- of rhythm and blues and was expanding tion, and ambivalence about the success to accommodate the impact of a new su- of an artist used by a white reporter to re- perstar, Aretha Franklin, who amassed define “authenticity” and parcel out vo- a collection of million-record sellers in cal “blackness” in a cover story for Time 1967 and 1968. Framed as Ray Charles’s magazine.11 Fitzgerald was mainly con- legacy and female counterpart in an Ebo- cerned about the vocality of soul more ny magazine article by Phyl Garland, one than politics. Her signifying in Berlin 1968 of the few African American female jour- expanded beyond the casual references in nalists of the era, Franklin represented the Oakland concert to a display of com- another generation of soul, a new elabo- petition between two ways of singing, the ration growing out of gospel and rhythm whole lit up with the electricity of a duel, and blues in ways that reflected the 1960s a struggle taking place internally and ex- environment of political and cultural ac- ternally all at once. Otherwise, there is no tivism.9 accounting for what happens in it: trans- Although soul was still a relatively new gressive stage behavior that flouts proto- trade-music category in the mid-1960s, col about the claims of the audience on a it had a long reach, understood as both performer’s priority, excursions into text racialized vocality and a code word for quotations that reference other singers, a new movement within black culture a breathtaking “confession” about her with political implications. Summing up own artistic priorities, abandoning the a style that has generated a huge scholar- trio midstream, and ending with an ob- ly literature at this point, far beyond the scure personal reference. These elements needs of this essay, we need only recall defy terms like scat or improvisation, and how soul is typically defined as a fusion of I am making the claim here that “theater rhythm and blues with gospel idioms as piece” is a reasonable substitute for the fi- well as a state of political and social con- nal product. sciousness drawing its strength from civil rights activism of the era.10 When Are- 0:00–0:53: Introduction.12 “I Can’t Stop tha Franklin entered the arena of soul, an Loving You” appeared at the end of the audience from two intertwined move- long concert in Berlin on February 11, ments–the sexual revolution of the 1968, near the start of her month-long Eu- 1960s and the “women’s liberation,” or ropean tour. Fitzgerald had brought with women’s rights, movement (which lat- her the chart made by Marty Paich, one er became known as second-wave fem- of her favorite Hollywood arrangers, and inism)–came in her wake. As it crossed its mood set the tone from the beginning. over from the black world into the white With the Tee Carson Trio (Donald Car- charts, by 1970, Franklin’s version of son on piano, Keter Betts on bass, and Joe

86 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Harris on drums) playing Paich’s spoof Fitzgerald takes on self-justifying resent- Judith of burlesque music, Fitzgerald sashays ment: “I know someone someone some- Tick on the stage, twirling her signature hand- one someone told you a lie, what a lie” kerchief like a prop. She begins unac- she sings, as if an outsider has betrayed companied, unfurling a long melisma on her. The hapless lover in Ray Charles’s “I.” Then an uncharacteristic bit of com- treatment affirming loyal nostalgia yields ic byplay flouts the contract between per- to a far more assertive woman living not former and audience when she stops dead just with loss but with recriminations in and looks around as if she has told a pri- the classic manner of an old genre. vate joke rather than gifted us with a mes- 5:06–6:30: A “Text Jam.” Enter Aretha merizing musical moment. Back on focus, Franklin and “Respect.” Before finish- she shouts out the destination of our jour- ing a third go-round of the tune, Fitzger- ney: “Soulsville!” decorated with a ner- ald stops the drummer, disrupts the lyr- vous giggle. Delivering an inaudible aside ics, and launches an extended pastiche of to the pianist, who then doubles over with phrases linked by the subject of roman- laughter, she shares an inside joke with tic loss and pain. She refers implicitly to the musicians in full view of the audience. Aretha Franklin to launch the text jam. Thus, ambivalence is launched with in- In 1967, Franklin had recorded the two side/outside, person/persona in the mix. songs referred to here: “Do You Love a Hearing Fitzgerald luxuriate in the Man” and “Respect.” “Respect,” Fitzger- song itself with her voice at its prime in ald says. “Sock it to me. Give it to me all a straightforward delivery for five min- night long,” Fitzgerald says, with a half- utes–longer than any commercial release smile in her voice, hollering, swooping of a pop song–it is clear that if she is going through chanting, moaning and shaking to live in Soulsville, it will be in a mansion. in gospel testifying. She trifles with sex- As the drummer enthusiastically beats out ual innuendo and then retrieves the word solid rhythm and blues, “officially” get- “respect” as a serious demand for dignity. ting things going, Fitzgerald exercises her Have you ever loved a man like I’ve loved my full powers at a very slow tempo, savor- man? You know how I feel this morning. ing the passionate “earthiness” that Are- tha Franklin once associated with soul. All I want is respect. In the morning, in the Bending pitches, elongating particular evening, give it to me all night long, give me words, shifting dynamics, moving ahead respect. or behind the beat, and belting out the lyr- I’m gonna tell it like it is this morning. I’m ics, she is hardly “covering” Ray Charles. gonna tell everything, everything I know, He employed strings, which highlighted yeah yeah yeah yeah. his own gravelly rhythm and blues voice, You got a man, I got a man, she’s got a man as well as a backup vocal group to evoke that’s true. the call and response of gospel; his pre- meditated pitch alterations, calibrated to We’re gonna talk about our man, we talk sound natural, display the control he exer- about him, yes we do. 13 cised in the recording studio. Do we love him? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. (3x) 4:19–5:03. Fitzgerald alters the nar- Early in the morning, all we gotta do is rative from a male to a female point of reach on the pillow, tears on my pillow, all view through various techniques to turn night long. I’ll be crying, yeah. it into a torch song. Although the mood of the original song celebrates nostalgia, Alright OK, you win.

148 (2) Spring 2019 87 Ella Fitzgerald Other allusions follow as well, coming doesn’t work unless the performance flows & “I Can’t Stop at us in fleeting moments. Among them in that manner–when it does then the per- Loving You,” Berlin 1968 are the Beatles’ “Do You Love Me,” Joe son transitions to a different rhythmic vo- Williams and Count Basie’s “Alright OK, cal style.15 You Win,” and “Tears on My Pillow,” a rhythm and blues song popularized by Fitzgerald adopts rhetorical strategies Little Anthony and the Imperials. “Tell It of preaching, such as inserting dialogue Like It Is” became an iconic cultural sig- through questions–“Do we love him?”– nifier in the mid-1960s as well. It meant asking congregants to answer and affirm black pride, authenticity, and candor their willing participation. To bind the about social justice and discrimination as many sources into a unified experience, well as personal truth-telling. she signifies on that dialogic approach. This textual mash-up of grammatically Alternative vocal styles compete in this unrelated phrases is what I call a text jam. play-off performance. Shifting from one Precedence for this terminology comes to the other, she acts out her own inter- from its musical counterpart: the term nal debates, showing that she too can vocal jam, which appeared in a jazz mag- sing with soul attitude, if she wished, and azine in 1946, when Fitzgerald’s famous make it her own. At least for a while. improvisations on “Oh! Lady Be Good” 6:30–7:10: “This Ain’t My Bag.” The debuted in live performance.14 Second, most startling moment in “I Can’t Stop the improvisation reflects Fitzgerald’s Loving You” breaks the mood of testify- practice of interpolating quotations and ing at the moment of return to the origi- borrowing riffs from contemporary im- nal. Fitzgerald drops the preacher’s robes provisations by instrumentalists and she from her shoulder. As if waking from a transfers it here to words alone, drawing self-induced trance, Fitzgerald confess- the listener in through vibrant and comes in a normal street voice–startling to pelling free association. hear from the stage through a micro- What a jumble! The text jam works be- phone–“this ain’t my bag.” She has bro- cause Fitzgerald adopts the persona of an ken the fourth wall, a theatrical term for African American preacher. Music histo- the imaginary barrier between audience rian Tammy Kernodle has noted that, and actor, becoming the truth-teller with the audience bearing witness. Her rev- She’s engaging in something we call in elation of an internal debate stops the Black Church culture “testifying.” What action, as she displays her “bag” as the she is doing is rooted in the Pentecos- canon of American popular song, what tal church. The improvisatory nature of we now call the “Great American Song- her talking about her experiences in this book.” Instead of “I Can’t Stop Loving way, would have been read by audiences You,” she sings “I Can’t Get Started With as “the Holy Spirit” taking over. She stops You,” written by Vernon Duke with lyrics the drummer because he’s hampering her by Ira Gershwin. Shifting vocal personas, “flow.” In the church a good musician she croons the opening of this classic 1936 would know how to vamp with the singer pop song. After we have heard Fitzger- to provide the right rhythmic and harmon- ald’s offstage speaking voice, we hear her ic space for her vocal and harmonic impro- singing voice projecting the kind of mate- visations to flow. It’s obvious that he’s sim- rial most closely identified with her suc- ply trying to “recreate” what he thinks is cess. Has all of the preceding amounted the Pentecostal “shout” beat. It is but that to little more than a comic simulacrum,

88 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences a persona, a mask adopted in pursuit of a street-voice riposte: “There is silence.” Judith musical adventure? Is she now “telling it Just as she is signifying, so now the audi- Tick like it is?” ence signify on themselves by clapping The question is left hanging. By this their complicity. Years of experience in time, her backup trio has given up try- African American vaudeville in the 1930s ing to follow the singer-turned-runaway- and 1940s as well as years of touring stand vehicle and they sit back and wait. behind this bravado. How challenging to Can’t help lovin that man. talk your way in and out of this performative conundrum. Thus improvising her Do you love your man (2x) [Preaching to interactions, Fitzgerald mocks the trope audience with rhetorical question] of the loyal female encapsulated in the [Speaking] There was a silence. rhetorical question, “Do you love your man?” expressing her own brand of idio- [Audience laughs at itself and applauds.] syncratic feminism. She follows this with Well, well, we can’t do without ’em. We a few seconds of vocal parody of classical can’t do without ’em, we can’t do with- opera. out ’em, yeah, let’s tell it [synchronizing For a moment, it appears as if the text a pitch with the piano, laughing] I don’t jam might be a turn-around moment on think I’d better preach no more. the way to an ending. Enough, perhaps. Oh no, no, no. Instead, the singer has one more equally radical surprise. “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man”–anoth- Oh, I feel this morning er song title with “can’t” in it–by Jerome Kern from the musical Show Boat (1927) Yes signals a new happening. Persisting in her I can’t stop bemused quest to turn a Berlin audience I can’t stop, stop into an African American congregation, Fitzgerald behaves again like a preacher, I wanna talk about my man, yeah calling out her audience to respond. She I wanna preach about my man, yeah thrusts the microphone into the faces of Oh [holler style] front-row folks, asking one woman after another: “Do you love your man?” It Oh [moaning style] is a mock question, a virtual paraphrase Cuz I’m the woman with the little skinny of “Do you love Jesus?” Who in this re- legs spectable white, middle-class Berlin au- Yeah yeah, cuz I’m the woman with the lit- dience would reply? Reaching out to her tle skinny legs audience as an evangelical, she talks to Germans sitting in the first row as if they Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, oh no, alright. were needing to confess, waiting to be I can’t stop loving you. saved. It is a bit of stage humor signifying on both the fourth wall and on the rhetor- You. You. ical strategies of evangelical preachers. She moves from preaching to testify- But not for long. Again, a dramatic sub- ing, delivering her own interrogation of versive moment disrupts this flow. Posi- her own identity. Interpolating a long tioning herself in the fluid relationship of moan on the word “Oh,” coming straight a stand-up entertainer more than preach- out of nineteenth-century African Amer- er, Fitzgerald laughs and delivers another ican vocality, she transforms herself into

148 (2) Spring 2019 89 Ella Fitzgerald a paradoxical smiling testifier, speaking performance along the way. On May 19, & “I Can’t Stop private code with the phrase, “I’m the 1968, she brought it to the Cave, a supper Loving You,” Berlin 1968 woman with the little skinny legs.” We club in Vancouver, where she is backed are in the muddle of another paradox, lis- by the club orchestra using Marty Paich’s tening to a peculiar, potentially autobi- arrangement. “Here we are at the Cave ographical text as delivered with insid- and I’m preachin’ and moanin’. Treat er irony and sharing backward glances at me like a woman, not a lady. Tell it to the the band. “They know what I am talking Judge. Sock it to me.” Then come two about,” she projects. Maybe so. And it verses from “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” doesn’t matter if the audience is in on it. Without any reference to her “bag,” the She has taken flight from convention. audience gets the message. Aretha Frank- The back story to this particular line re- lin’s “Respect” is sublimated through al- trieves a memory from her troubled past lusions to a comedy show called “Laugh- as a young girl. One clarifying bit of tes- In” and a shout-out to a vaudeville ste- timony can be found in an interview con- reotype of the “Judge” being revived: ducted by Essence magazine. There she Pigmeat Markham, a legendary sketch said in response to a question about her comic in black vaudeville from the 1920s early years, “I used to go to a theater on through the 1940s, who, in 1928, invented 148th Street [in Harlem] all the time. I’ll the sketch that included the line “Heah never forget. My legs were so skinny, I comes de judge.”17 used to wear boots so nobody could see Two other high-profile performances the bottom of my legs. They would see me of “I Can’t Stop Loving You” occurred coming, and they’d say, ‘Oh, here’s that around this time as well. A dull version little chick with them boots on.’”16 With on her television special “An Evening the confidence to display her own lack of with Ella Fitzgerald” was followed by a it decades earlier, Fitzgerald proudly as- treatment running about six minutes on serts her stature in the present. As she June 1972, as she brought the song to Nor- bears witness to her own past, she trans- man Granz’s concert in Santa Monica, lates memory into improvisation on the which was intended to launch his jazz la- spot. This is soul singing by signifying bel, Pablo Records. Welcoming her old on her own life. She winds up this per- friend back into the flow and backed by formance with the refrain from the orig- the Count Basie Orchestra in the Paich inal song, but at this point it is almost be- arrangement, she displayed total comfort side the point. The process has triumphed with her inventive soul singing, punch- over the material, making the experience ing out her text repetitions and deliver- more important than the song. ing a healthy shout or two. Just at the moment when her testifying was supposed Other performances of “I Can’t Stop to start, she interjected an ironic com- Loving You” in the late 1960s and ear- ment and then resurrected a blues lyric: ly 1970s demonstrated her changing re- “Whee, Can you hear me screaming this lationship with the material at the same evening? I can’t stop, I can’t stop. I got a time she privileged it in her repertoire. In guy, he lives on a hill. If he don’t, some- three other publicly available versions, body else will. He’s my main squeeze, we watch a theater piece shrink and re- Right on!” Thunderous applause. Beauti- turn to the genre of soul jazz, keeping ful. “I Can’t Stop Loving You” had served some improvisational text in play and its purpose. adapting to the venue and purpose of the

90 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences endnotes Judith Tick 1 Thejazzsingers Jazz in Holland, “Ella Fitzgerald in Concert in Berlin 1968 Parts 1–5,” YouTube, uploaded February 4, 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejbtlXoWaZU; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLQJ_xEpWO0; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v =zw3QfSXy0ME; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_U6rkq8gQg; and https://www .youtube.com/watch?v=Y1NLBpZkGLY. 2 John S. Wilson, “Ella Changes Her Tunes for a Swinging Generation,” The New York Times, November 12, 1967. 3 This conference was sponsored by the Department of African American Studies at Boston University and organized by Professor Allison Blakely. “African American Music in World Culture: Art as a Refuge & Strength in the Struggle for Freedom,” Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, March 17–22, 2014. 4 For the classic statement of these terms, see H. Wiley Hitchcock, Music in the United States: A Historical Introduction, 1st ed. (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969). 5 Henry Louis Gates Jr., The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, [1988] 2014), cited in Samuel A. Floyd Jr., The Power of Black Music: Interpreting Its History from Africa to the United States (New York: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 1996), 8. 6 She included not only “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” but also other black pop classics, including “Sunny,” a mellow ballad, and “Goin’ Out of My Head.” John S. Wilson, “Philharmonic Hall Sold Out, Naturally, For Ella Fitzgerald,” The New York Times, November 23, 1967. 7 “Hits of the World,” Billboard Music Weekly, August 25, 1962. 8 Jan Torfs, “Jazzfest in Mud Still Draws 35,000,” Billboard Music Weekly, August 25, 1962; and “Hits of the World,” Billboard Music Weekly, September 1962. 9 Phyl Garland, “Aretha Franklin–‘Sister Soul,’” Ebony magazine, October 1967. 10 Mellonee V. Burnim and Portia K. Maultsby, African American Music: An Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2006), 278. 11 “Aretha Franklin: The Sound of Soul,” Time magazine, June 28, 1968. 12 Thejazzsingers Jazz in Holland, “Ella Fitzgerald in Concert Berlin 1968 Part 5,” https://www .youtube.com/watch?v=Y1NLBpZkGLY. 13 Ray Charles Robinson Jr., You Don’t Know Me: Reflections of My Father, Ray Charles (New York: Crown, 2010), 168. 14 Unsigned review, September–October 1946, reprinted in Ron Fritts and Ken Vail, Ella Fitzger- ald, 1935–1948: The Chick Webb Years & Beyond (Lanham, Md.: The Scarecrow Press, 2003), 78. 15 Tammy Kernodle, email to the author, March 12, 2014. 16 Ella Fitzgerald, interview with Essence magazine, as quoted in Jim Haskins, Ella Fitzgerald: A Life through Jazz (London: Holder and Stoughton, 1991), 26. 17 On Markham, see Frank Cullen, Florence Hackman, and Donald McNeilly, Vaudeville, Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America (New York: Routledge, 2007), 724.

