Next on our schedule was the Preservation Jazz Hall, but I was exhausted. We’ve been moving for so many days now, and standing for 45 minutes to watch the performance did not sound fun at all. That was until I looked at my watch and 40 minutes had passed, and I realized that what I just experienced was borderline magical.
The inside of the Preservation Jazz Hall.
Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje shares the story of Charles “Buddy” Bolden, a famous cornet player and pioneer of jazz. I was quite excited to read this novel as a part of our bookpacking experience as I started playing the trombone in fifth grade, 10 years ago, and played in jazz bands for six of those years. In my time, here are some things that I have learned about jazz:
Jazz is a language. You could become fluent and your vocabulary more complex, like choosing when to pause and let the silence ring, or riff something musically intricate. Watching these performers on stage, you couldn’t deny this. The musicians looked at each other and would smile; you heard hoots when you knew that someone just pulled out a new lick that the others haven’t heard yet; perhaps you noticed the rhythm section in the background adding support to the solo where they felt it fit in, embellishing the phrase. Choosing how to express your thoughts through music, deciding the volume, notes, and whether to have a descending or ascending line, is like crafting a beautiful literary sentence.
“There was pain and gentleness everything jammed into each number.”
Our group standing in front of a mural depicting one of the bands that Buddy played in. Buddy holds a cornet and has a yellow halo behind his head.
As my music teachers have always said, with jazz, you have to know the rules before you break them. You need to understand what musically works and fits in the chord – how to express it. You begin to know this so well that you can break the rules. Yes, jazz can seem loose and unpredictable, but as Ondaatje explains, “there was discipline, it was just that we didn’t understand it. We thought [Buddy] was formless, but I think now he was tormented by order, what was outside it.” I interpreted this phrase as Buddy wanting to play every note that his cornet could produce, but he was limited by what fits in the song.
This is quite different from classical music where one is expected to ‘play the ink,’ or what is written directly on the page. Of course, you can make it your own by stretching out the length of some notes or exaggerating the dynamics, but only to some extent. This is not to say that there is no beauty in classical music, however. Buddy shares his own experiences with the stability that comes with listening to a classical song by Robinchaux.
“So carefully patterned that for the first time I appreciated the possibilities of a mind moving ahead of the instruments in time and waiting with pleasure for them to catch up.”
Jazz puts you in the moment, and that is why it is such a form of self-expression. You are constantly making choices and thinking on the fly about what you will do next. The stability of classical is lovely at times, but when you want freedom and looseness, you want jazz. I experienced this so clearly at the Social Aid and Pleasure Club parade. People were MOVING, and their bodies just took them! I was self-conscious about my dancing at first, but eventually, I couldn’t help it. I listened to the music and let it dictate my movements.
Jazz is also a part of the performer. Your feelings inevitably display itself in the music. Jaelin Brewitt in the novel was aware of an affair that his wife was having with Buddy, and he would “sit down and play, to tip it over into music! To remove the anger and stuff it down the piano from every night… The music was so uncertain it was heartbreaking and beautiful.” Of the performers we watched, I feel that the crowd unanimously fell in love with the trombonist’s lively personality (what can I say? It’s a trombone thing). His excitement showed beautifully in the music. He used the entire length of his slide going up and down, hitting the low range but also the very top. The trumpet seemed much more emotionally contained, and his playing was cleaner and had more direction. The pianist had soul and seemed sentimental.
Now, I must call myself out. I had an ego about my knowledge, questioning how people could be dancing when they didn’t understand this music to its full value (as if I did). I could recognize that the trombonist’s tone was blatty and short and not necessarily amazing, but it was the style, alive. What is the audience doing getting so into this when they don’t even know what they are looking at, what they are listening to! But what a load of crap. This mindset is in full opposition to what jazz is about. I had to check myself, and I looked up again. I saw people dancing, smiling, and immersed in the music through a different lens. This is what jazz is for – uniting people. After all, that’s where it originates. It united African Americans here in New Orleans when they were faced with extreme adversity and had to look to one another to bring joy, that agent being music. This city was built on jazz! You walk anywhere and can find some memorial to this musical past, either in street musicians, murals, or statues. You don’t need to be a trained musician to appreciate how it flows through you or recognize its power.
Jazz was made to be shared and accessible to everyone. This is why Buddy claims that he hated classical music, saying “[Robinchaux] dominated his audiences.”
Jazz is inviting and very much opposite to a dominating relationship. When the trombonist at Preservation Jazz Hall hit a strong low note, he said to the audience “ooo! I like that” and he hit it a few more times. He invites the audience to share this feeling with him. The performers encourage the audience to clap along with them. They cheer each other on and dance to make the audience feel like that is what they should be doing too, just enjoying the music!
Jazz is beautiful. I believe this is the best word to describe something so vibrant, culturally-rich, inclusive, and simply fun.
Now go watch some live jazz.