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Freedom and All That Jazz: Jazz Meditations

Sinclair Ang

Mood 4 Jazz (Steven Johnson)

To the question, “What is jazz”, Louis Armstrong’s answer was supposed to have been, “If you’ve got to ask, you’ll never know.” Fats Waller went even further by saying, “If you don’t know by now, do not mess with it”.

But this issue of the Substation magazine will mess it, though, not necessarily because we know what jazz is, but because I am free to make that choice. This messing around begins with this issue freeing itself from the usual suspects, resulting in a motley crew of contributors, consisting of an Assistant Professor at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory by day and jazz musician extraordinaire by night, an ex-award winning Swiss designer who dropped everything to become a life counsellor, and a visual artist who is keen on breaking boundaries between disciplines as well as in perceptions of identity. This freedom also means moving away from the usual topics, resulting in meditations, in one form or another, on jazz and freedom.

One of the hardest things to do to be true to the spirit of the title for this issue, “Freedom and All That Jazz”, was to give the contributors absolute freedom in approaching their contributions. They all had a single brief: this is the title of the issue, write something that will contribute to it. It is of course, an editorial nightmare, not knowing what the results would be. But how else can it be, if I were to maintain some sense of fidelity and authenticity to the title. How ironic, to be chained to freedom. But this is what the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre argued — we are wholly free but are absolutely bound to this freedom, and to be authentic is to accept this freedom and take responsibility for it.¹

Perhaps “all that jazz” is an apt tag to freedom, for as a cliché that has come to mean nothing by trying to include everything. It suggests perhaps to the notion that freedom is not exactly possible, for the term “all that jazz” alludes also to information or ideas regarded as untrue, misconceived, misleading, or as an exaggeration. After all, we are not free from the burden of freedom. Besides, how free can a magazine be, if we look at the role of an editor as one who effectively selects, corrects, and changes what is given, curtailing the freedom of the contributors?

But the contributors have had their say, and done their take on freedom and all that jazz, and here, I will take the liberty of very broadly summarising what they have written. Susie Lingham in “Ad Libitum” and Fabian Schmid in “It Ain’t Necessarily So” have both chosen to meditate on the notion of freedom as a concept. Although their approaches differ — one theoretical, the other personal — both argue that society is what constraints us, and in seeking meaning and acceptance in the world at large, we are enslaved to its dictates and determinations. However, both remain optimistic, offering music, in particular jazz, as a place where freedom could be found. Tony, on the other hand focuses on the very nature of improvisation in the music that the other two writers talk about in “How Free is Jazz?”. He argues that the freedom to choose (solos) is not as unconscious or free as one would like to think. Rather, that freedom of expression comes from studying, working, and learning in context, as well as being bound by the rules of music.

Does this then complicate the use of jazz as a musical form that is associated with freedom, throwing Susie and Fabian’s theses out of the window?

The problem with associating jazz and freedom begins with the images that the term “jazz” often summons. When we think of the Jazz Age, we think of rebellion, sexual freedom, illegal speakeasies, gangsters, and decadent parties, all of this encapsulated in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. And for a long time, jazz was indeed outside of the mainstream, as establishments rejected the music form (and the dances associated with it), even when the youths across the country fell under the spell of the very popular Big Bands, and the crooners like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and the Cool musicians like Stan Getz and Chet Baker. At the height of the Swing and Bebop era, a subculture complete with fashion (zoot suits, berets) and language (“hep cat”, “rug cutter”) developed, something that freed the youths and the hipsters from the squares in the mainstream. Through the ages, jazz subculture would remain deviant, a bohemian revolution that would find its allies even in Beat poets in the 50s and 60s. Jazz also served as a symbol of resistance against fascism during World War II as well, captured even in Hollywood in the movie Swing Kids.