148 (2) Spring 2019 91 La La Land Is a Hit, but Is It Good for Jazz?

Krin Gabbard

Abstract: The debates around La La Land (2016) tell us a great deal about the state of jazz today and perhaps even in the near future. Many critics have charged that the film has very little real jazz, while others have emphasized the racial problematics of making the white hero a devout jazz purist while char- acterizing the music of the one prominent African American performer (John Legend) as all glitz and tacky dance moves. And finally, there is the speech in which Seb (Ryan Gosling) blithely announces that “jazz is dead.” But the place of jazz in La La Land makes more sense if we view the film as a response to and celebration of several film musicals, including New York, New York (1977), the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films, and especially Jacques Demy’sThe Young Girls of Rochefort (1967). Both La La Land and Demy’s film connect utopian moments with jazz, and push the boundaries of the classical Hollywood musical in order to celebrate the music.

Damien Chazelle, a serious jazz aficionado since childhood, has made the music central to both the plot and the score of his filmLa La Land (2016). If nothing else, the omnipresence of jazz in a film so widely honored suggests that jazz still has some resonance with audiences. But like almost every other American film that would represent jazz, La La Land runs smack up against racial issues. The film’s appropriation of jazz in the face of the music’s complicated racial histories has driven a backlash against the film.1 Critics objected to the prominence of two white stars in a film about that krin gabbard is an Adjunct uniquely African American cultural practice, jazz. Professor of Jazz Studies at Co- To make matters worse, Keith (John Legend), the lumbia University. He is the au- one important black character in the film, creates thor of Better Git It in Your Soul: commodified pop music and even features tacky An Interpretive Biography of Charles dance routines in his stage shows. Mingus (2016), Hotter than That: Although I found much of the film exhilarating The Trumpet, Jazz, and American Culture (2008), and Black Magic: and moving, I am more than a little uncomfort- White Hollywood and African Amer- able with La La Land’s racial politics. Neverthe- ican Culture (2004) and editor of less, I argue that the film navigates some treacher- Jazz Among the Discourses (1995). ous waters with intelligence and charm and that it

92 ultimately makes a strong case that jazz Chazelle had this scene in mind when ar- Krin does indeed still matter. ranging La La Land’s opening song “An- Gabbard other Day of Sun” to be passed from one Any understanding of La La Land as motorist to another as they step out of a “jazz film” must begin by situating it their cars to sing in the middle of a gigan- within larger traditions. A work of pro- tic traffic jam. found cinephilia, La La Land references A more crucial influence onLa La Land multiple films, most of them in the mu- is the work of the French director Jacques sical comedy genre. But Chazelle does Demy. In interviews, Chazelle regularly more than just quote from classical mu- singles out Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cher- sicals, and he makes no attempt to recre- bourg (1964) as his favorite film. The use ate their aesthetics. As he has said in in- of bold colors for costumes, interiors, and terviews, Chazelle was as devoted to seri- even cityscapes in La La Land recalls the ously representing the emotional lives of look of Demy’s film, as does an emotion- his characters as he was to paying homage ally charged conclusion in which the lov- to American musical cinema. He wanted ers are not reunited. Demy’s The Young Girls “to smash into that old-fashioned mu- of Rochefort (1967) also comes up in Cha- sical logic” by finding magic in the “grit zelle’s interviews. As in Umbrellas, actors and texture” of everyday life.2 sing in a quickly articulated style with a A catalog of the many films and cin- conversational tone, much like the vocals ematic traditions that Chazelle has ad- of French performers Charles Aznavour dressed in La La Land should start with and Jacques Brel. “Another Day of Sun” his joking reference to Frank Tashlin’s features several actors singing in English The Girl Can’t Help It (1956). At the very but imitating the conversational style of beginning of La La Land, the outer edg- the songs in Demy’s films. And like the es of a square space containing the word agile motorists at the beginning of Cha- “Cinemascope” suddenly expand to the zelle’s film, actors seem to spontaneously traditional wide-screen ratio, recalling break into singing and dancing through- the opening scene of Tashlin’s film in out Young Girls. In Umbrellas, of course, no which actor Tom Ewell appears to phys- one ever stops bursting into song. ically push the walls of the image to the The soundtrack of La La Land has much outer edges of the screen. Chazelle has in common with the scores that French claimed another minor bit of inspiration, composer Michel Legrand wrote for De- admitting that “Another Day of Sun,” the my’s films. Justin Hurwitz, who played production number that follows the Cin- in a band with Chazelle when they were emascope gag, was based on the scene teenagers and has composed the music in Rouben Mamoulian’s Love Me Tonight for all four of Chazelle’s films, has talk- (1932) that begins with Maurice Cheva- ed about his borrowings from Legrand’s lier singing “Isn’t It Romantic” in a sim- cinematic compositions. The best example tailor’s shop. Different groups of people may be Legrand’s practice of record- ple hear the song and sing it themselves ing a jazz trio of piano, bass, and drums so that anyone passing by can also pick it in front of a symphony orchestra. The up. Thanks primarily to a singing troupe music behind “Another Day of Sun” is of soldiers marching across the country, an excellent example of how Hurwitz the song is finally passed to Jeanette Mac- has made use of this practice. As a devot- Donald, who gives it her own operatic ined jazz enthusiast, Legrand regularly bor- terpretation from high up in her chateau. rowed from great American traditions.

148 (2) Spring 2019 93 La La Land Chazelle and Hurwitz have paid off that to sacrifice some of the surface sheen of Is a Hit, debt with their own tributes to Legrand. the conventional Hollywood film. So, but Is It Good for when Mia joins Seb at the piano for a Jazz? Chazelle has also mined the rich veins short performance of “City of Stars,” of American musical comedy, especially when Mia briefly sings “Someone in the the well-established trope of soon-to-be Crowd” in a lady’s room, and when Mia lovers transcending early stages of hos- sings her climactic aria, “The Fools Who tility through dance and song. We see Dream,” they are singing in real time and, this in the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rog- as in the dance sequences, without edits. ers filmTop Hat (1935), for which Cha- Although directors can do as many re- zelle has expressed admiration. Chazelle takes as they wish in these situations, has also spoken of his affection for Singin’ the performers take great risks when in the Rain (1952), another film in which they present themselves live and unedit- an attractive couple are joined in song ed. In some ways, Gosling and Stone are and dance before finding romance on the like jazz musicians flying above the music other side of their initial antagonism. In without a net. terms of mise-en-scène, La La Land prom- There are not many examples in cin- inently looks back to Hollywood musi- ema of actors singing in real time, but a cals in “Epilogue,” the long production few that do exist are worth mentioning. number that closes the film and recalls For Pierrot le fou (1965), Jean-Luc God- the stylized, color-drenched scene de- ard recorded Jean-Paul Belmondo and signs for the extended ballet sequences Anna Karina singing outdoors, mak- that conclude An American in Paris (1951) ing sure that their vocals reflected their and The Band Wagon (1953). body movements, including the moment To their credit, Chazelle and actors when Belmondo continues singing as he Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling labored to jumps down from a tree. This is as good create the seamless dance numbers that an example as any of Godard’s project of distinguish many of Hollywood’s classic exposing and problematizing the con- musicals. Compare the extended dance ventions of dominant cinema. In a com- takes of Mia (Stone) and Seb (Gosling) pletely different appropriation of this tra- with the screen performances of Fred dition, Anne Hathaway laboriously tugs Astaire, who insisted on long, unedited at our heart strings when she exudes takes when his dances were filmed. Then “I Dreamed a Dream” live and in tight compare these sequences to the numbers close-up in Les Misérables (2012). in a film such as Rob Marshall’sChicago Robert Altman’s Short Cuts (1993) also (2002), which are cobbled together from deserves mention for one of the most el- numerous shots, few of which last more egant performances ever by a singer- than a second or two. actor. In Short Cuts, Annie Ross plays Tess, La La Land is also distinguished by sev- an older jazz singer with an elaborate ro- eral scenes in which characters actual- mantic history.3 The same description can ly sing as they are being filmed, unlike be applied to Annie Ross herself, but in the vast majority of performers in musi- creating Tess, Ross sings in a lower register cal films who mouth words as they listen and with a sharper attack than when she to playback. Often these words are sup- performs in clubs. She developed a voice plied by someone other than the actor and a singing style that is entirely compat- on screen. Chazelle has said that he likes ible with the character of Tess. Ross’s por- “roughness,” and he is more than willing trayal is even more compelling because

94 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences she sings in real time with her backup musicals like Oklahoma and On the Town Krin band, avoiding the moment in most mu- as “folk musicals,” distinguishing them Gabbard sical films when the actor’s speaking voice from “fairy tale musicals” and “show mu- is unmistakably replaced by a dubbed-in sicals.”5 In the show musical, most of the singing voice. In Short Cuts, Ross separates important numbers happen on stage or in herself from nearly all other singing ac- some venue appropriate to performance, tors who essentially sing as themselves complete with visible musical accompa- when they perform on screen. nists. Examples would include Cabaret Among those critical of La La Land, the (1972) and the Busby Berkeley musicals of most vocal have denounced Emma Stone the 1930s. In the fairy tale musical, a cou- and Ryan Gosling for not being polished ple is united by music as they cross social singers or dancers. But these criticisms ig- and class borders. The Astaire-Rogers nore the extent to which Chazelle was try- films and Ernst Lubitsch’s operettas (and ing to show real people going from ordi- Mamoulian’s Love Me Tonight) are the nary speech and movement to song and best examples. dance without ceasing to be the same Rick Altman describes the folk musical complex individuals they were before. primarily as a vehicle for building a com- Chazelle sought this effect in “A Love- munity, but for my purposes, the films in ly Night,” the first number in which Mia this subgenre are distinguished by spon- and Seb dance and sing together. Gradu- taneous song and dance in unlikely lo- ally working his way into the number, Seb cations, almost always with nondieget- first begins singing in a voice very much ic music. People also sing in unexpected like his speaking voice. When Mia is about places in fairy tale musicals, but Altman to join in, we hear her clearing her throat. puts these films into a separate catego- When Seb picks up Mia’s purse and be- ry, having built his subgenres primarily gins to look inside, she snatches it back in around plot mechanics. a gesture that is both choreographic and Chazelle has taken the folk musical to natural. Gradually, it all becomes chore- a different level by combining or, as he ography. And again, without edits. says, “smashing” the musical into the kind of emotional realism we associate The “A Lovely Night” number in La La with completely different film genres. Land illustrates Chazelle’s conviction that And his goal in these collisions has been the most challenging musical moments in to make it all seem natural. This is pre- a film happen when characters unexpect- cisely what Chazelle achieved in his first edly but organically begin to sing.4 The film, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench filmmaker must convince the audience (2009). Perhaps because he was working that people are suddenly singing and/or on an extremely limited budget (the film dancing because there is no other way to was his senior thesis as an undergradu- express what they are feeling. Think of ate at Harvard), the film was shot in black the opening of Oklahoma (1955), in which and white, featured nonactors, relied Curly can only admire the beauty of his heavily on improvised dialogue, and reg- land with song. Or when in On the Town ularly used a hand-held camera to shakily (1949) sailors freshly turned loose in the zero in on the faces of actors. wonderland of New York City cannot help For most of Guy and Madeline on a Park but harmonize to “New York, New York.” Bench, we could be watching an early Cas- In his definitive study of the Hollywood savetes film or even a documentary, so musical, Rick Altman has referred to loose is the editing and the progress of

148 (2) Spring 2019 95 La La Land the narrative. Music enters first when we have a good idea of how she feels. Made- Is a Hit, see Guy (Jason Palmer) playing his trum- line and Guy are a couple again. In a film but Is It Good for pet along with a singer. Later, at a party that can only barely be called a musical, Jazz? scene, a character breaks into song and Chazelle has created an organic relation- then joins one of the guests in a tap-dance ship between music and the inner lives of competition. Audiences might tend to his characters. bracket off these early scenes with their diegetic soundtracks from the realism of Chazelle has expressed admiration for the film’s mostly nonmusical moments. Dudley Murphy’s two pioneering short But the film is almost over when Made- films, St. Louis Blues and Black and Tan, line (Desirée Garcia) sings to herself both released in 1929. St. Louis Blues was with nondiegetic sound while wandering a vehicle for blues empress Bessie Smith through the park. Even more strikingly, and her only performance on film.Black when she later learns that Guy is still in- and Tan featured the young, regal Duke terested in her even though they had bro- Ellington just as his music was beginning ken up earlier in the film, she exuberant- to make him a star. Chazelle has also men- ly sings “Boy in the Park” about her first tioned Bertrand Tavernier’s Round Mid- kiss with Guy. Not only is she singing night, a French film from 1986 that cast the and dancing in the restaurant where she eminent jazz saxophonist Dexter Gordon works, but music suddenly emerges from in a major acting role. The fact that all of nowhere and her coworkers join in the these films are built around real-life jazz dance. The scene culminates when two artists may explain why Chazelle took a women join Madeline in a tightly choreo- chance on Jason Palmer as a protagonist graphed tap-dance routine. in Guy and Madeline even though he had Everything we have learned about never acted before. Madeline, including her mostly affectless Clearly, Chazelle knows how difficult and musicless reactions to other people, it would be to separate a jazz artist–and has led up to the moment when a musi- his inner life–from jazz. His casting of cal number reveals what has been inside jazz artist Jason Palmer in Guy and Made- all along. In the final moments ofGuy and line is consistent with his request that Madeline, when the title characters are re- Ryan Gosling develop his skills as a pia- united in Madeline’s apartment, they re- nist prior to his appearance in La La Land. turn to the same low-key, matter-of-fact Whenever the audience sees Seb’s hands demeanor they exhibited before Made- on the piano keys, they are hearing a per- line began singing “Boy in the Park.” Af- formance by Gosling, who frequently ex- ter making perfunctory small talk, Guy hibits real talent and agility as a jazz pi- plays a long, unaccompanied trumpet anist. (When we do not see Gosling’s solo while Madeline listens. Significant- hands, the pianist is Randy Kerber, who ly, Guy does not need to sing or dance. has played with Nancy Wilson, Diane He has jazz. And Guy is played by Jason Schuur, Tom Scott, Al Jarreau, and Quincy Palmer, a professional jazz trumpeter Jones, among others.) who plays the filmed solos live. A jazz film that ought to be singled out When his solo ends, Guy looks up for comparison with La La Land is Mar- sheepishly, searching for a reaction. Cha- tin Ritt’s Paris Blues (1961). Although they zelle ends his film just as we see Made- do not actually play their instruments, line breaking into a smile. But because of Sidney Poitier and Paul Newman do im- her performance of “Boy in the Park,” we pressive bits of miming when they play,

