ALL THAT [JEFFERSONIAN] JAZZ:

The Jazz Messenger: Wynton Marsalis' 10-year education crusade culminates in a new curriculum. (Samantha Stainburn, September 18, 2002 , Education Week)

As Marsalis sees it, America has stopped expecting a lot from its children, partly because adults no longer care enough to show them the way. "We need to wonder that we consistently give them trash to learn as a culture," he insists. "What does that say about us? It says that we suffer from a severe lack of leadership. And we don't understand what it takes to maintain a civilization."

But Marsalis thinks jazz can help fix all that.

The genre's unique musical characteristics--collective improvisation, call and response, solos, and unexpected rhythms--demand respect and patience as musicians listen to one another and collaborate, he explains. These traits teach people that those who communicate and cooperate well will get turns to express their individuality. "Jazz is an adult music," he notes. "It's something that makes children aspire to adulthood, which is what your culture should try to do, because an adult is the most productive human in your society, not a child. A child does not know. You have to teach them."

As Marsalis sees it, America has stopped expecting a lot from its children, partly because adults no longer care enough to show them the way. [...]

He's not alone in maintaining that jazz teaches students social skills. Marsalis has gone even further, describing the homegrown music as a sort of citizenship training. "Jazz is a prism through which we gain a better understanding of life as Americans," he states in a JALC press release. "Jazz teaches us democratic ideals. Like democracy, jazz requires personal responsibility and the ability to improvise with your available resources to come up with inventive solutions to new problems."

Over the years Mr. Marsalis has said some things about race and behaved in ways that have made him hard to like, but it's hard not to like what he's doing with this project. If jazz and a belief in jazz as both a uniquely black idiom and a uniquely democratic art form can serve to provide young black people with a stake in democracy that's all to the good.
Posted by Orrin Judd at September 19, 2002 12:04 PM