The problem doesn’t stop there, for as a musical form, it is easier to identify jazz than it is to describe it. If one were to attempt it, we could say that jazz music has always been characterised by syncopated rhythms and improvisation. Traditionally, rhythm has always been seen to be key to jazz. Implicit within this notion of rhythm is the concept of swing, which means never playing heavy and exact, but rather always around the note, and having a sense of propulsion and movement in the playing of the music. Or as Count Basie would put it, “Jazz is pat your foot”. This, along with improvisation and innovation even as the music is being played, has always been seen as jazz’s true meaning, as seen by jazz greats like Earl Hines, Benny Morton, and Sidney Bechet from the 1920s, when jazz first took prominence. However, certain forms of jazz like Free Jazz or Acid Jazz would pose as huge obstacles to this definition.

Even if we were to trace the word back to its origins, we would find it shrouded in mystery. Some trace the term back to “jass”, which some claim to mean “to have sex”, and some believe that the term has an Afro-Creole root for “to speed up”. Whatever its original meaning, the term “jazz” became popular only after 1917, and many musicians would say that it was the name white people gave to this emergent form of music that broke away from the traditional European forms of music, tracing its basis to slavery, the blues, and the desire to be free — to be master of one’s fate, as well as to be free of the ennui of life.

So, one could see naming this music from an other source “jazz” as a means of control, to categorise, as Adam did, by naming, by closing in. “Save the name”, Jacques Derrida would write. “One can have doubts about it from the moment when the name not only is nothing, in any case is not the “thing” that it names, not the “nameable” or the renowned, but also risks to bind, to enslave or to engage the other, to link the called, to call him/her to respond even before any decision or any deliberation, even before any freedom”.² This of course bears upon this issue’s attempt at binding jazz to freedom as well.

But the name of jazz is saved, for we are still finding it difficult to define it. Through the ages, jazz continues to go beyond boundaries, creating change.

In history, this goes beyond changes and boundaries in the music itself. Jazz has helped to break the racial divide in several ways, even if that was not the intent of the music or its musicians. Benny Goodman was the first jazz giant to integrate his small group combo, disregarding advise from friends to do otherwise for fear of reprisal. He hired two African-American musicians — Teddy Wilson (piano) and Lionel Hampton (vibes) — in 1935 for his Benny Goodman Quintet, and that changed forever the entertainment colour divide. The fact that he did it for the music and not for social change did not matter — jazz has served in this instance as a conduit for social change.

In the name of jazz, John Hammond, talent scout and the reason behind the successes of many jazz musicians, contributed an air-conditioner to a famous bar on 52nd Street in 1938, on condition that the bar would allow African-Americans to enter as patrons. At the Savoy Ballroom, one of the biggest and most well known Lindy Hop venues in Harlem during the Swing Era, “[dancers] did not care if someone was Black or White, but whether they could dance or not”, says Frankie Manning, one of the original Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers.³ To have a venue that catered to both White and African-Americans was rare at that time.

However, these were exceptions rather than the rule. Racism still abounded, segregation was still the norm, and possibilities for a black jazz musician in the decades before and even after World War Two were still limited. Perhaps it was this very limitation and oppression that allowed jazz to take root and expand in ways otherwise impossible, as it sought creative alternatives.

Jazz is indeed a form and platform for innovation for it constantly changes to fit the times and culture. The development of jazz over the decades would testify to that, as it moved from New Orleans Jazz at the start of the 20th century, to Swing in the mid-20s to mid-40s, Bebop and Cool Jazz in the 40s to 50s, Hard Bop, Funk/Soul Jazz, Modal, Free Jazz, and Third Stream Jazz from the 50s to 60s, Jazz Fusion, Acid Jazz, Jazz-remixes after the 60s to the present day.