96 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences respectively, tenor saxophone and trom- both films, the lovers break up and then Krin bone. And thanks to Billy Strayhorn and reencounter each other in the last mo- Gabbard Duke Ellington, who wrote extraordinary ments of the film. And in neither film do music for the film, the jazz lives of the the lovers reconnect; the films do not shy protagonists strongly resonate through away from the darker side of romance. the music.6 Paris Blues ends with the expa- I would argue that La La Land is in some triate jazz artist Ram Bowen (Newman) ways a response to New York, New York, deciding to stay in Paris and not return to whose glum ending probably prevented his American home. His decision comes it from striking box office gold. The last just as the film’s other main characters big production number in Scorsese’s film are heading back to the States, including is the boffo performance of the title song the American schoolteacher Lillian (Jo- by Francine (Liza Minnelli), who has the anne Woodward), with whom he was screen all to herself. In the scene at Jim- having an affair. Determined to become my’s (Robert de Niro) club the Major a serious composer, Bowen is convinced Chord that immediately precedes Min- that he can only achieve his goal if he re- nelli’s big number, the music is portrayed mains in Paris and, as he tells Lillian, only in a much less sensational fashion. In fact, if he works alone: “I got to follow through we see a modernist jazz group perform- with the music. I got to find out how far ing only for a few moments and certain- I can go. And I guess that means alone.”7 ly not in a spotlight. The camera quickly In La La Land, Mia goes off to Paris to cuts away and follows Jimmy to the bar, practice her craft and becomes a huge where he flirts with some young wom- success. Seb decides not to accompany en, and then into his office. Late in the her, even though that would have been a film but hardly at the end, jazz has disap- real possibility, as the fantasy ballet at the peared from New York, New York. end of the film makes clear. But when it Scorsese’s film concludes with Fran- looks as if Mia will get a major role in a cine and Jimmy agreeing to meet later in film that will shoot in Paris, Seb’s advice the evening. But both independently de- recalls what Paul Newman said to Joanne cide not to meet, heading off in differ- Woodward: “When you get this, you got ent directions as the film ends. At the end to give it everything you got.” Although of La La Land, Seb and Mia also pass up the woman in La La Land abandons the a moment to reunite after several years man, while it is the man in Paris Blues who of separation. And in addition to placing walks away from the woman, both films the name of one of America’s two larg- embrace the myth that great art can only est cities in their titles, La La Land and be created by a scrupulously isolated art- New York, New York share the practice of ist–and maybe only if it’s in Paris. placing the characters’ nonreunion im- Whether intentionally or not, La La mediately after a major production num- Land has much in common with a jazz ber. But there the similarities end. In- film that fits Rick Altman’s definition of stead of giving the production number to the show musical: Martin Scorsese’s New only one of his lead characters, Chazelle York, New York (1977). In Chazelle’s film features them both. And instead of leav- as well as in Scorsese’s film, the leading ing the two leads entirely separate from man is much more devoted to jazz than each other, Chazelle brings them togeth- is the leading lady. In both, the man ends er in an extended sequence that could be up performing in his own jazz club while one character’s dream, the shared dream the woman ascends to movie stardom. In of both characters, or perhaps even the

148 (2) Spring 2019 97 La La Land audience’s fantasy. The first part ofLa La winds down. At least the black musicians Is a Hit, Land’s concluding number revises the ro- are on-screen and not off-screen supply- but Is It Good for mantic history of Mia and Seb to elim- ing invisible music for white lovers, as is Jazz? inate all conflict and obstacles to their so often the case with Hollywood films. love affair. It then takes them into a fantasy world where they even end up with the In an interview with Terry Gross, Cha- same married life we have already seen zelle talked about his love of jazz and his Mia living with her husband (Tom Ever- attempts to become a jazz drummer.8 He ett Scott). recalled that his father had a jazz record The conclusion of La La Land allows collection with lps by Count Basie and us to have it both ways, first revealing Charlie Parker, among others. He was es- how painful it is for Mia and Seb to re- pecially fascinated by the stories his fa- call the intense feelings they once had for ther would tell him about Parker. But his each other. Chazelle abandons the feel- favorite recording in his father’s collec- good conventions of the classical musi- tion was Clifford Brown and Max Roach, re- cal when the former lovers agonizingly leased on Emarcy in 1954. Chazelle was lock gazes for the first time in five years. especially taken with the track “Delilah.” But this moment is immediately followed For what it’s worth, this was the very first by a joyous fantasy of what their life to- of many recorded collaborations between gether might have been and, for a mo- the distinguished trumpeter Brown and ment, what it actually was. Comparing La drummer Roach, who practically invent- La Land and New York, New York as “jazz ed the art of bebop drumming. “Delilah” films,” Liza Minnelli’s performance of appears to be the first tune they recorded “New York, New York” stands out: it is in the studio when they arrived there in all Broadway and Las Vegas and promi- 1954. Chazelle may have been reacting to nently set off from the truncated jazz mo- the freshness of Brown and Roach’s first ment at the Major Chord that precedes it. moments together in the studio. Chazelle’s film is much more a celebra- Chazelle says that he became enchant- tion of the music, infusing the final mo- ed with “Delilah” when he was thirteen, ments with jazz artists on-screen as well the age at which many jazz enthusiasts as Justin Hurwitz’s jazz-inflected Leg- first fall in love with the music.9 Cha- rand-esque score. The audience even gets zelle says he listened to the music repeat- a glimpse of Caveau de la Huchette, a jazz edly and that “it summed up my life.” He club in Paris that was a home for lindy spent a great deal of time on his drum kit hoppers after World War II and is still in trying to reproduce Roach’s solo toward operation today. the end of the recording. I would add that The mostly black musicians we see “Delilah” is a stirring performance by all playing at the Caveau de la Huchette are members of the Brown-Roach band, in- miming to playback. The artists on the cluding tenor saxophonist Harold Land, soundtrack are Los Angeles studio musi- pianist Richie Powell, and bassist George cians, all of them white. Even today, and Morrow. Without insisting on any strong even when black musicians are on the connection, I would simply observe that screen, white musicians still have an ad- “Delilah” is in a minor key and has a cer- vantage. But the studio artists are also tain brooding feeling that vaguely recalls skilled jazz musicians, including trum- Arabic musics. With its bright solos over peter Wayne Bergeron, who hits an A a dark background, “Delilah” looks for- above high C as the scene at La Caveau ward to La La Land, with its bright colors

98 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and upbeat performances on top of a play lightning-fast, bombastic composi- Krin complex, emotionally fraught story line. tions with the kind of military precision Gabbard When asked to list his favorite drum- that Fletcher demands. Late in the film, mers, Chazelle has named Roach, Jo Jones, when Andrew goes to hear Fletcher in a and Buddy Rich, adding that he liked the jazz club, I was amazed to hear him play- “theatricality” of solos performed by ing jazz piano in the soft, lyrical mode as- Rich and Gene Krupa. This preference is sociated with someone like Bill Evans, surely compatible with Chazelle’s larg- who never recorded anything like the er ambitions. He told Terry Gross that he harsh compositions in Whiplash. always wanted to be a filmmaker, even Significantly, there are no important when he was working hardest at becom- black characters in Whiplash, while An- ing a jazz musician. At least according to drew aspires to play like the white show- Justin Hurwitz, Chazelle won awards as a off Buddy Rich.10 The driving, intense ar- jazz drummer at competitions when he rangements programed by Fletcher recall was in high school. Nevertheless, Cha- the music that big bands led by white mu- zelle told Gross that his playing never sicians such as Rich and Maynard Fergu- “measured up” to that of his idols. He as- son performed in the 1970s and 1980s. In pired to be an excellent drummer, in part La La Land, however, Seb wants to play because of an aggressive high school band a much less macho music than Andrew director who was fond of saying “not my and is devoted to great African Ameri- tempo” to the musicians in his ensemble. can jazz artists such as Thelonious Monk, Chazelle freely admits that his second whose solo on his 1967 recording of “Jap- film, Whiplash (2013), is autobiograph- anese Folk Song” Seb is resolutely try- ical. If nothing else, the film documents ing to master in the opening moments of the pain and exertion that are the inev- the film. There is nothing inWhiplash like itable side effects of pursuing perfec- this scene early in La La Land in which the tion, at least for anyone who wants to be white hero honors the black jazz artists a great jazz drummer. And like the Paul who have inspired him. Newman character in Paris Blues, An- drew (Miles Teller), the drummer hero Desirée Garcia, who became an im- of Whiplash, sends his girlfriend away, be- portant film scholar after acting inGuy lieving that he cannot succeed with ro- and Madeline on a Park Bench, has defend- mantic distractions. ed Chazelle against the charge that a jazz When talking with Terry Gross about film should not be built around two white Whiplash, Chazelle was careful to add that actors. Pointing out that Guy and Madeline his own teacher, on whom the charac- starred a black jazz musician and a Latina ter of Fletcher (J. K. Simmons) is based, graduate student, she wrote that the cast- was not at all as sadistic and violent as ing of La La Land “says more about what the character in Whiplash. Obviously, it it takes to get a movie made in Hollywood makes a better story when Fletcher turns than the intentions of the director.”11 out to be so devoted to bringing out the Damien Chazelle wanted to make a big, potential he sees in Andrew that he is pre- splashy revisionist musical, and he could pared to go to almost any extreme, even not get the funding without stars of the losing his job at the conservatory. What’s caliber of Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. missing from Whiplash is a compelling Still, La La Land has its racial prob- reason why someone would want to suf- lematics: for one, Seb essentially de- fer through brutal initiation rituals to clares himself to be the savior of jazz. But

148 (2) Spring 2019 99 La La Land I would add that Chazelle wanted Seb to Every one of these guys is composing, Is a Hit, be less sympathetic in earlier drafts of his they’re rearranging, they’re writing. Then but Is It Good for script, even “something of a jerk.” He was they’re playing the melody. And now, look. Jazz? to be more like the Seb of an early scene The trumpet player, he’s got his own ideas. who scolds his sister for sitting on the fe- And so, it’s conflict and it’s compromise, tishized stool he claims once belonged to and it’s just, and it’s new every time. It’s Hoagy Carmichael. Even in the final ver- brand new every night. It’s very, very excit- sion of La La Land, Seb is the kind of jazz ing. And it’s dying. It’s dying, Mia. It’s dy- purist everyone in the jazz communi- ing on the vine. And the world says, “Let it ty knows all too well: someone who not die. It had its time.” Well, not on my watch. only loves the Real Thing, but also feels obliged to despise anything that does not At worst, Seb is aspiring to be the savior measure up to his own notion of what of helpless jazz musicians, including the jazz ought to be. Seb’s distaste for playing black artists on the stage–over whose in a 1980s cover band at a pool party is not music he is talking! And he is, of course, meant to be an endearing characteristic. “mansplaining” to Mia, who may or not In his conversation with Gross, Chazelle be impressed with his verbiage. One states that he has renounced his own pur- might also object to Seb’s military met- ism and does not share the musical fanat- aphor of “not on my watch.” Neverthe- icism he gave to Gosling’s character. Cha- less, Seb delivers a compelling account of zelle even claims now to like “I Ran,” the how jazz artists perform, and he most as- hit recorded by white rockers A Flock of suredly makes the case for the lasting im- Seagulls in 1982. In La La Land, Mia re- portance of the music. For people like quests that the cover band play the tune, me, who are highly ambivalent about La supposing–correctly–that it is exactly La Land, this sequence at the Lighthouse the kind of thing that Seb would despise. Café is emblematic. Perhaps because of Ryan Gosling’s cha- Later in the film, after Seb has become risma, Seb is a much more sympathet- a member of Keith’s flashy pop band, Mia ic character in the release print of the is undoubtedly sincere when she tells film. And his jazz purism is compelling, him that she now loves jazz. And she is especially when he earnestly delivers a enthusiastic about his ambition to open jazz lesson to Mia after they have taken his own jazz club. To my mind, one of the a walk on the Warner Bros. backlot. Cha- most thrilling moments in the film is a set zelle made a point of shooting the scene of quick shots followed by whip pans that in a real jazz club with a historic loca- show Mia ad-libbing her own eccentric– tion. He chose the Lighthouse Café near some would say “goofy”–moves while the Hermosa Pier, where canonical jazz Seb dashes off piano riffs at the Light- artists such as Miles Davis, Lee Morgan, house. Meanwhile, musicians on the Joe Henderson, the Modern Jazz Quartet, bandstand are tearing through Hurwitz’s Chet Baker, Cannonball Adderley, and hard-bop composition “Herman’s Hab- Art Pepper performed regularly in the it.” The scene has what film critic Rich- 1950s and 1960s. When John Levine, the ard Dyer has called the “utopian” quali- original owner, passed away in 1970, the ties of classical musicals, even if we may club began featuring jazz less regularly.12 wince at the sight of Mia surrounded al- African American artists are performing most entirely by appreciative black peo- at the Lighthouse when Seb passionately ple.13 The fantasy here is that the mu- tells Mia how he feels about the music: sic brings out the impulse in all of us to

100 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences move freely with grace and humor and that Keith has a racial agenda? A better Krin that everyone, regardless of race, gender, way of thinking about the white people in Gabbard and class, gets it. Pity that this fantasy is Keith’s band is to associate them with La so typical of American jazz films in which La Land’s scrupulously multicultural cast- black artists applaud and even congrat- ing. Think of the multiethnic dancers in ulate white artists who have stolen their “Another Day of Sun,” as well as the Afro- music. Chazelle has succeeded in captur- Cuban band that suddenly appears in the ing the utopian magic of the old musi- back of a truck. Consider also the African cals, but at least in La La Land, he seems American fiancé of Seb’s sister, the nu- to have overlooked the racial hierarchies merous black jazz artists who regularly ap- that were implicit and frequently explicit pear throughout the film, and the black in those films, beginning with Al Jolson’s dancers surrounding Mia when she danc- blackface appearances in the pioneering es at the Lighthouse. This is not to deny the musicals of the 1920s and 1930s. centrality of white characters among so Shortly after the scene at the Light- many people of color, but any race-based house when Mia and Seb joyfully impro- critique of La La Land must acknowledge vise their own call-and-response, the film the film’s consistently multiethnic milieu. lets us know that Seb has made a pain- At any rate, John Legend’s character ful compromise by joining Keith’s band. is by no means the villain of La La Land. When we first see Keith and his large en- A crucial scene in the film takes place semble on stage with Mia in the audience, when Seb has just begun rehearsing with Seb has a moment alone in the spotlight Keith’s band. Knowing that Seb is still an playing what is clearly his own music incorrigible jazz purist, Keith tries to talk on a grand piano. Little by little, howev- him out of it. Chazelle has said that he er, as Keith takes over and begins to sing wrote several drafts of dialogue for Leg- “Start a Fire,” the music loses its magic. end. But after several takes, Legend in- Although he smiles throughout the pro- sisted on ad-libbing his own dialogue. cess, Seb moves from the grand piano to But you say you wanna save jazz. How you a stylized keyboard that looks more like gonna save jazz if no one’s listening? Jazz a child’s toy than a real musical instru- is dying because of people like you. You’re ment. Although the crowd reacts enthu- playin’ to 90-year-olds at the Lighthouse. siastically to the music, Emma Stone’s Where are the kids? Where are the young capacious eyes reflect increasingly high- people? You’re so obsessed with Kenny er levels of disappointment as the cam- Clarke and Thelonious Monk. These guys era cuts back and forth between the band were revolutionaries. How you gonna be a and her reaction shots. Regardless of revolutionary if you’re such a traditional- whether La La Land’s real-life audience is ist? You’re holding on to the past, but jazz fond of John Legend, the film definitively is about the future. characterizes the music as suspect when the stage becomes overpopulated with Part of this speech may have been writ- backup singers and gyrating dancers. Seb ten by Chazelle, but I would guess that should not be surprised when he looks up the final line was ad-libbed by Legend: to see that Mia has left the building. “You’re a pain in the ass, man.” I should also point out that all four of the people in Keith’s group doing tacky John Legend, who is listed as one of the dance moves, not to mention the featured film’s executive producers, clearly under- piano player, are white. Are we to assume stands the tension in the film’s script. But

