Common Good Collective

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Jazz meets Social Justice with SFJAZZ

“The western concept of art for art’s sake is something that doesn’t exist in African and Indigenous forms and culture,” explains percussionist John Santos. “The art itself is functional. It’s more like art for life’s sake; there’s always a deeper meaning.” In this post, several musicians seek to unravel how they build musical worlds informed by their political and neighborhood realities, and how they use music to try and alter re-create those worlds around justice and beauty.

A Message Behind the Music: Jazz and Social Justice
by Richard Scheinin

From the beginning, jazz has been a force for social change. You can feel it in the energy of the music, in its urgency, in the wailing of saxophones and in the pronouncements of trumpets – a crying out for justice. At the height of the civil rights movement in 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr., observed how “much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from this music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down.”

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Eliminating economic isolation, Reader, Wilderness: Sharing and Reorientation Permalink

“A Captive Class of Tenant”

In popular culture, the trailer park is often the object of scorn. In daily life, though, it is one of a few reliable sources of consistently affordable places to live, often with elements of ownership included. Each trailer park contains story after story of neighborliness and solidarity, usually among those on the economic margins. But now, this surprising source of social and economic cooperation and solidarity is threatened by global capital, looking for cheap investments and easy profits in an increasingly crowded housing market.

What Happens When Investment Firms Acquire Trailer Parks
By Sheelah Kolhatkar
March 8, 2021

One day in October, 2016, Carrie Presley was visiting her boyfriend, Ken Mills, when she received a phone call from a neighbor informing her that someone had just been shot outside her home. Presley lived with her seventeen-year-old daughter, Cheyenne, in a two-story clapboard house on Jackson Street, in the northern part of Dubuque, Iowa. The neighborhood was notorious for its street crime, and Presley, who was, as she put it, in “the housing community”—she received Section 8 housing vouchers—had grown used to the shootings and break-ins that punctuated life there. After talking to Cheyenne, who was in tears, Presley rode with Mills back to her house, where police were sweeping the perimeter of the property. As Presley recalled, Mills looked at her and said, “We’re not doing this anymore.” It was decided that Presley and Cheyenne would move in with Mills and his son Austin.

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The City Where Jazz Is Love

One of the brilliant musicians in the jazz tradition who often goes overlooked is the pianist Mary Lou Williams. Williams (1910-1981) put together a long career that saw her writing music for and playing on the stage with all the greats of the tradition – Ellington, Monk, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and so on. This was especially impressive for a woman of her time, and the jazz world has been notoriously closed to women instrumentalists.

In this reflection, pianist Deanna Witkowski – an extraordinary player herself – chronicles moving from New York to Williams’ hometown of Pittsburgh, and along the way encountering how the love ethic that informed Williams’ music still shows up in the Pittsburgh music scene.

The City Where Jazz is Love: Pittsburgh and Mary Lou Williams
Deanna Witkowski
October 18, 2019

Tomorrow will mark three weeks since my arrival in Pittsburgh. I initially came here for an engagement with my New York City trio; I chose to stay here for two months because of Mary Lou Williams and the musicians who keep welcoming me to their city and their bandstands.

There is something about “place” that can only be experienced and then, to a lesser extent, written about. Place seeps into our bodies, minds, spirits; affects our breath, our gait, our sense of how much space is available for us to take up on the sidewalk, in the grocery store, in a jazz club. New York and Pittsburgh are two very different places. Mary lived in both of them and now I’m following her history in parallel by spending time in her hometown.

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Jazz as a Megaphone for the People

Of all the talents a jazz musician possesses, the gift of listening is paramount. That’s because jazz, as a genre, works best in ensemble. Jazz as a sensibility reflects the plight of the “least of these” to a society longing to forget. Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”, John Coltrane’s “Alabama”, Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddamn.” — these songs and so many more exposed the heart of jazz, which was filled with the cares of the common good. Please enjoy this week’s selections that celebrate the genre, and lift up the needs of the people.

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Imagination: The Prophetic Act of Living an Alternative Narrative, Poetry for Building Community, Possibly: Freedom for A New Story, Reader, Structure Of Belonging Permalink

“Free Your Mind”

“Free your mind / And let your thoughts expand…” is the refrain of Jazzmeia Horn’s exquisite song, “Free Your Mind”. The jazz singer encourages the listener to choose an alternative story and imagine a new way of belonging together. As we celebrate the eve of Jazz Appreciation Month, we at Common Good Collective are meditating on these words to guide us into this new season.

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