Advent reflections on a jazz weekend...

This past weekend was spent in a "North Country Residency" in Littleton, NH.  We played two concerts, shared a jazz workshop at a regional elementary school and did three workshops. It was exhausting, exhilarating and expansive for us as a band and I hope we can make this happen again.  Because, you see, it was a chance to critically reflect on our "peace-making through music" commitments with the wider public - and then support our interpretation with the music we love.

For a long time I've been thinking about this work - playing jazz, yes - but also playing jazz in a peace-making mode.  Most of the time we just do a gig - and most of the time the gigs are fun whether they are in a school, church or bar; but I have discerned that it helps me to have some quiet time to talk about the reasons why we do what we do. I don't know if that is true for the rest of the band - different strokes for different folks and all that - because for some being in the musical moment is all that matters. But for me there is a world view at work in my art - a marriage of aesthetics, spirituality and life goals - because I believe that "beauty can save the world."

Now I am not so naive as to suggest that playing a few gigs in Turkey - or New Hampshire or Nicaragua - is going to change the world.  At the same time I know that playing jazz as an ambassador for peace matters.  Our music cuts deeper than theology or ideology. It immediately creates common ground.  Without words, we feel something together.  We may want to explore what those feelings are - and why they matter to us - at a later time, but for a moment our hearts open to one another in the music.  And in a world filled with fear and violence, open hearts are always a good thing. In fact, I am of the belief that open hearts create opportunities for understanding and compassion.  In my world, this is one of the ways the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is realized in time; when I use my time, gifts and resources as a vessel for God's will in the real world, sacred words become flesh.

So we talked about open hearts in our workshops and why they matter.  We shared stories and insights about what it means to practice active listening on the bandstand as well as in our homes and in cross-cultural encounters.  My mentor in this is Wynton Marsalis who noted that four key realities take place on the bandstand that have application for the peace-making world, too:

+ First, the band agrees to show up together and explore creating something beautiful.  Not destructive or selfish, not self-absorbed or mean-spirited: beautiful.  In other words, there is a vision and a commitment to making something creative and soul-satisfying that feeds our hungry hearts.  During the workshops I spoke of how Alexander Solzhenitsyn came to affirm the wisdom of Dostoevsky who proclaimed that beauty can save the world.  And in his Nobel Peace Address, Solzhenitsyn explains how that worked in his life as he opposed the brutality and banality of evil in communist Russia. So first there is a vision of something that simultaneously lifts our spirits and feeds our hearts:  beauty.

+ Second, on the bandstand we share our gifts equally - always listening for the strengths and weaknesses of a song - and they are always there.  Sometimes, as a bass player, I find myself in a tug of war with the drummer: he likes to take it fast and I tend to want to lay back in the pocket. Not only do we have to notice that tension, we have to playfully engage it - test both desires out in real time - and then make a compromise.  If the song is going to work, one player needs to be given the freedom to take off so that the rest of us can follow. We don't always get our own way. So we have to trust that in time the inverse will be true, too and we will have room to fly.  In every song there are a lot of other call and response things taking place that demand our attention like where's the guitar player going with his solo?  is the sax man in or out of the box tonight? when the piano guy is playing without any relationship to time, our rhythm section groove had better be extra tight... and what the hell key does the vocalist want to do this song in? Active and cooperative listening is essential.

+ Third, paying attention to the crowd - learning to read their reactions - can make or break a gig.  Some players don't give a shit.  It is said that out of shyness and a response to racism, Miles would sometimes turn his back on the audience and play just for his own love of the music.  Most of us, however, need to pay attention to what's going on in the joint and make changes accordingly or we'll never be called back to that bandstand again.  I've seen players get too trashed to play well - that's not pretty - and I've seen bands get too caught up in their feelings, too.  They run all over an audience in an ugly and self-indulgent romp.  And let's not forget players who get so lost in their own heads that they don't consider how the crowd - or their colleagues - are feeling and race towards oblivion in what will surely be a train wreck.  Been there and seen (and sometimes done) them all. 

+ And fourth there is the freedom experienced, created and shared with improvisation. There is truly nothing like it in any other musical genre - so it has to be respected. You can't improvise if you haven't practiced.  You better not improvise if it is all about you and not the song.  And you shouldn't improvise if you don't feel it.  But when you do - and you get it all lined up - you are in a moment where you can explore anything in peace and trust.  As Bill Frissell likes to say:  it is a moment where you can go anywhere and nobody gets hurt - so let's be clear that improvisation is holy ground.  Listen to the masters - Bird, Miles, Herbie Hancock, Monk or Coltrane - take a trip with Nina Simone, too - and you will be lifted and blessed.  This is freedom talking to us and embracing us at the same time.

Towards the end of one workshop, someone asked: "How do you do peace-making through music?"  First, trust the Lord (I thought to myself) and then practice active listening on each of these levels - very active listening - for beauty, cooperation and musical integrity, for compromise, groove and connection with the people, too.  It is a commitment.  It is a worldview.  And it takes lots and lots of practice... but worth every minute of it.