148 (2) Spring 2019 101 La La Land Keith is not being entirely fair when he preference for the older utopian Holly- Is a Hit, says that Seb wants to be a revolutionary. wood musicals as well as for the time- but Is It Good for On the contrary, Seb is content to play honored recordings of the first gener- Jazz? the older, venerated music, and he never ations of black jazz artists. As the film expresses a desire to reach out to young ends, we see that Seb has opened his own people. jazz club where, as with most of the urban Chazelle has said that building so much venues where people go to hear the mu- of the film around Seb’s jazz purism and sic today, the setting is elegant, the audi- Keith’s insistence that he must move on ence sedate and mostly white. And what is “kind of meta.” In other words, the we hear in the club most definitely looks film is commenting on itself by equating back to canonized jazz traditions. One of jazz with Hollywood musicals. Although the first things the camera reveals inside La La Land is highly influenced by old- “Seb’s” is Francis Wolff’s classic photo er movies, Chazelle hoped that his film of a pensive John Coltrane in 1958. This could “push things forward, modernize, is exactly the kind of place where I love and update.” And at least according to to hear jazz in New York. Yet the posi- Keith, Seb must move on from his desire tive images of Seb’s club undermine Cha- to play older, purer jazz, just as Chazelle zelle’s assertion that there is a correlation must move on from blandly revisiting between the film’s revisionist approach the conventions of the classical musical. to musicals and the need for jazz musi- It is significant that early in the film, Seb cians to move past the music of the 1950s is trying to recreate a riff that Thelonious and 1960s. Chazelle has in fact pushed Monk recorded almost fifty years earli- the musical into new territory, but Seb er. Keith acknowledges his admiration is still playing the older music. We know for Monk: a black artist sings the prais- that Keith’s performance of “Start a Fire” es of another black artist. But for sev- is not where jazz ought to go, if only be- eral decades now, it has primarily been cause Chazelle has asked us to regard the white purists who have preserved the re- music with the disappointment we see in vered music of Monk and the other Afri- Mia’s face. can American “revolutionaries.” Wyn- There may be no way around La La ton Marsalis, Wyliffe Gordon, Stanley Land’s racial problematics, even if, like Crouch, and many other eminent black Desirée Garcia, we acknowledge the re- artists and writers are profoundly invest- alities that Damien Chazelle confront- ed in jazz purism, but the current jazz ed when he chose to make a big-bud- canon was mostly defined by white jazz get Hollywood film. Several jazz enthu- writers like Martin Williams and Gun- siasts and film scholars for whom I have ther Schuller, and many more still work- great respect simply cannot forgive him ing today. Of course, there is also a long for building La La Land around two white history of exploitation of black artists by stars. Nevertheless, I have real admira- white record producers and club owners. tion for a film that maintains its utopian African Americans have surely wanted charms even as it pushes at the boundar- to preserve the great black music of the ies of the classical Hollywood musical in past, but their disempowerment has of- order to celebrate that grand old music, ten prevented it.14 jazz. The film also celebrates great black Chazelle says he sympathizes with jazz artists such as Thelonious Monk, both Keith’s and Seb’s positions, imply- John Coltrane, and Kenny Clarke who, as ing that he also understands someone’s Chazelle tells us, still matter.

102 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences endnotes Krin Gabbard 1 For an especially powerful screed against the film, see Ira Madison III, “La La Land’s White Jazz Narrative,” mtv News, December 19, 2016, http://www.mtv.com/news/2965622/ la-la-lands-white-jazz-narrative/. 2 Damien Chazelle, commentary track on dvd release of La La Land (Santa Monica, Calif.: Summit Entertainment, 2016). Unless otherwise indicated, all statements attributed to Cha- zelle are from this source. 3 See Krin Gabbard, “The Hypertexts of Short Cuts: The Jazz in Altman’s Carver Soup,” in Robert Altman: Critical Essays, ed. Rick Armstrong (New York: McFarland, 2011), 20–37. 4 Desirée Garcia, conversation with the author, July 27, 2017. Garcia has written about ethnic musicals in which people sing spontaneously, a research project with strong connections to what Damien Chazelle has tried to achieve with American musicals. In my conversations with Garcia, however, she denies that she had much influence on Chazelle’s work and vice versa. See Desirée Garcia, The Migration of Musical Film: From Ethnic Margins to American Main- stream (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2014). 5 Rick Altman, The American Film Musical (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987). 6 As was often the case when Strayhorn’s contributions were unacknowledged, the opening credits for Paris Blues simply read “Music by Duke Ellington.” Critics who have examined the scores for the film’s music argue that the majority of what we hear in Paris Blues was composed and arranged by Billy Strayhorn. See David Hajdu, Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996), 208–211. 7 For an extended reading of the film, see Krin Gabbard, “Paris Blues: Ellington, Armstrong, and Saying It with Music,” in Uptown Conversation: The New Jazz Studies, ed. Robert G. O’Meally, Brent Hayes Edwards, and Farah Jasmine Griffin (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 297–311. 8 Terry Gross, interview with Damien Chazelle, Fresh Air, January 5, 2017, http://www.npr.org/ 2017/01/05/508338063/la-la-land-director-aimed-to-make-a-film-even-musical-skeptics -would-love. 9 Of the many jazz enthusiasts with whom I have spoken over the years, most have told me that their passion for the music began when they were thirteen or fourteen. See David Hajdu, “Forever Young? In Some Ways, Yes,” The New York Times, May 23, 2011, http://www .nytimes.com/2011/05/24/opinion/24hajdu.html. 10 See Richard Brody, “Getting Jazz Right in the Movies,” The New Yorker, October 13, 2014, http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/whiplash-getting-jazz-right-movies. 11 Meredith Goldstein, “The Predecessor to ‘La La Land’ Was Set in Boston–And a Lot More Diverse,” The Boston Globe, February 24, 2017, https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/ names/2017/02/24/the-predecessor-land-was-set-boston-and-lot-more-diverse/r4J3X7cjo eacLQbJHoVB4J/story.html. See also Desirée Garcia, “La La Land’s ‘Burst-Into-Song’ Style Echoes the Intimacy of Early Black, Mexican, and Jewish Productions of Yore,” Zócalo: An ASU Knowledge Enterprise Magazine of Ideas, February 14, 2017, http://www.zocalopublicsquare .org/2017/02/14/la-la-lands-debt-ethnic-musicals-yore/ideas/nexus/. 12 “Nightclubs and Other Venues,” Grove Music Online (January 22, 2002). 13 Richard Dyer, “Entertainment and Utopia,” Movie 24 (Spring 1977): 2–13. 14 An especially striking act of preservation by an African American artist that deserves mention here is Jason Moran’s project of reconstructing spaces where swing and bop artists performed in the 1930s and 1940s. See “Watch Jason Moran Explore the Story of New York City’s Most Iconic Jazz Clubs,” The Vinyl Factory, May 7, 2016, https://thevinylfactory.com/ films/jason-moran-staged-new-york-city-jazz-clubs/.

148 (2) Spring 2019 103 Yusef Lateef’s Autophysiopsychic Quest

Ingrid Monson

Abstract: Yusef Lateef’s neologism for jazz was autophysiopsychic, meaning “music from one’s physical, mental and spiritual self.” Lateef condensed in this term a very considered conception linking the intellectual and the spiritual based in his faith as an Ahmadiyya Muslim and his lifelong commitment to both Western and non-Western intellectual explorations. Lateef’s distinctive voice as an improviser is traced with respect to his autophysiopsychic exploration of world instruments including flutes, double reeds, and chordophones, and his friendship with John Coltrane. The two shared a love of spiritual exploration as well as the study of science, physics, symmetry, and mathematics. Lateef’s ethnomusicological research on Hausa music in Nigeria, as well as his other writings and visual art, deepen our understanding of him as an artist-scholar who cleared the way for the presence of autophysiopsychic musicians in the academy.

It is no secret that the use of the word “jazz” to describe the canonic music we associate with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane has long been contest- ed. The “J-word,” which, according to many, began as sexual slang, has been viewed as a marketing category, a white-perpetuated label to place African American music in a box, and a term that through its voyeuristic association with illicit ac- tivities became racially offensive. Duke Ellington found it a category he did not want to be associated with, a feeling shared by musicians across many generations from Charles Mingus and Max Roach ingrid monson is the Quin- cy Jones Professor of African to Nicholas Payton and Muhal Richard Abrams. American Music at Harvard Uni- Yusef Lateef was among those who objected to the versity. She is the author of Free- word.1 Lateef’s word to describe this music was dom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out autophysiopsychic. to Jazz and Africa (2007), The Af- rican Diaspora: A Musical Per- I call my music autophysiopsychic music. This word spective (2000), and Saying Some- means music from one’s physical, spiritual and men- thing: Jazz Improvisation and Inter- tal self: i.e., music from the heart. In other words, action (1996). my music is a conduit whereby and through which

104 Providence may reveal some of the beau- Max Roach, Charles Mingus, and Char- Ingrid ties of creation to the ears of those who lis- lie Parker, he was an intellectual as well Monson ten with their ears and their hearts.2 as a musician. Yusef Lateef was an artist- scholar of the kind that academia now Lateef’s word autophysiopsychic crys- welcomes, yet he had to wait until he was talizes a deep aesthetic, psychological, sixty-eight years old for his first full-time and ethical philosophy that lay at the academic post.3 Lateef’s view of the inter center of his life as a musician, compos- relationship between music, intellect, and er, Muslim, writer, visual artist, and pro- humane development has much to tell us fessor. In this essay, I first explore Lateef’s about why this music still matters. musical and psychological concept of autophysiopsychic as well as its relation- Yusef Abdul Lateef’s deepest discussion ship to Ahmadiyya Islamic understand- of the idea of autophysiopsychic music ings of spiritual development through is found in his essay “The Pleasures of knowledge and religious practice. Islam- the Voice in Autophysiopsychic Music.” ic ideas linking the physical, intellectu- Here Lateef attempts to describe the link- al, and spiritual lie at the very center of age between the character and person- his neologism, while its musical prac- ality of the musician and the emotion- tice links his vision to compatible West- al quality of the music created by him or ern and African American understand- her. Creating autophysiopsychic music, ings of acquiring an authentic, warm, in his view, requires three kinds of voice: and humane musical voice. Lateef wrote the audible voice, the dramatic voice, and about the term autophysiopsychic late in the artist’s own voice. his life, after having led a distinguished Sounds with audible voice give us the sense career as a bandleader, composer, and of a sound coming from the whole being of sideman. the musician–; and they touch us–they I then trace Lateef’s development of his seem to give us energy, or a sensation, rath- personal voice and friendship with John er than requiring energy to listen.4 Coltrane, as well as his wide-ranging intellectual explorations of music, mathe- To this he contrasts with “inaudible matics, science, philosophy, organology, voice,” or a person whose concern with and his self-taught ethnomusicological other things, such as technique, may study of Hausa flute playing in Nigeria. stand in the way of communicating his or Throughout his life he pursued educa- her humanity. tion in colleges and universities, includ- Valid presenters use their technique, only ing Wayne State University, Manhattan to project their character, their vast array School of Music, and the University of of experiences, thoughts, feelings, con- Massachusetts Amherst, while simulta- cerns and ideas that are entombed in their neously engaging deeply in Islamic study brain’s memory–and more than that–I through the Ahmadiyya branch of Is- will say: they speak with their heart.5 lam, which he joined in 1948. In 1988, he became a professor at the University of The musician who successfully creates Massachusetts Amherst, part of the Five an audible voice has the ability to “trans- Colleges, where he taught until his retire- form the events of their mind and heart ment in 2002. Yusef Lateef was a lifelong into sound,” a process that he says is autodidact who followed his interests to “not unlike elegant rational scientists– wherever they led. Like John Coltrane, they only operate with deeply different

148 (2) Spring 2019 105 Yusef Lateef’s grammars.” The heart, as Lateef notes, is be heard in “Yusef’s Mood” from 1957.9 Autophysio- “the seat of the intellect.”6 As we will see, Lateef’s own develop- psychic Quest When “the sound of the music seems to ment of his personal voice can be chart- tell us what kind of person is playing” the ed through his exploration of the flute, autophysiopsychic musician has achieved the oboe, and non-Western instruments a dramatic voice. The listener is drawn of many kinds. closer to the personality of the musician, who seems to project a character respon- In joining the Ahmadiyya Movement in sible for the sound. Throughout this essay, 1948, Lateef entered an Islamic commu- Lateef takes Lester Young as an example nity that had attracted many other mu- of what he means by his autophysiopsy- sicians of the bebop era, including Art chic ideal. “When listening to his music,” Blakey, Ahmad Jamal, Dakota Staton, Sa- he noted, “your ear will tell you that his hib Shihab, and Idrees Sulieman, among character was warm and sensitive.”7 others. The Ahmadis practice an inclu- For Lateef, the development of one’s sive multiracial form of Islam that stress- own voice was an achieved (rather than es finding peace by following the path of natural) quality that linked the explora- God (Allah) and Islamic education.10 In tion of musical craft to the development the 1920s, members of the Ahmadiyya of personal character. He explained Les- Movement published the first English ter Young’s musical voice as follows: translation of the Qur’an available in the He could treat notes so as to indicate assur- United States. Although their first pros- ance, by rapidly dropping the pitch, or in- elytizer, Mufti Muhammad Sadiq, indicate incompleteness by leveling the pitch tended to proselytize among all U.S. eth- in a manner which would suggest contin- nic groups, his own problems as a South uation, or when he thought it appropriate Asian in Jim Crow America led him to he would avoid traditional tones, by apply- concentrate on African Americans. The ing innovative fingerings, whereby he pro- Ahmadis in their early years were closely duced a new genre of sound textures. In allied with Marcus Garvey’s United Ne- conjunction with the sound textures that gro Improvement Association, but their he introduced let me say that: as a tone lan- insistence that whites as well as African guage uses changes in pitch to indicate dif- Americans were welcome in their com- ferences in the meanings of words–Les- munity put them at odds with other Is- ter used changes of texture, pitch and nu- lamic groups supporting black national- ance, tempered by his immaterial self, to ism. The Ahmadis, because they believe indicate differences in feelings or to put the their founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad to audience into a certain frame of mind. . . . be the Mahdi sent to reform Islam to its He never sounded as though he was con- true meaning, are considered to be her- fronted with an ambivalence in deciding etics and non-Muslims by many main- what was central to his message–always stream Muslim sects, despite their full observance of the pillars of Islam and convincing, authentic, and the logos, the 11 proof, or apparent proof of his artistry was practices of Islamic education. always there, provided by the sound of his In Islam, Yusef Lateef found a path of music itself, nurtured by the gentle soul intensive study, as well as ethical and spir- that he was.8 itual development that guided his life. Through the Ahmadiyya movement he Lester Young served as a model for studied the Qur’an, the Arabic language, Yusef Lateef’s own tenor playing, as can as well as the deeds and sayings of the

106 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Prophet Muhammad. A distinguishing the mind and heart. True knowledge is that Ingrid feature of Islam to Lateef was its commit- which emerges from the mind and regu- Monson ment to education, something that he em- lates and trains all the limbs, and manifests phasized in his 1975 doctoral dissertation. in practice all the store of memory. Thus In the light of commandments of the Qu- knowledge is strengthened and fostered ran and the traditions, the Muslims, at all through its impress being imposed on all times, retained learning and its diffusion a the limbs by practical experience. No type distinctive feature of their social life, as if of knowledge, however elementary, arrives it were an article of Faith with them. The at its climax without practice. culture and civilization of Islam is based on education.12 Here we see how Yusef Lateef’s succinct definition of autophysiopsychic music as The dissertation compared Western “music from one’s physical, mental and and Islamic philosophies of education, spiritual self” includes in one word the and illustrated Lateef’s wide reading in process of spiritual development advo- both education literatures. cated by his religion. The final stage of A key teaching of Islam is that the path spiritual development taught by the Ah- to spiritual development arrives not only madis arises from arriving at the level in through faith, but also through reason. which a person can converse with God. According to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, The cleansing water which removes all The Quran has adopted two methods for doubt, that mirror through which that Su- the understanding of God. First, the meth- preme Being can be seen, is converse with od whereby human reason is strengthened the Divine that I have just mentioned. and illumined for the purpose of setting Let him whose soul seeks the truth arise forth reasons in support of the existence of and search. I tell you truly that if souls are God, and thus saves a person from falling charged with true seeking and hearts devel- into error.13 op true thirst, people would search for that way and would seek that path.15 In The Philosophy of the Teachings of Is- lam, a central text for the Ahmadis, Ah- Lateef’s widow Ayesha Lateef stressed mad explains over several chapters the that, in Islam, reason and faith are one, but process of evolving from the human be- added that many Muslims don’t under- ing’s “natural condition of barbarity to a stand that. Her own explanation notes that moral state, and then to lift him from that “the work of God, which is the creation, state to the limitless ocean of spiritual- and the word of God, which is the revela- ity.”14 Key to transforming natural con- tion, should sync together.” She also em- ditions into moral qualities is the acqui- phasized that “Yusef was not just a statis- sition of knowledge through reason. Ac- tical Muslim. He absorbed the teachings cording to Ahmad, the Qur’an contains and he made them his own.” 16 Through- reasoned arguments for the existence of out his life, these Islamic teachings guided God that will persuade rather than coerce Lateef’s quest for knowledge and spiritu- the penitent to follow the path of Islam. al and musical development. Knowledge Acquiring knowledge leads to spiritual and reason provided the fulcrum through practice and its transformation into em- which he moved between his religious bodied knowledge. community, the professional world of mu- These verses indicate that there is no vir- sic, and the academic scene of colleges and tue in the knowledge that is confined to universities.

