It’s 1941, the world is up in flames, fascism has a chokehold, racism and imperialism are the fundaments of effective governance. Where does that leave artists? What is their role in creation during life-threatening and stressful times?
Sullivan’s Travels (Paramount, 1941) was movie director Preston Sturges’ response that year: A comedy? A drama? A faux-documentary? Yes, yes, and yes. Ultimately, the filmmaker decided to bust open genres and show us that great art is immediate, lasting, and not confined to one form. Life is formless. It has no preordained shape. Our narratives must reflect our experiences past, present, and future; imagined and real. It was Sturges’ genius to make that happen in a movie.
It’s 2020, and while the world is not yet at war, many of the systems and institutions that plagued people in 1941 have morphed into vaguely familiar as well as unrecognizable shapes, placing the artist into a similar predicament as back then. From jazz musicians, we are seeing and hearing sounds and stories that are overtly political in response.
Consider Immanuel Wilkins’ new album Omega (Blue Note Records, 2020). His first as a leader includes songs like, “Mary Turner,” and “Ferguson,” both called “An American Tradition,” In these moments, the 23-years old saxophonist relies upon music both as catharsis and outcry. He balances the pain of his expressiveness with, “Grace and Mercy,” a harmonious tune that draws upon his faith.
Music producer and multi-instrumentalist Terrace Martin commented directly on the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis with the single “Pig Feet” (Sound of Crenshaw/Empire, 2020). As much a rap song as a work of jazz, it features saxophone player Kamasi Washington punctuating sorrowfully and defiantly when the video for the song reveals the names of other Black Americans killed by the police.
Martin occupies a unique position in the world of music due to his ability to synthesize various types of composition. He put that to the test in late June by forming a “supergroup” called Dinner Party (Sound of Crenshaw/Empire, 2020), which includes Kamasi Washington, producer 9th Wonder, and jazz pianist Robert Glasper.
“A lot of musicians have so many fucking rules in their heads that they limit themselves,” Terrace Martin is quoted in the June 25th issue of Fader magazine when he was asked about Dinner Party. “They know so fucking much, they don’t know anything.”
Last year, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington put out Waiting Game with her ensemble, Social Science (Motéma, 2019), including pianist Aaron Parks and guitarist Matthew Stevens. Carrington, as the founder and artistic director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, is no stranger to social justice and music. One of the release’s songs, “Bells (Ring Loudly),” written by Parks and Carrington, concerns the murder by police of Philando Castile, a Black citizen of Falcon Heights, a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota during a routine traffic stop in 2016.
Other jazz musicians are of course drawing upon histories–personal, cultural, and political–to inspire listeners and express pain. Some remain overt in their art while others recognize implicitly, closer to Sturges, that entertainment as an artist, also has purpose. The vitality of that work, by allowing listeners to feel the depth of their experience, and establishing a refuge away from stress, is meaningful.
Freedom of the music surmounts the idea that jazz must conform or adhere to expectations, whether political or not; it is up to each musician to decide what their task is as an artist (not critics or audiences).
The best creators, outspoken in ideology or implicit, know that art, from their perspective as outsiders, has stories to tell, that are not reflected in the day-to-day. Those narratives are the essence of art.As Brecht said in the musical, The Threepenny Opera – “It’s art. And art isn’t nice.”
The film Sullivan’s Travels is available for rent or purchase in our Amazon affiliate store.
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