Grammy-winning jazz musician Wynton Marsalis is not known for his commentary on philosophical and social issues, but maybe he should be after his latest work.
Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life, written with Geoffrey C. Ward, is an entertaining, informative and self-reflecting look at how music, and jazz in particular, has the power to stimulate self-expression. With its emphasis on improvisation and innovation, jazz allows artists to be themselves, not for the consumer driven market, but for the salvation of music. And, Marsalis argues, for the growth of the American populace's psyche.
Jazz music has lost its place atop America's musical charts and this, Marsalis believes, is as detrimental to Americans as it is to the jazz musicians themselves. Often referred to as "America's only true art form," jazz is synonymous with the United States and her struggles. And if it were to vanish off the edge of the music lover's conscience, so would America's collective understanding of her history and herself.
Unlike other genres, Marsalis argues that jazz represents America's challenges and triumphs without much judgment. Someone has to stop and listen, really listen, to understand the mark jazz musicians are making in their music. They are expressing their anger, their joy, their sadness, their excitement at the comings and going of life and without their genius, Americans would not have known how powerful it is to be oneself, all day, every day.
"Jazz doesn't have a target demographic; it doesn't carry the label 'For old folks only,' " Marsalis writes. "In a country that now may be the most age-segregated one earth jazz demonstrates that anyone can swing regardless of age; it has a mythic power to remind us who we once were, who we are now and who we hope to be in the future."
Marsalis might be writing about saving his own future (he is a jazz musician, after all), but he also feels it is time for all Americans, younger Americans included, to learn about jazz music's influence on the other well-known genres, such as rock-and-roll and R&B.
As such, he provides as much historical information about jazz giants such as John Coltrane and Art Blakey as he does about his own life experiences and opinions. He doesn't mince words when it comes to jazz and race relations or the "minstrel quality" of today's hip-hop music, not to denigrate generations past or present, but to open up a dialogue about where America is going in terms of its musical culture.
Moving to Higher Ground is an excellent book and a reader doesn't have to be jazz aficionado to agree. Marsalis provides enough information about artists to encourage exploration on one's own, while offering his opinion about everything that crosses his path. But he's not providing a commentary to force others to think like him, he just wants readers to think. And to save one of America's premier musical forms, as well as America's historical memory, from extinction before it's too late.
By IVY FARGUHESON
ifarguheson@muncie.gannett.com
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