148 (2) Spring 2019 107 Yusef Lateef’s Yusef Lateef began achieving his own the world, particularly India or Asia and Autophysio- distinctive voice in autophysiopsyhic then later Africa. And then also you know, psychic Quest music in 1950s Detroit. In many ways, the recitation of the Qur’an you know, he pioneered a non-Western sensibility which in Arabic has a melody to it. I kind of to improvisational exploration, charac- feel like eventually it would have happened terized by the use of world instruments anyway whether he was a Muslim or not, that would be taken up more broadly in but being Muslim fed it.19 the 1960s by partisans of the avant-garde. Although Lateef, who had been known as In 1957 he lived in the Ahmadiyya Bill Evans before his conversion to Islam, mosque in Detroit where he served as had met considerable success as a tenor its imam and developed a curriculum saxophonist in Chicago and New York in for Islamic instruction for children and the late 1940s, where he had worked with adults.20 That same year he recorded Jazz Eugene Wright and Dizzy Gillespie, his Moods, an album featuring for the first wife Sadie’s ill health made him return time these new instruments. “Metaphor” to Detroit in 1951. Detroit’s thriving jazz opens with a Middle Eastern sound- scene included musicians like Milt Jack- ing argol solo, accompanied by the re- son, Curtis Fuller, Barry Harris, Kenny bab, which is followed by a more ortho- Burrell, Elvin Jones, and Betty Carter. Al- dox instrumentation featuring Lateef on though Lateef had a strong and confident flute and Curtis Fuller on trombone. The tenor sax sound, Kenny Burrell encour- rhythm section included Hugh Lawson aged him to add the flute and to study on piano, Ernie Farrow on bass and rebab, music theory and composition at places Louis Hayes on drums, and Doug Watkins like the Larry Teal School of Music and on percussion. Wayne State University. At the former, Lateef sought to break the mold in his Lateef encountered the Schillinger sys- ensemble sound through the instruments tem, a highly abstract and mathematical of other cultures. He began doing re- approach to thinking through rhythm, search at the public library on the instru- periodicity, and permutation. At the lat- ments of Japan, China, Africa, and In- ter, he studied classical music, including dia. He also began making his own flutes, Arnold Schoenberg and his serial meth- such as the pneumatic bamboo flute. La- ods of composition. In addition to flute, teef through his interest in organology Lateef began studying oboe and exploring and cultural variety was becoming his a variety of non-Western instruments.17 own self-taught ethnomusicologist. Detroit in the 1950s was home to a In following the development of La- large Arab population. Lateef not only teef’s particular voice, it is clear that he met co-religionists but discovered in- was particularly drawn to the timbral va- struments from the Arab world through riety made possible through playing mul- friends and at a Syrian spice store in the tiple instruments. Although some of his Eastern Market section of Detroit. These compositions sounded non-Western, La- instruments included the argol, a double teef’s musical language was deeply root- reed instrument, and the rebab, a string ed in the blues, jazz, and bebop, whose ex- instrument.18 Ayesha Lateef explained pressive sensibility he had developed on his interest in world instruments: the tenor saxophone, which he also con- I think a lot of it had to do with being an tinued to play. On the flute and oboe, La- Ahmadi. Meeting Ahmadis from around teef seemed to be able to inflect his melodies in new directions, as can be heard on

108 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences his extraordinary performance of “Oboe In 1963, Impulse! allowed Lateef to Ingrid Blues” in 1959.21 record an album called Jazz ’Round the Monson Lateef moved back to New York in 1960, World, on which he played a variety of in- where he began working with Lonnie struments and featured a selection of folk Hillyer, Charles Mingus, Babatunde Ola- songs from around the world, including tunji, and Cannonball Adderley, and be- “The Volga Rhythm Song,” a Japanese came a first call for recording sessions. folk song called “Ringo Oiwake,” and his Shortly thereafter he was able to buy a own beautiful flute feature “Utopia.” In home in Teaneck, New Jersey, where he his autobiography, Lateef talks about the moved with his family. He toured inter- mixed reception he received. nationally with Adderley, including Eu- While many have told me how much they rope and Japan. Lateef played swinging enjoyed the Arabic and Asian mix of the al- straight-ahead tenor in the group, but Ad- bum we created–Richard Williams (trum- derley also featured him on flute, oboe, pet), Hugh Lawson (piano), and Lex Hum- and even bamboo flute. Although he clear- phries (drums)–others have rejected it, ly could have continued a mainstream jazz feeling it’s not what they expected. Some career in the top groups of the day, Lateef’s were reluctant to accept it, but humanity quest for his personal voice led him deeper is that way; there are divisions. I remem- into his world music explorations. ber using an Indian drone instrument on a On the album Eastern Sounds from 1961, piece called “Chandra” and a doctor called Lateef added the Chinese globular flute, me from Milwaukee. He was outraged that an instrument resembling an ocarina. I did that as though I had violated some- After reading about this ancient instru- thing, transgressed a cardinal sin.22 ment (also known as the xun) he searched for one in New York’s Chinatown. “The Lateef’s commitment to his artistic di- Plum Blossom” opens with an extend- rection, in other words, cost him in some ed solo on the globular flute made up of corners of the jazz world. four notes (A3, C#4, D4, E4) and accom- During the 1950s, Lateef also developed panied by the rebab. His gradual devel- a deep friendship with John Coltrane. In opment of a three-note riff-like theme, notes in his personal papers, he created a varied through embellishment and sub- timeline of his friendship with Coltrane. tle rhythmic variation, showcases the ap- He first heard of him in 1946 and then met pealing low register of the globular flute, him for the first time at the Click Club in the soft but swinging articulations of La- Philadelphia during a rehearsal with Jim- teef, and his ability to captivate with min- my Heath in 1949. When he returned to imal materials. Joe Goldberg, who wrote New York to record in 1956, he saw John the liner notes for the album, seemed not Coltrane with Miles Davis at the Cafe Bo- to know quite what to say about the East- hemia in the Village. In 1957, while re- ern references on the album and its un- cording with Savoy, he visited Coltrane usual instrumentation, so he talked about on 103rd Street and they practiced togeth- the two pieces from film soundtracks and er. Coltrane sometimes played Detroit, as the straight-ahead tenor ballad “Don’t he did in 1958 with Miles Davis’s group, Blame Me” before tackling the oboe solo and they saw each other. When Lateef on “Blues for the Orient” and the globular and his family moved back to New York flute. On this album, Lateef’s sonic exper- in 1960, he got together with Coltrane iments were balanced by straight-ahead more frequently, even sitting in with him pieces likely to appeal to any jazz fan. once at the Village Gate. They were both

148 (2) Spring 2019 109 Yusef Lateef’s deeply interested in symmetry, science, key decade in the independence of Afri- Autophysio- and religion and had similarly gentle per- can nations and a broader African-Asian psychic Quest sonalities. In 1961, Coltrane gave Lateef a alliance against colonialism. Islam it- birthday present of a mandala-like dia- self was associated with an anticolonial- gram tracing multiple levels of symmetry ist perspective on the African continent. in an expanded circle of fifths. Lateef in- Lateef showed his awareness of the Af- cluded this in the opening of his Resposi- rican freedom struggle in his partici- tory of Scales and Melodic Patterns in 1981, pation on Randy Weston’s Uhuru Africa itself bearing witness to his own fascina- album in 1960 and Art Blakey’s album tions with symmetries, cycles, and scales African Beat in 1962. Here, Africans, jazz from around the world.23 Near the end of musicians, Latinx musicians, and Mus- Coltrane’s life, Lateef, Babatunde Olatun- lims collaborated on a pan-African sound ji, and Coltrane were planning to give a that appeared just as the newly emerging concert at Avery Fisher Hall in 1968, as well African nations were joining the United as collaborate on developing a family- Nations and sending diplomatic delega- oriented musical recreation center. 24 tions to New York. On African Beat, Lateef There has long been speculation as to played with Nigerian percussionist Solo- whether John Coltrane was a Muslim. mon Ilori, Art Blakey, Chief Bey, Ahmed The prayer in A Love Supreme, with its de- Abdul-Malik, Curtis Fuller, and several cided emphasis on a singular God, thank- others. Lateef’s beautiful flute sound can fulness, and mercy, is in keeping with the be heard on “Ero Ti Nr’ojeje.”27 monotheism of Islam and, for some, re- Other autophysiopsychic musicians sembles the words of the Al-Fatiha, the were also demonstrating global aware- first surah of the Qur’an.25 It is also com- ness in their music. John Coltrane’s Africa patible with the Vedanta Hindu idea of album, for example, was released just days the One, which became a larger part of before Lateef recorded the Eastern Sounds his spiritual interests after meeting Alice Album; Max Roach’s We Insist! Freedom Coltrane in 1963. According to Ayesha Now Suite in 1960 had invoked Africa with Lateef, some Ahmadis have claimed that Babatunde Olatunji’s drumming on “Af- Coltrane was an Ahmadi, but she notes rica”; and bassist Ahmed Abdul Malik that there is no record of him ever hav- played the oud in the piece “Tears from ing joined the community. His first wife Johannesburg” on his 1959 album East Naima was a Muslim, but she was not an Meets West. Coltrane’s recording of “In- Ahmadi. Ayesha Lateef, who mentioned dia” in 1963 gestured East and by 1965 on how often her husband talked of Col- the album Kulu Se Mama Coltrane began trane, thinks that the two may have had including instruments like hand percus- conversations about Islam and hears in A sion and shakers that went beyond stan- Love Supreme an “anthem for the one God dard jazz instrumentation. Exploring Af- according to Islam.” She concludes that rican instruments, in particular, was em- Coltrane “wasn’t against Islam.”26 braced by musicians interested in black In the broadest sense, Lateef’s interest power and cultural nationalism.28 in global musical instruments was also political. His Muslim faith and knowl- Yusef Lateef’s strong interest in acquir- edge of the presence of Islam around the ing Western education and credentials globe may have first opened his ears to also continued. After undertaking his the sounds of the Middle East, Africa, In- first pilgrimage to Mecca in early 1966, he dia, and Asia, but the 1950s were also a returned to New York and enrolled in the

110 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Manhattan School of Music where, by around the world: England, Denmark, Ingrid 1969, he had received his bachelor’s de- Norway, Pakistan, India, Ghana, Egypt, Monson gree in flute performance and a master’s and Tunisia. During these years he add- degree in music education. For Lateef, Is- ed writing short stories to his long list of lamic education and Western education interests and began working on the scales were twin paths that he undertook simul- and exercises that would become his fa- taneously. He enjoyed studying not only mous Repository of Scales and Melodic Pat- the flute under former New York Philhar- terns, published in 1981. He spent the next monic flutist John Wummer, but also tak- four years as a senior research fellow at ing courses in literature and art history. the Center for Nigeria Cultural Studies at By 1971, Lateef was teaching music theory Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nige- at the Borough of Manhattan Communi- ria, one of the original Hausa city-states ty College (bmcc), while also enrolled in and home to Nigeria’s largest universi- courses at the New School in philosophy ty. The Hausa are among the most prom- and symbolic logic. Among his students inent West African Muslim groups. He were Albert Heath and Kenny Barron. researched the Sarewa flute, played by While teaching at bmcc, he began a Fulani herdsmen; taught research meth- doctoral program in education at the Uni- odology to cultural officers at the Center versity of Massachusetts Amherst under for Nigeria Cultural Studies; and stud- the mentorship of music theorist and pi- ied African music and drama. The fruit of anist Roland Wiggins. His dissertation this research was a book he coauthored “An Overview of Western and Islamic Ed- with Ziky Kofoworola (a Nigerian dra- ucation” explains to an English speaking maturge) called Hausa Performing Arts and audience the principles of qur’anic study Music, published in 1987. The book is a and scholarship in dialogue and compari- serious piece of ethnomusicological re- son with Western writers on education– search including interviews with Hausa including Thomas Jefferson, Karl Jaspers, herdsman, transcriptions, and organo- Immanuel Kant, Bertrand Russell, Jean logical diagrams of Hausa instruments. Piaget, and John Dewey–finding points Lateef and Kofoworola had been com- where Islamic and Western views con- missioned by Nigeria’s Minister of Cul- verge and diverge. Just before he received ture to produce the book, and I think that his Ed.D., and one day before he became the Society for Ethnomusicology should eligible for tenure, Lateef learned that formally recognize Yusef Lateef’s contri- bmcc had terminated him–an action bution to our field.30 that smacks of an administrative manip- Lateef’s In Nigeria, an album recorded ulation all too common in educational in Lagos in 1983 with Hausa, Yoruba, and institutions at the time. In the 1970s, jazz Tiv drummers, presents what he calls a programs were not valued, their instruc- hybrid suite of dance pieces accompanied tors usually served in the lower ranks of by traditional drummers, which include the administrative hierarchy, and Afri- reference not only to African life, but Ja- can Americans were particularly vulnera- maica (on “Mu Omi”) and Indian raga ble to being dropped. Lateef mused in his with drone (on “Lalit”).31 “Curved Space- autobiography: “Despite being in posses- time” features Lateef performing a call sion of three post-graduate degrees, I was and response with himself on tenor and without a teaching position.”29 flute accompanied by traditional drums, So he went on the road. Between 1975 including a talking drum. Quoting physi- and 1980, he took his band and family cist Fritjof Capra on the elasticity of time

