Sometimes it’s hard for me to disclose my favorite things. My apprehension normally arises from the fear of embarrassment or being misunderstood. But recently, I’ve committed to practicing vulnerability. At long last, I think that I’ve finally gained the courage to be myself.
Besides spending time with family and friends, reading, writing, and working, like you, I listen to music. My Apple Music subscription (sorry Spotify and Tidal ambassadors) gives me the option of listening to thousands of artists and millions of songs, but for the past three years, I’ve played two artists incessantly. Their names are Alice Coltrane and Weldon Irvine.
Whether I’m in the car headed to and fro, stretching in the morning, or winding down as the sun sets, a melody originating from one of them runs through me. Sometimes it’s a chorus. Sometimes it’s a verse.
So, I ask myself: What is it about Alice’s and Weldon’s music that does my soul well? I think it’s the sense of completion I feel at each album’s conclusion. Every element of every song seems intentional. It’s as if they are master tour guides leading me through the undiscovered realms of the universe.
Ultimately, Weldon and Alice each created a vibe that resonates with me. But it resonates with me more than any other music I’ve come across. They’ve created a vibe that I can’t seem to shake.
Don’t worry, it’s not like I’ve got the blues or anything… Rather, I’ve got the jazz!
Jazz—what a word! It’s one of the words with which we’re all familiar. And yet, when someone asks us to define it, we’re caught off-guard. It’s like when we’re in a corporate context, and someone asks a question in passing that we don’t know how to answer. The best reply is, “Send me an email, I’ll get back to you.”
Like most couples, my better half and I share a library. She’s interested in linguistics and semantics, and when I want to learn more about certain words, I open John Ayto’s Word Origins: The Hidden History of English Words from A to Z. Here’s what Ayto, Chief Etymologist for the Bloomsbury English Dictionary, says about the word “jazz”:
“Words of unknown origin always attract speculation, and it is hardly surprising that such an unusual and high-profile one as jazz (first recorded in 1913) should have had more than its fair share (one of the more ingenious and colorful theories is that it comes from the nickname of one Jasbo Brown, an itinerant black musician along the Mississippi – Jasbo perhaps being an alteration of Jasper). Given that the word emerged in Black English (probably originally in the sense ‘copulation’), it is not surprising that attempts have been made to link it with some West African language, and picture it crossing the Atlantic with the slave ships, but there is no convincing evidence for that (the scenario seems to have got started with a 1917 article in the New York Sun, which was purely invention of a press agent.)”
Helpful, indeed, but not much here on the meaning of “jazz.” This description points us in the right direction, though. James Baldwin, an ancestor who I regard as a conversation partner, per usual, provides some insight. “[Black American] music,” he says, “is produced by, and bears witness to, one of the most obscene adventures in the history of mankind. It is music which creates, as what we call History cannot sum up the courage to do, the response to that absolutely universal question: Who am I? What am I doing here?…”1
Things are a bit clearer now. No wonder I keep turning to Alice and Weldon at this time of life. To be of the mind—to steep oneself in philosophy and theology and ethics—is to be perennially concerned with the existential questions: Who am I? What am I doing here?
Sometimes I’m able to answer the first one, but the second always comes with great surprise.
I’ve got the jazz because my response to the latter question—What am I doing here?—is improvised, syncopated, and influenced by the rhythms of my environment; it’s equally experimental and intentional.
If you haven’t already, give Alice and Weldon a chance. They’ll show you around.