In Spirit of Jazz

I'd like to talk a bit about the magic of adaptation. We all do a great deal of adapting in our lives in order to situate ourselves within our surroundings as those surroundings change. Many of us are adapting moment to moment with remarkable perceptiveness to the people we interact with and the challenging circumstances we may suddenly find ourselves in. Our lives are full of hard truths we come to accept in order to go on living.

This ability to adapt is an extraordinary gift. Furthermore, it's arguably our most critical tool in preparing for a climate-changed future. And yet, the prospect of change and adapting to that change remains terrifying and painful for many people. Adaptation to 'newness' is in constant tension with the desire for things to remain the same or a nostalgic desire to return to a 'better' past time. But these feelings - albeit comforting - often keep us complacent in the presence of oppression, dampen our imaginations (reinforcing rigidity in our ideas of what is possible) and leave us assuming that the future must be more dystopian than the present. 

Artwork by   B  E  N    L  O  P  E  Z

To echo Sarah Ray, I want to desire the future. I want to feel excited by its unfamiliar challenges - to hunger for its mysterious differences from the now. Of course, I am like most people and become anxious when anticipating arenas of the unknown, but I've been trying to find the joy in these moments of adaptation and growth as I've come to realize their necessity and inevitability. 

Cornel West describes Jazz as a historical and contemporary tool for the survival and resistance of black folks in America, writing that

"this music does not wallow in cynicism or a paralyzing pessimism, but it also is realistic enough not to project excessive utopia. It responds in an improvisational, undogmatic, creative way to circumstances, helping people survive and thrive." 

At the heart of jazz is improvisation and joy, but not without some discipline. Jazz has also been ever-evolving, with a playfulness that welcomes innovation, collaboration and adaptation. For this, I feel the spirit of jazz could help inspire much of the visioning work of imagining a more equitable future and might help sustain some of the activist work required to reach for those visions.