148 (2) Spring 2019 111 Yusef Lateef’s in Einstein’s curved universe in the lin- to Yusef Lateef’s Song Book, offering in- Autophysio- er notes, Lateef thematizes a familiar as- sight into the kind of effect he had on his psychic Quest cending arpeggiated passage from John students. Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” solo and re- The range and breadth of Lateef’s musical sponds on the flute to his tenor. The result travels is astonishing, but what is most in- is a kind of African “Giant Steps” accom- spiring to me is something else, something panied by a warm, low-toned, resonant more difficult to explain. He brings an over- groove. arching, singularly intense mindset to all of When he returned to Western Massa- his projects, using all the possible tools at chusetts in 1985, Lateef focused on com- his disposal–scientific and intuitive, old posing, which led to the recording of Little and new, individual and collective, distant Symphony in 1987, an album on which he and close to home–to probe the nature of played all instruments. Producer Nesuhi his feelings and thoughts. As a student, I Ertegun helped arrange an Atlantic con- marveled at the ease with which he flowed tract for the record and it won a Gram- among different approaches to making my in the New Age category in 1988. Fi- music, different states of consciousness. nally, that same year, the University of While working within technically complex Massachusetts hired Lateef as an associ- frameworks, he is always able to keep his ate professor of music. He was sixty-eight ears and imagination open to new possibil- by then but went on to teach for fourteen ities, to unexpected directions that the ma- years and was named a Five College Dis- terial might generate.34 tinguished Professor of Music. While there, Lateef not only taught but start- Yusef Lateef’s autophysiopsychic quest, ed a record company called yal, com- fusing intellectual, physical, and spiritu- posed, wrote novels, and completed hun- al development, reminds us of the long dreds of visual artworks.32 His student dedication of musicians to knowledge of Michael Didonna, a photographer and multiple kinds.35 Since the bebop era, jazz musician, created a short film in honor artists have viewed themselves as both an of Lateef called The Gentle Giant, in which intelligentsia and a spiritual community he can be heard talking about some of his devoted to musical exploration. Few art- educational philosophy.33 Michael Des- ists have more thoroughly theorized the sen, a trombonist, composer, and former connection between the two than Yusef student of Lateef, wrote the introduction Lateef.

endnotes 1 For an overview of this debate, see Nicholas Payton, “On Why Jazz Isn’t Cool Anymore,” No- vember 27, 2011, https://nicholaspayton.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/on-why-jazz-isnt-cool -anymore; Terry Teachout, “When Jazz Was a Dirty Word,” The Wall Street Journal, March 8, 2013, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324582804578344330801433790; and Ivan Hewett, “Abdullah Ibrahim Interview: ‘I Don’t Like the Word Jazz,’” The Telegraph, No- vember 14, 2017, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/interviews/abdullah-ibrahim-interview -dont-like-word-jazz. 2 Yusef Lateef, “Reflections on the Social Relevance of Black Improvised Music,” keynote lec- ture for the symposium “Lost in Diversity–A Transatlantic Dialogue on the Social Relevance of Jazz,” Heidelberg Center for American Studies, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Ger- many, November 8–9, 2012. I thank Ayesha Lateef for sharing the text with me.

112 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 3 I am thinking in particular of the professorships of George Lewis at Columbia University and Ingrid Vijay Iyer at Harvard University. Monson 4 Yusef A. Lateef, “The Pleasures of Voice in Autophysiopsychic Music” (undated), https:// yuseflateef.com/literature/essays. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 9 Yusef Lateef, “Yusef’s Mood,” on Jazz Mood, Savoy, 1957. The track can be heard on YouTube at https://youtu.be/SMVslFUIx0A (accessed January 29, 2019). 10 Members of this community refer to themselves as “Ahmadis.” The religion itself is known as the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community or the Ahmadiyya Movement. 11 A brief overview of the Ahmadiyya Movement can be found in Ingrid Monson, “Art Blakey’s African Diaspora,” in The African Diaspora: A Musical Perspective, ed. Ingrid Monson (New York: Garland Press, 2000), 337–338. A more comprehensive account of the Ahmadis and their intersections with other African American Muslim groups can be found in Patrick D. Bowen, A History of Conversion to Islam in the United States, Volume 2: The African American Is- lamic Renaissance, 1920–1975 (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2017). Pakistan, a traditional center of Ahmadi activity, declared Ahmadis legally non-Muslim, which led to their migration to other locations. The current headquarters of the Ahmadis is in London. See Al Islam, “Ahmadiyya Muslim Community,” https://www.alislam.org/library/ahmadiyya-muslim -community (accessed Jan 22, 2019). 12 Yusef Lateef, “An Overview of Western and Islamic Education” (Ed.D. diss., University of Massachusetts, 1975), 10. 13 Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, The Philosophy of the Teachings of Islam, trans. Sir Muhammad Zafulla Khan (London: Islam International Publications, 2017), 86–87. I thank Ayesha Lateef for giving me a copy of this book. 14 Ibid., 24. 15 Ibid., 198. 16 Author interview with Ayesha Lateef, January 9, 2019, Shutesbury, Massachusetts. I thank Ayesha Lateef for meeting with me and sharing her observations and archival documents. 17 Biographical information, unless otherwise indicated, is drawn from Yusef Lateef and Herb Boyd, The Gentle Giant: The Autobiography of Yusef Lateef (Irvington, N.J.: Morton Books, 2006). 18 There are many romanized spellings for the argol, including arghul and arghool. I use the spell- ing that appears on Lateef’s albums. 19 Author interview with Ayesha Lateef, January 9, 2019, Shutesbury, Massachusetts. 20 Yusef Lateef, “An Overview of Western and Islamic Education,” 7. 21 Yusef Lateef, “Oboe Blues,” on The Dreamer, Savoy, 1959. Yusef Lateef, oboe; Terry Pollard, piano; William Austin, bass; Frank Grant, percussion. 22 Lateef and Boyd, The Gentle Giant. 23 Yusef Lateef, Respository of Scales and Musical Patterns (Amherst, Mass.: fana Music, 1981). Physicist Stephon Alexander explains the multiple symmetries in Coltrane’s diagram in The Jazz of Physics (New York: Basic Books, 2016), 222–226. 24 Yusef Lateef, Coltrane timeline, personal papers. I thank Ayesha Lateef for sharing these documents with me.

148 (2) Spring 2019 113 Yusef Lateef’s 25 Coltrane’s poem begins: “I will do all I can to be worthy of Thee O Lord. It all has to do with Autophysio- it. Thank you God. Peace. There is none other.” John Coltrane, liner notes to A Love Supreme, psychic Quest Impulse!, 1964. The Al-Fatiha begins: “In the Name of God, the Lord of Mercy, the Giver of Mercy. Praise belongs to God, Lord of the worlds, the Lord of Mercy, Master of the Day of Judgement. It is You we Worship; it is You we ask for help.” The Qur’an, trans. M. A. S. Abdel Haleem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 26 Author interview with Ayesha Lateef, January 9, 2019, Shutesbury, Massachusetts. 27 Art Blakey, The African Beat, Blue Note, 1962. 28 I discuss this interconnection in chapter six of my book Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). 29 Lateef and Boyd, The Gentle Giant. 30 Ziky Kofoworola and Yusef Lateef, “Hausa Performing Arts and Music,” Nigeria Magazine, 1987. 31 Yusef Lateef, In Nigeria, yal, 1983. 32 A major exhibit of Lateef’s artworks titled Yusef Lateef: Towards the Unknown was held at the Trinosophes Cafe in Detroit in 2015. 33 Michael Didonna, The Gentle Giant [film], http://michaeldidonna.com/film/2016/9/22/ the-gentle-giant. 34 Michael Dessen, preface to Yusef Lateef Song Book (Amherst, Mass.: fana Music/yal, 2005). 35 For a rich description of the wide variety of learning philosophies in jazz, see Paul F. Berliner, Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).

114 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Why Jazz? South Africa 2019

Carol A. Muller

Abstract: I consider the current state of jazz in South Africa in response to the formation of the nation- state in the 1990s. I argue that while there is a recurring sense of the precarity of jazz in South Africa as measured by the short lives of jazz venues, there is nevertheless a vibrant jazz culture in which musicians are using their own studios to experiment with new ways of being South African through the freedom of association of people and styles forming a music that sounds both local and comfortable in its sense of place in the global community. This essay uses the words of several South African musicians and concludes by situating the artistic process of South African artist William Kentridge in parallel to jazz improvisation.

It’s been really incredible to be an ambassador of South Africa and South African music when you go abroad. I feel like our heritage and culture has nothing to do with a skin tone. I really feel like it’s got to do with South Africa and being South African, really trying to hold the flag very high, singing the national anthem, singing a lot of South African jazz repertoire, it’s always very nice, and a very proud moment when you are overseas and you can say this is my culture, this is where I come from. –Vocalist Melanie Scholtz, 20101

I spent winter break 2018–2019 with Universi- ty of Pennsylvania undergraduates in Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Pretoria. We visited a series of newly built or reconceptualized museums in the three cities, entities that had been created or re- carol a. muller is Profes- imagined in the post-apartheid era to reflect on sor of Music at the University of South Africa’s colonial and apartheid past and to Pennsylvania. She is the author move its peoples toward reconciliation and nation- of Musical Echoes: South African al unity in the present and future. We visited Cape Women Thinking in Jazz (2011), Fo- cus on South African Music (2008), Town’s Slave Lodge, the District Six Museum, the and South African Music: A Centu- Bo-Kaap neighborhood; we spent time climbing ry of Traditions in Transformation Table Mountain, Lions Head, and then rested in (2004). Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens; we listened to

115 Why Jazz? live music in the Mojo Hotel Food and I had attended a very lively and sold out South Africa Drink Market in Sea Point every evening; performance of South African multi-in- 2019 we watched the Goema festival musi- strumentalist Kyle Shepherd and his band cians parading through the city center. At at the Orbit in late July 2018, and like so Mzansi Restaurant in Langa township, we many others, struggled to understand heard and watched a marimba group per- how this amazing venue, a site of so much form while we ate. At the Amazink the- innovation and musical energy, had shut ater-restaurant in Kayamandi Township its doors. Sadly, what had happened to the outside of Stellenbosch, we experienced Orbit was already true for so many oth- an amazing musical theater production er live venues for South African jazz: op- that resonated with the strands of Lady- timistically opened in the post-apartheid smith Black Mambazo’s isicathamiya and moment in Cape Town and Johannes- Mbongeni Ngema’s Sarafina musical the- burg, by early 2019, they had simply dis- ater style but focused on personal stories. appeared from the city’s nightlife. That was Cape Town. Then we flew to Jo- Even with the shuttered sense of live hannesburg: visiting the Apartheid Mu- jazz venues in South Africa, like Ansell’s seum and the Wits University Museum blog post, my reflections on jazz and its of Human Origins. Then onto a township purposes in post-apartheid and contem- tour of Soweto: stopping at Regina Mun- porary South Africa remain, neverthe- di, a township restaurant, and the Hector less, largely optimistic. My optimism Peterson Museum. On our final day, we springs less from the capacity to propose traveled to Pretoria: first to the Afrikaans a sustainable financial model for jazz ven- Taal (Language) Monument and then di- ues, or a certainty that jazz as we know rectly across its path, to the newly consti- it–coming out of the United States with tuted Freedom Park. its distinctive sound and stylistic peri- Despite all of the monuments to the ods–will continue its close relationship apartheid past, the only live jazz we could with South Africa. Rather, I suggest that locate was at the Crypt restaurant of Cape in many ways, South African jazz, like Town’s famous St. George’s Cathedral, the nation itself, has come into its own the site of much anti-apartheid resis- since the 1990s, and as a result, South Af- tance led by religious leaders like Arch- ricans are often more interested in defin- bishop Desmond Tutu. To reach the mu- ing a place for themselves, rooted in the sic, we walked through exhibits of acts of knowledge of South Africa’s own music social and religious justice under apart- histories, jazz or otherwise, than looking heid. While the place was filled to capac- toward American musicians and models. ity that night, it was hard to fathom the While, ideally, everybody wants to make complete absence of South African jazz in a living from their music–and often that early January–its peak holiday period– means traveling to the global North with because South African jazz was arguably its more secure currencies–I will sug- the music that most embodied the strug- gest that what sustains the drive to make gle for human and artistic freedom under music is rooted in a kind of post-apart- apartheid. And yet, just after we landed in heid embrace of the individual and col- Cape Town, British-born South African lective freedom to use the music to ex- jazz journalist and blogger Gwen Ansell plore the full range of what it means to be announced and commented on the clos- South African in the contemporary mo- ing of Johannesburg’s famous, if relative- ment, to restore narratives previously ly short-lived, center for jazz: the Orbit.2 suppressed, to celebrate place, to sound

116 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences local, and perhaps also to connect musi- mostly heard in the living performances Carol A. cally to other genres that are often deftly and recordings of old South African jazz Muller woven into the fabric of jazz improvisa- standards or performed by contemporary tion. In other words, while South African musicians paying tribute to a living or de- jazz continues to exist in a condition of ceased jazz legend. precarity, constantly threatened by loss I begin my response to the question of and even extinction, it pushes its way to “why jazz?” by briefly outlining some of new modes of experimentation, renewal, the challenges in South African jazz in- human connectedness, healing, spiritu- frastructure. This discussion draws on ality, and the celebration of newly found the stories, motivations, and experienc- human freedoms: musical, political, and es of a handful of musicians who speak unfortunately much less so, economic. to the many ways in which the relative- In this essay, I respond to the question ly small South African jazz communi- “why jazz?” by engaging interrogative- ty positions itself in South Africa, living ly with how musicians relate to South Af- as jazz composers, improvisers, and per- rica’s apartheid past, how they want to be formers in the post-apartheid era. I cover in the present, and how they think them- concerns about the long shadow of politi- selves creatively into the future. I do so cal history in jazz performance; about de- from an intergenerational perspective, re- fining the styles of South African jazz his- membering that the South African jazz tory; on the place of memory in jazz; on community includes those born before the use of jazz as a medium of individu- apartheid, those who lived under apart- al and collective healing; on gender, non- heid, and a growing number of those who racialism, moving beyond categories, have recently gained diplomas, certifi- building relationships across genres in- cates, or degrees in jazz performance as the side the frame of jazz improvisation, re- “born free” generation: that is, they never storing the past through the sounds of experienced the brutality of the apartheid jazz; on the continuing dissension in jazz; regime and so carry mixed feelings about and reclaiming a place in the writing of constant references to apartheid experi- national history. Nurturing global con- ence and history. That said, what is clear is nections through musical travel remains that in post-apartheid South Africa, with important for many musicians in terms the return of those who left the country of recording and performance opportuni- in the late 1950s and 1960s, the creation ties. In the final piece of this essay, I con- of jazz education programs at several uni- textualize the work of jazz in South Afri- versities starting in the 1980s and the pres- ca by refracting it through the discours- ence of a handful of annual jazz festivals es of a similar process of collaborative and clubs in several cities, many South Af- art and music-making directed by Johan- ricans at least know something about a nesburg-based artist/performer/director category of performance called South Af- William Kentridge. I came to Kentridge’s rican jazz. And yet, with all the monumen- brilliant narrations of art-making when I talizing of South Africa’s brutal past– hosted two South African jazz musicians new and reconfigured museums, tour- in the Arthur Ross Gallery at the Universi- ism routes and destinations, documentary ty of Pennsylvania in October 2018: saxo- films, and new school history curricula– phonist McCoy Mrubata and pianist Paul there are very few spaces or buildings that Hamner played their version of South Af- pay tribute to South Africa’s rich and var- rican jazz surrounded by an installation of ied jazz history. That heritage/history is Kentridge’s black-and-white prints.