Despite these developments, it was only in the 80s that traditional jazz saw the beginnings of a revival. An issue of Time in 1990 featured an article on Wynton Marsalis, a major figure championing the roots of jazz at the Lincoln Centre in New York City, titling it “The New Age of Jazz”. This renaissance saw to it that jazz was finally acceptable as a respectable musical form and was now part of the university curriculum. But this is not without its problems. Jazz historian Francis Davis believes that it now partakes of an artistic narrow mindedness that is “fuelled by a quasi-intellectual rationale”. He believes that “tradition” in jazz is now the buzzword, but this also implies conformity.⁴ This conformity is perhaps necessary, for jazz today partakes of the culture industry as another commodity, and it is necessary for it sometimes to be reduced to the lowest common denominator. This means that jazz as a musical form has not allowed itself to evolve, but is simplified into radio friendly tunes on the radio or muzak. Even if musicians were to play “serious” jazz, many soloists would became slaves in their bid to be like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. The notion of finding an individual voice was no longer a drive towards creating solos.

Where does this leave us then in terms of jazz’s relationship with freedom?

Perhaps jazz historian John Szwed puts it most aptly when he writes, “Jazz… has outgrown its original means, moving beyond the music to become what some would call a discourse, a system of influences, a point at which a number of texts converge and where a number of symbolic codes are created”. He goes on to say, “The hybrid, synthesizing, and combinatory nature of jazz has become an appeal model for modern culture, and shows no sign of fading as a paradigm for the new century. Jazz was postmodern before we knew what that was, shamelessly borrowing anything not fastened down, ignoring origins and cultural status, mocking hierarchies and pomposity, relishing contradiction and absurdity”.⁵

This brings us back full circle. Perhaps jazz still figures for freedom, though not because of traditional conceptions of what jazz is or is not, but because it has become a site and a system in which the impossible can be played out, be it as an impossibility of championing the ears instead of the eyes in Susie’s case, and seeking speed, momentum, and thrust in the improvisation of all things to allow for an escape to freedom; or Fabian’s call to be authentic, and not be afraid of failure or rejection, going beyond comfort zones and being open to everything at all points in time; or looking for that unique sound based on a system that is already in place as Tony argues, or just the impossibility of defining this musical genre.

The impossible that is perhaps possible in a system, be it in music, society, heaven, or writing. Or to put it in another way, perhaps it is the system that allows freedom to be possible in the first place.

Perhaps the very act of writing itself is a testament to that — writing condemned to freedom, in that it opens up to the question of death and beyond, to infinity. Writing as a system that at once allows for stable meaning and open interpretation, for once a mark is made, it will not only be open to possibilities of interpretation or (ab)use, it also bears the mark of the impossible in that it can never be pinned down to any one thing. It will at once be everything, and nothing, not unlike how Jean Paul Sartre has condemned man to his freedom, allowing him everything when he is faced with Nothingness. For Sartre, to accept our nature, of having free will, is to be truly free, and that calls for responsibility for our actions. Perhaps for us, we have to accept that in writing, we can be free, and to be truly free, eventually come to accept that responsibility in writing. The responsibility of writing is perhaps something that we need to consider to ensure freedoms.

But at the back of it all, freeing us from the question of jazz and its relationship with freedom, is a question that continues to haunt me — it seems that we always desire freedom, but when it is there, do we necessarily want it? Or do we in reality, do not or cannot really deal with freedom, save (in) its name?

Sinclair Ang

Although he is known mainly as a Vernacular Jazz and Lindy Hop dancer and instructor around the world, Sinclair continues to pursue his interests in music and academia. His interest and belief in the creative, diverse and improvisationary nature of jazz has led him to explore and write on a wide range of other topics, including baroque music, critical theory, performance art, science fiction, the theatre and on writing itself. He is hoping to put it all together under the label of JAZZ INC., both in the virtual and real world.

notes

Jean-Paul Sartre,Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology, London: Routledge (2003). [↩]
Jacques Derrida, “Sauf le nom”, On the Name. Stanford: University Press (1995). [↩]
Frankie Manning, Personal Conversation. Singapore (2005). [↩]
Francis Davis, Bebop and Nothingness, New York: Prentice Hall (1996). [↩]
John Szwed, Jazz 101, New York: Hyperion (2000). [↩]

By admin in Editorial

Freedom and All That Jazz: Jazz Meditations

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