148 (2) Spring 2019 117 Why Jazz? Writing about the 2015 Cape Town In- The second piece in the story of South South Africa ternational Jazz Festival, a three-day an- African jazz is what seem to be musician- 2019 nual fiesta of jazz, loosely defined, Na- initiated spaces for jazz performance, tional Public Radio contributor Giovanni composition, and recording. With the re- Russonello captured the why of South Af- duction in the cost of recording equip- rican jazz: under apartheid, the “major ment, musicians have opened their own art of resistance” was jazz, with its blend- modest recording studios. There are far ing of a variety of influences from South more privately owned recording music Asia, Africa, Cuba, and the United States; studios in Cape Town, for example, than but since 1994, with the first democratic there are live performance venues for jazz elections at the end of apartheid, South specifically. A quick Google search named African jazz has lost its “revolutionary eighteen such studios in the city. In the Jo- edge. Jazz musicians now enjoyed free hannesburg-Pretoria metropolitan area, rein, but played a less clear role in the na- seventeen studios are listed. While the tional narrative” even as musicians have studios are not just for jazz, they show the begun to play along with the digital rev- shift from commercial clubs to private olution that accompanied the political studios, and show that musicians are as- transformation of the last three decades.3 suming creative control, are freer to ex- This idea frames the first response to periment with new musical possibilities, the problem of shuttered venues, which is and are thus pushing the music in a wide found in comments about South African range of directions. opera and jazz diva Sibongile Khumalo’s A third dimension of the changing in- 2016 album Breath of Life. Blogger Majo- frastructure for South African jazz is its la Majola remarks that the recording of a ties to tourism–visitors can sign up for a live performance is a remarkable feat in four-hour “jazz tour” that will take them a context in which the modes of musical to a jazz venue and perhaps to the house production and consumption have been of a jazz musician for a meal in both Cape “transformed by technology, affecting Town and Johannesburg. There are sev- monopoly in music consumption trends, eral venues in the townships of Johan- and reconstructing the marketplace all nesburg and Cape Town that will occa- together.” The positive side is that art- sionally host jazz performances: Afri- ists are put in the driver’s seat creatively, kan Freedom Station and King Kong are and they are able to control the business art/coffee/jazz spaces in Johannesburg. side of creating their music. The negative There are restaurants/art spaces and side is that there is far less demand for community centers in the Langa, Nyanga, their work because of the diversification and Gugulethu townships in Cape Town. of the marketplace, the emergence of a Jazz in the Native Yards is a production range of alternative marketing platforms, company that provides infrastructure and, as he remarks scathingly, because and audio technology for such events. South African radio “treats local musi- But most of these spaces, like the Orbit it- cians like a loathed step child, condemn- self, will not be able to sustain themselves ing them to the destitute position of beg- for more than a few years.5 ging and bribing in order to be heard.”4 The fourth piece in South African jazz There is simply a lack of support for jazz infrastructure and capacity is the longer- in the old venues, yet there are new pos- term growth of jazz programs in univer- sibilities with new technologies and pri- sities, such as the University of KwaZulu vately owned studios. Natal, the University of Cape Town, and

118 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences the University of the Witwatersrand. It is impossible to convey the richness Carol A. These programs were largely initiated by and sheer productivity of South Afri- Muller American jazz musicians: the first was can jazz, its histories, and contemporary Darius Brubeck, son of the late Dave Bru- meanings to local and international audi- beck, who founded the Center for Jazz ences in this essay. My purpose rather is and Popular Music Studies at what was to render contours of the complexity and then the University of Natal in the early diversity of contemporary music-making 1980s. Both Mike Campbell and Michael in South Africa and by South Africans, Rossi helped establish the jazz studies to capture the vibrancy of jazz as a cre- program at the University of Cape Town. ative, improvising, borrowing, and fus- There are similar programs in most ing vehicle for South African musicians, South African universities. These mu- and to do so mostly in the musicians’ own sic programs were radical interventions words. This means that only a handful of at the time of founding because they re- contemporary artists will be heard from quired bold solutions at the tertiary level here. In the spirit of a representative de- for certifying the performance and rep- mocracy, I hope that individual words ertory knowledge of so many skilled mu- speak to broader experiences, as I can sicians who may not have had appropri- only convey snippets of larger narratives ate high school certification to enter the and conversations. The sources of musi- university, but who proved to be highly cians’ words are several: interviews con- skilled performers. Brubeck and others ducted by others, promotional materials were innovative and persuasive in find- from the musicians, Jazz at Lincoln Cen- ing ways to allow these musicians into ter educational videos, the All About university programs. Some of the ear- Jazz interviews by Seton Hawkins, and ly graduates of these programs are now my own conversations with musicians. themselves South African university I have taken the liberty of extracting out teachers of jazz. from larger narratives, cutting and past- A fifth dimension of South African jazz ing, sometimes in favor of the pithy com- infrastructure comes from organizations ment that conveys essential positions or a outside of the country that periodically specific description, and at other times al- host South African musicians and engage lowing for a fuller explanation. I have also in some kind of educational mission. One found that veteran musicians often have of these is Jazz at Lincoln Center in New more to say than the younger generation. York City. South African born but educat- I start with born-free musician Vuma ed in the United States, Seton Hawkins is Levin, who is a guitarist, composer, and the director of public programs and edu- bandleader, and who captures the chang- cation resources at Lincoln Center, and in ing priorities of jazz since the end of that capacity, he has created Jazz Acade- apartheid: my videos on South African music and I think it would be a mistake to say that any regularly contributes interviews he has of our music today is divorced from apart- conducted with South African jazz mu- heid. On the other hand, we are moving sicians to All About Jazz. I draw on the more towards asking existential questions. interview transcripts, Web pages with How do we make meaning for ourselves in South African musician and recordings this new age, in the absence of a common content, and Jazz Academy videos post- oppressor?. . . . This notion of the human ed on YouTube as resources for this dis- and its acts of cultural production as con- cussion. tingent and dynamic rather than fixed and

148 (2) Spring 2019 119 Why Jazz? essential made a lot of sense to me. I’m half I am not really interested in African music. I South Africa black, I’m half Jewish, and it would be dif- am more committed to universal conscious- 2019 ficult for me to point to some essential his- ness. The music that I play now reflects that. tory that I could call my own. So [Homi The band I am working with now [in 2010] Bhabha’s] mimicry and hybridity idea was is in New York, William Parker on bass, a perfect way to understand what I am, Nasheet Waits on drums, Matthew Shipp from the vantage point of things I picked on piano. I met them at the Vision Festival. up along the way, musical or otherwise...... So the music I’m dealing is improvised, When the African National Congress was totally improvised music. 100%. That developing this “New African” ideology, a is what I want to do all the time. Not to lot of the African nationalists’ ideology fil- over-rehearse the music, we never rehearse tered into the music. You hear it particular- at home traditional music. I used to say to ly in choral traditions, and also in jazz mu- people it’s strange that we have to rehearse sicians’ work. . . . But in terms of the music I for hours on end. I’ve never rehearsed for 6 write, it’s Vuma. It’s a very personal thing. a prayer meeting or funeral, for traditional ceremonies. I always wanted to go back Then, I discuss three jazz veterans, to that where I just do things naturally. And brought together for a panel at Stellen- now I have arrived at that. We play without bosch University in July 2010 by British rehearsals. We meet thirty minutes before scholar Jonathan Eato. The panel was re- the gig and that’s it. The music we create is corded by filmmaker Aryan Kaganof and amazing. The chemistry we have, it helps the African Noise Foundation and host- me transcend. And it’s beautiful.8 ed on Vimeo.7 Fortuitously, it captured the voice of saxophonist Zim Ngqawana, A little later he sums it up: who died so suddenly in May 2011. Zim Ngqawana performs/converses along- I would like to leave my children the legacy side veteran pianist Tete Mbambisa and of freedom, free thinkers, intelligent young drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo. For all people, no fear, no greed, not being bound three musicians, prioritizing freedom, by tradition, culture, history. I had to drop not just politically, but culturally, musi- all of that. . . . I don’t consider myself an Af- cally, and spiritually, fed the purpose of rican. I’m not interested in that. It didn’t their music-making. help me. . . . I have no identity, I am not interested in identity because identity is false. After hearing Zim Ngqwana’s compo- There’s another thing about improvised sition “Qula Kwedini,” based on a Xho- music, we have to come to the music as sa traditional song, Zim elaborates on his equals. Nobody’s going to count you off, search for freedom in life and music by nobody’s going to tell you where you have explaining: to start. . . . It’s not a performance that I do, I did that (Qula Kwedini) music because I it’s like being at home in the community. felt I was born into a culture, a group of peo- We are meeting, celebrating. It’s not far out ple from the Eastern Cape, the Xhosa people, as a performance, I actually like to look at it 9 a society. I had to pay my dues, I had to ac- as a meditation. knowledge I was coming from somewhere. But that’s not all my interest anymore. I’ve Improvising musician Nduduzo Mak- done that. I’m not that committed to a cul- hathini, who was born in 1982 and who ture, tradition. People ask these questions has lived much of his life beyond the of me, if I am committed to African music. reaches of apartheid, reflects on the

120 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences push to freedom from tradition, culture, music? Your music, like now South Afri- Carol A. and language in Ngqawana’s music. He ca is free and we are dealing with the world Muller pairs Ngqawana with the late great pia- . . . so the thing is we are about 45 million nist Bheki Mseleku, who followed a sim- people, so we can’t do mbaqanga all of us. ilar path to rid himself of the shackles of It’s good, but some of the music we did ac- identity. Makhathini commented to Se- tually broke down the Berlin Wall. . . . The ton Hawkins in 2018: improvised music helped to bring down What’s interesting to me is that for both the wall. If you played mbaqanga music, Bra Zim and Mseleku, is that towards the it’s ok, they knew about it. But then came ends of their lives, they were both moving this music, and it really pulled some punch- towards trying to extract themselves from es. As I say, it’s the first music that got into the Zulu nation in Mseleku’s case, and the me, that makes sense to me. The free form: Xhosa nation in Bra Zim’s case. They were both hands free, feet free. trying to disown the idea of being a Xho- We’re trying, but we’ve been damaged. How sa or a Zulu music; they felt the tags were long will this go on? Coming back to South limiting and restricting them from uni- Africa and seeing this legacy, it’s hurting, versality. I find them to be really interest- really. And I don’t know what to do. I’ve ing people. . . . It has to do with trying to been fighting all my life, to get this free mu- deconstruct these aspects I was describ- sic thing into the market. I’ve been fighting earlier. Things like him being a Xhosa ing: I am one of the pioneers in this music.11 person and thinking around the memories of his upbringing. He wanted, maybe not Again, pianist, composer, and produc to disconnect, but to go beyond that, and er and the almost-born-free Nduduzo it comes through in his improvisation. I Makhathini reflects on the decades of don’t know if you’ve heard the live record- Moholo-Moholo’s fight for freedom in ing from Linder Auditorium [50th Birth- his music. day Celebration (2010)], which is complete- Jazz was always a music that could reflect ly abstract, but you can feel connection to people’s pain, but in the Blues Notes’ mu- the hymnals he drew from Abdullah Ibra- sic, and Louis Moholo-Moholo’s in par- him’s music. You can feel connections to ticular, you find a confronting of what was traditional music, but there is a constant going on in South Africa. There’s an al- movement away from that, too. He was bum of Louis Moholo-Moholo’s called Bra into teachings about dissolving, this Zen Louis–Bra Tebs that has a song called “Son- state of No Mind. It plays in an interesting ke.” On it, Bra Louis talks about how the way in his music, especially when he was music took them through pain, but also playing with people like Matthew Shipp at how it became a way of living and laugh- the Vision Festival. It was about creating ing together. It’s such a powerful song, and an alternative space for people to freely ex- also it sonically represents what it’s talking press themselves, whether through music, about. It’s got an ostinato in the bass, that dance, painting.10 to me represents the resistance, and then over that they develop these melodies over it and it goes abstract. But the ostinato re- Free-jazz musician, drummer Louis Mo- mains. To me, it’s a representation of what holo-Moholo follows on from Ngqawana: we’ve all been through, and Bra Louis cap- I’m happy, I’m happy that you say this be- tured the experience of exile in the 1960s in cause I started playing this avant-garde and a profound way. He was trying to connect I was blamed. Why don’t you play your own with a construct of home.12

148 (2) Spring 2019 121 Why Jazz? How can you make a museum in often brutal colonial encounters be- South Africa about a language?13 tween those of European colonial dis- 2019 Language is a borrowing from verskillend position, and those who were exiled and (different) languages.14 imported from East Asia, Mozambique, Angola, and elsewhere as slaves. Quite literally carved in stone, the Taal Monu- Jazz musician and film music compos- ment tells only one side of the story of Af- er Kyle Shepherd skeptically asks how rikaans history. But it stands, intention- one monumentalizes a living language, ally facing the more recently constructed in response to us telling him that the Freedom Park, which in contrast monu- Penn undergraduate class will visit the mentalizes the lives of those who fought Afrikaans Taal (Language) Monument the struggle for freedom from Afrikan- in Pretoria as part of our engagement er oppression. The Taal Monument re- with post-apartheid South Africa. Shep- mains a monumental reminder of the herd’s question is wrapped in tones of brutality of apartheid era exclusions and emotional pain and anger, as he reflects oppression. And it bears witness to the back on his work with Afrikaaps, the futility of building a museum to the lan- Cape Town hip hop/spoken word collab- guage of a people. Perhaps like jazz and oration from the early 2000s that sought freedom itself, language should exist as to restore place and ownership of the a living entity, owned by no one group, language of Afrikaans to Cape Town’s freely shared, absorbed, borrowed, and brown people.15 It was their ancestors localized. who had originally forged the language I am tracking in my own musical way, of Afrikaans out of encounters with co- chronologically, the story of Cape Town.16 lonial Europeans. A language now widely recognized as originally written in Ar- At about the same time as the Afri- abic script in the context of slavery, exile, kaaps project, Shepherd released a less and European colonialism, it was appro- controversial and more clearly jazz- priated and repurposed as a whites-only inflected recording, a musical render- language by the Afrikaner Nationalists ing of the restoration of a much-neglect- in the twentieth century, as born out by ed piece of South African and human the stories told and visually represented genetic history: the story of South Af- inside the Afrikaans Taal Monument in rican’s KhoiSan, the first peoples, and Pretoria. indeed, the peoples with the most di- Kyle Shepherd, Jitsvinger, and other verse and oldest repository of mito- Afrikaaps storytellers created a touring chondrial dna. These are the people, musical theater production to set the his- denigrated and discarded by the apart- torical record straight, informed by aca- heid regime, who are now believed to be demic research on the intertwined and the closest representatives of our human complicated history of the Afrikaans lan- origins. And they are blended into the guage. Shepherd recalled with bitterness mixed heritage of so many people of the how the show was verbally slaughtered Western Cape. On Shepherd’s South Afri- by the old Afrikaner journalists for the can History !X recording, the Khoisan are musicians’ and poets’ insistent resto- represented by the clicking sounds of ration of the historical narrative of Afri- Khoisan language and performance on kaans as one focused on the messy diver- the xaru, or musical mouth bow of the sity and rich history of a language forged Khoisan peoples.

122 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences We are ok in our skins with being South African gourd that you find in the instrument that Carol A. and African musicians within the global space.17 makes that incredibly loud noise. Muller All of us, except perhaps one, all of us are bandleaders in our separate spaces and we Sibongile Khumalo was born into apart- have come together to collaborate, to cre- heid, but also into a musically rich home ate something that might be definitive of a guided by her father who was both clas- jazz sound that is not Xhosa or Zulu or Af- sically trained and had a deep knowledge rikaans or Indian, that might actually come of and connection to Zulu music histo- to be identified as “South African jazz.” Be- ry and heritage. In the spring of 2016, a cause everybody interprets, has interpret- group of South African jazz musicians ed, jazz in the way that they know how, called Uhadi, which again, references the from wherever they come from in the con- old hunting and musical bow of many text of South African music as a whole con- Southern African hunter gatherer com- text. Somebody like [Hugh] Masekela is munities, was invited to perform at Lin- distinct in what he does, but there are oth- coln Center. I talked with Sibongile about er elements of music that comes out of a the use of the bow and its meaning for group, a collaboration such as Uhadi. musicians in contemporary South Af- rican jazz and in the specific makeup of What you find in Xhosa music you might her New York City ensemble. Sibongile not find in Zulu music or Sotho music, so explained: picking up on an ihubo, a Zulu sound of ukuhuba, which is the chant that a Zulu Uhadi is the name chosen because it refer- singing musician would make, this would ences the root of our music, where we be- be different for instance to a Xhosa sound, lieve we come from as musicians, recog- a Xhosa word–[she illustrates both kinds] nizing, acknowledging, embracing our tra- and over and above that within the Xhosa ditional roots, our indigenous footprints, space of music making, you find the Xhosa being comfortable with the past and pres- women split singing. I can’t do that. ent in how we shape the future of South Af- rican jazz. [South African jazz is] distinct Invariably the band adjusts to what they from other kinds of jazz. These elements of hear, because they are familiar with the our root music, of our folk music give us a sound that music makers make at home. A distinct sound, they provide a distinct fea- lot of this music we hear subliminally, a lot ture in the music, and basically we are com- of this music is there, so you incorporate fortable with that, we are ok in our skins these elements into this music because you with being South African and African mu- have a well to reference from. And it just sicians within the global space. sort of filters through. So the string which you find in uhadi, re- Yes, the music has been created, the melo- fers to the taughtness, brought about by dies are in place, the harmonies are in place, the tension which you find in a group [as the words are in place, but certain things, I diverse] as this, but also the flexibility of guess like any learned art form or style you the string, if you loosen it a bit and allow it have a vocabulary that you draw from. And to take its own shape, it creates a space for it sort of manifests itself and forces its way the group to improvise, to make music as a through. group. It allows for the group, the name it- And in the jazz space because improvisa- self suggests the need for flexibility, which tion is such an essential element of it, be- resonates at the same time, off that small ing able to refer to the different languages

148 (2) Spring 2019 123 Why Jazz? from back home is a big boon, it helps. It attended as a child. As a young man I be- South Africa helps a lot. came involved in isicathamiya and other 2019 cm: So language becomes a kind of musi- various acapella music. But the biggest in- cal palette for you in a way. fluence for me initially was the Zionist Church, and their use of the drum, med- 18 sk: Yes it does, yes it does. itative chants, and prophecy. The Zion- ist Church incorporated Christianity and We know that South Africa’s “First Lady ancestral beliefs. . . . So I was introduced to of Song” Sibongile Khumalo’s engage- music as a mode for spirituality. . . . Later ment with all kinds of music comes out of on, I became attracted to the idea of how her childhood home, and specifically her improvised music could be a way of pro- relationship with her father, the late Khabi moting healthy communities.20 Mngoma, the well-known music educator, conductor, and choral director. In the early 2000s, Khumalo performed the role of the I really see my path in South African jazz as a Zulu musical bow player and clan histori- hybrid, a hybrid of a product of South African an Princess Magogo in Mzilikazi Khum- jazz as well as being influenced by American alo’s opera Princess Magogo. Magogo had traditional jazz, so hoping to join the Miriam been a key player in Khumalo’s childhood, Makebas with the Ella Fitzgeralds. You can real- as she recalls visiting her homestead and ly express yourself with jazz, you are not limited hearing her sing Zulu history accompa- with pitch or melody or rhythm. It’s like jumping nied on the musical bow. In the last several on a train and you have no idea where it’s going years, Khumalo has incorporated musical to go to. Sometimes it’s going to take you to the recollections of those rural visits into the same place, but most of the time it’s going to take sound of her live performances, and oth- you to an unimaginably beautiful place that you ers have also rendered similar sorts of trac- never thought you would land up at.21 es into jazz performances. This, of course, is not new to South African jazz, particu- Longing to work with a poet rather than larly, as Makhathini commented above, in her own lyrics, Melanie Scholtz engaged the musical renderings of those who went with anti-apartheid poet James Mat- into political exile: Abdullah Ibrahim was thew’s writings, in a two-year composi- quintessentially a narrator of musical tional and performance project, Freedom’s memory, and there are echoes of a South Child. Here we capture the power of the African traditional past in the free impro- words of the poet in quotes with the re- visations of all the musicians of the Blues flections of the singer: 19 Notes who followed Ibrahim into exile. “Freedom Child you have been denied too long, fill your lungs and cry rage.” Born in 1982 in KwaZulu Natal, a decade before the end of apartheid, Makha- It’s another gravity that hits you in the heart. thini released eight distinctive solo re- “I am black. My blackness fills me to the cordings in four years. Also a producer of brim, like a beaker of well seasoned wine. . . . other South African musical projects, he White men say black is the color of despair.” sums up what shapes and motivates his music-making: We must listen, go back and listen and to look at the poems in more depth and say, I am privileged, Growing up [in KwaZulu Natal], I heard a I am here as a result of other people’s sacrifice. lot [of] traditional Zulu music. It was based on some of the ceremonies and rituals I “Pain and blood brings our liberty.”

124 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences We live in a world where everything is so easy, so of black-and-white Kentridge prints. Carol A. convenient . . . we are not really feeding ourselves Their music-making together was fold- Muller good things, we’re not writing enough, we watch ed into a thirty-year friendship and mu- too much television, we don’t really know what sical partnership that had started be- is going on around us. So when you read poetry fore the end of apartheid, and in the odd like James’s work it’s like another gravity in your logic of apartheid racial categories, in- heart.22 volved them pursuing a partnership across the categories of “coloured” and After releasing Freedom’s Child, Scholtz “black” South Africa. When we talked joined with hip-hop artist Jitsvinger, musi- with the musicians about the overlaps cian Benjamin Jephta, and pianist Bokani or conversations that might be rendered Dyer to create something new, more mod- by locating their jazz performance in the ern, and to claim a place for the next gen- context of Kentridge’s art, we came up eration of born-free South African mu- with very little. What connections could sicians in Our Time. The recording pos- there be between three men who had sesses an intentional message about the grown up in very different circumstances privilege of being born free, about a new largely based on apartheid racial catego- generation of South African artists, who ries: black, white, and coloured? While are claiming the baton for new sounds all three currently live in the same city, Jo- and possibilities coming out of South Af- hannesburg, and are about the same age, rica. As such, Scholtz creates a musical beyond a basic notion of the transforma- space for her generation, after reflecting tive capacity of Kentridge’s prints and back through a music and poetry collab- the work of transformation inherent in oration on the gravity of what it meant jazz improvisation, the question of some to be an artist of color under apartheid in point of connection reached a dead end. contrast to the sense of freedom she now That was the case then. celebrates in a democratic dispensation, In drawing together the ideas about jazz at liberty to harness self-expression, love, as a form of artistic endeavor in contem- joy, creativity, and passion without bear- porary South Africa and listening to con- ing the burden of an unjust political sys- versations Kentridge has had with cura- tem. And it is Melanie Scholtz, this young tors and others about his artistic process, I woman jazz musician, who has the last suggest that Kentridge’s process is not that word about the varied motivations and far from the work of contemporary South purposes of South African jazz. African jazz. Here are just a few examples: Kentridge, like all jazz artists, works col- In October 2018, we hosted the perfor- laboratively, picking out artists, includ- mance of South African jazz musicians ing singers, dancers, visual artists, theater pianist Paul Hamner and saxophonist people, and composers, and they begin less and flute player McCoy Mrubata at the with a clear sense of a precomposed piece Arthur Ross Gallery on campus at the or path to production than with a strong University of Pennsylvania. This was a sense of the possibilities that come with joint project between Arthur Ross and the collaborative experimentation, risk-tak- South African jazz musicians because, at ing, and questions. Each member of the the time, the Ross Gallery had an installa- team brings to the studio the hope not that tion of South African artist William Ken- they have answers, but rather that they un- tridge. Hamner and Mrubata played their derstand first what the questions even are. music amidst the visual treasure trove They work with uncertainty, seeking out

148 (2) Spring 2019 125 Why Jazz? the gaps, for the gaps might lead to imag- the provisional, the spontaneous, even South Africa inative leaps. Allowing for the absurd, the unexpected. And he wants everyone 2019 comments Kentridge, liberates one from to play: “play creates the conditions that the traps of linear thinking, permitting help the other part to happen,” he sug- the release of complexity, of collage over gests. “I am more moved when uncertain- straight narrative. There is an openness to ty remains,” he says elsewhere.24 dislocation, fragmentation, dismember- Frankly, I can think of no better descrip- ing, remembering, and remaking, to allow tion of the values and processes of South for new and novel ways of making art, the- African jazz. Stretching the string, borrow- ater, and music. ing, juxtaposing, rendering, disappearing, Kentridge starts at the place of the “less reappearing, liberating, restoring, remem- good idea,” he relishes the possibilities bering. So far from the American centers and virtues of bastardy, there is no need for of jazz composition, performance, and authenticity, for purity, for any real feeling canonization, South African jazz embrac- of a center.23 Erasure is his method of con- es the freedom to expand creatively on all struction; he urges the viewer/listener/ kinds of possibilities, and to experiment reader and cocreators to be fully engaged with a multitude of partnerships, languag- in the making of the work/performance/ es, instruments, and sounds, relishing the installation. At the very core of his pro- power of peripheral thinking and all the cess, one might argue that Kentridge rel- “virtues of bastardy.” ishes the contingent, the improvisational,

endnotes 1 Melanie Scholtz, “Melanie Scholtz,” YouTube, uploaded November 8, 2009, https://www .youtube.com/watch?v=sZZrHzZHIcA. 2 See “rip the Orbit: Time to Build New Jazz Spaces,” sisgwenjazz, January 4, 2019, https:// sisgwenjazz.wordpress.com/2019/01/04/rip-the-orbit-time-to-build-new-jazz-spaces/ ?fbclid=IwAR3OKdJflPInpqmXo-aOeECue8XxylJNOh1VC_3jkHhvncR-FpU11KphHJY. 3 Giovanni Russonello, “Three Jazz Pianists, A Generation After Apartheid,” A Blog Supreme, npr Jazz, March 28, 2015, https://www.npr.org/sections/ablogsupreme/2015/03/28/ 395541160/three-jazz-pianists-a-generation-after-apartheid. 4 Majola Majola, “Sibongile Khumalo: An Eternal Breath of Life,” noted.man, March 16, 2016, http://www.notedman.com/khumalo-breathes-life/. 5 For Johannesburg, see, for example, “Afrikan Freedom Station,” Gauteng: It Starts Here, https://www.gauteng.net/attractions/attraction-afrikan-freedom-station; and “Johannes- burg Jazz Safari,” Coffee Beans Routes: Pan African Creative Travel, https://coffeebeans routes.com/johannesburg-jazz-safari/. For Cape Town, see “Where to Watch Live Jazz in Cape Town,” CapeTownMagazine.com, https://www.capetownmagazine.com/jazz; “Township Dinner and Jazz Experience,” MyCapeTownStay.com, https://www.mycape townstay.com/Township_Dinner_and_Jazz_Experience; and “7 Top Jazz Venues in Cape Town,” Travel by xo, April 2, 2013, http://blog.xoafrica.com/destinations/7-top-jazz -venue-cape-town/. Please note, however, that the website presence does not necessarily mean that these events and spaces are still in existence; a website is not always taken down when a business shuts down. 6 Seton Hawkins, “Vuma Levin: Musical Painting,” All About Jazz, May 8, 2018, https://www .allaboutjazz.com/vuma-levin-musical-painting-vuma-levin-by-seton-hawkins.php?page=1. 7 See African Noise Foundation, “The Legacy,” Vimeo, October 14, 2014, on https://vimeo .com/108933925.

126 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 8 See “vision Festival xv,” Arts for Art, https://www.artsforart.org/vf14.html. Prioritizing Carol A. spontaneity, jazz singer Sathima Bea Benjamin would cite the aesthetic preferences of Duke Muller Ellington as she experienced him in a recording studio in Paris in 1963: he used only one take. This resonates with the preference for fewer rehearsals articulated here by Ngqawana. 9 African Noise Foundation, “The Legacy.” 10 Seton Hawkins, “Nduduzo Makhathini: Jazz is a Shared Memory,” All About Jazz, Febru- ary 1, 2018, https://www.allaboutjazz.com/nduduzo-makhathini-jazz-is-a-shared-memory -nduduzo-makhathini-by-seton-hawkins.php. 11 African Noise Foundation, “The Legacy.” 12 Louis Moholo-Moholo, Bra Louis–Bra Tebs, Ogun, 2005, https://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=dGwMcf6wMJg. 13 Author conversation with Penn students, Kyle Shepherd’s Atlantic Films studio, Cape Town, January 2019. 14 Jitsvinger in Dylan Valley, “What is Afrikaaps?” YouTube, uploaded March 3, 2013, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVpBHcR1_tU. 15 Ibid. 16 See the promotional video for the 2012 release of South African History !X at Gallo Records, “Kyle Shepherd–South African History !X (Officialepk ),” uploaded March 15, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXSHivweib0. 17 I interviewed Sibongile Khumalo for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s South African Jazz tour. For videos of the interview, see Jazz at Lincoln Center’s jazz academy, “South Africa’s ‘First Lady of Song’ Sibongile Khumalo, Part One–Four,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynLrb N2pg2o; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KE4uzokXZw; https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=a-aCgNJRH_0; and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZcgrqC1MPg. See also Jazz Day South Africa, “Sibongile Khumalo,” YouTube, uploaded September 7, 2017, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=NirSyiIhc7Y. 18 Ibid. 19 See Christine Lucia, “Abdullah Ibrahim and the Uses of Memory,” British Journal of Ethnomu- sicology 11 (2) (2002): 125–143; and Carol Ann Muller, “Musical Remembrance, Exile, and the Remaking of South African Jazz (1960–1979),” in The Oxford Handbook of Music Revival, ed. Caroline Bithell and Juniper Hill (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 20 Hawkins, “Nduduzo Makhathini.” 21 Scholtz, “Melanie Scholtz,” interview as the 2010 Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner for Jazz. Some of the other women are keyboardist/singer Thandi Ntuli, saxophonist Lin- da Sikhakhane, and trombonist/singer Siya Makuzeni, all of whom are tightly connected to each other and to the broader history of South African jazz. See Thandi Ntuli, Exiled, Band- camp, February 1, 2018, https://thandintuli.bandcamp.com/; Linda Sikhakhane, Two Sides, One Mirror, Bandcamp, January 16, 2018, https://lindasikhakhane.bandcamp.com/; and Siya Makuzeni, Out of this World, Bandcamp, September 12, 2016, https://siyamakuzenisextet .bandcamp.com/album/out-of-this-world. 22 The words and juxtapositions are drawn from an interview with Melanie Scholtz. See Slow- design Cape Town, “Freedom’s Child–Melanie Scholtz Sings J. Matthews,” YouTube, uploaded April 4, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQQ43kBZdSk. 23 There are many video recordings of Kentridge speaking of his process and rendering performances on YouTube. The most recent comes from his Brooklyn production “The Head & the Load.” See Park Avenue Armory, “Artist Talk: The Head & the Load,” YouTube, December 6, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJtUH5HSrWI. 24 William Kentridge and Rosalind C. Morris, That Which Is Not Drawn (New York: Seagull Books, 2014).

148 (2) Spring 2019 127 Board of Directors Nancy C. Andrews, Chair of the Board David W. Oxtoby, President Diane P. Wood, Chair of the Council; Vice Chair of the Board Alan M. Dachs, Chair of the Trust; Vice Chair of the Board Geraldine L. Richmond, Secretary Carl H. Pforzheimer III, Treasurer Kwame Anthony Appiah Louise H. Bryson John Mark Hansen Ira Katznelson Nannerl O. Keohane John Lithgow Cherry A. Murray Venkatesh Narayanamurti Larry Jay Shapiro Natasha Trethewey Pauline Yu Louis W. Cabot, Chair Emeritus

Inside back cover: (top) Multi-instrumentalist Yusef Lateef performs with his quintet in 1958. Shown from left to right are Lateef, flute, Frank Morelli, baritone sax, Terry Pollard, piano, and Frank Gant, drums. Photograph provided by Ayesha Lateef. (bottom) Guitarist George Benson performs at the 2013 Monterey Jazz Festival. © 2013 by the Monterey Jazz Festival/Cole Thompson.

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