As jazz continues to thrive in the 21st centurystreet Century has retained its capacity for social commentary and activism, according to Sullivan Fortner, a three-time Grammy-winning jazz pianist who spoke to UN News at New York’s Village Vanguard jazz club ahead of International Jazz Day, which falls on April 30.
Jazz musician, Sullivan Fortner, three-time Emmy Award winner.
“Jazz means freedom. Jazz means America. It means humanity. It means love,” Fortner said, insisting that “as long as artists continue to create it, it will always be relevant to the times we live in.”
The annual celebration of jazz highlights its role as a universal language of freedom, creativity and peace and provides an opportunity to foster greater appreciation, not only for music, but also for the contribution it can make to building more inclusive societies.
“It’s about emotional transmission and communicating those emotions and those feelings with each other. Jazz is 100 percent about that, the good, the bad and the ugly all rolled into one,” Fortner said before performing at the historic Village Vanguard.
The lower Manhattan club, which claims to be the oldest continuously operating jazz club in the world, is arguably the truest representation of the powerful heritage of this sometimes underrated art form.
From poets to trumpets
Passing through the vermilion red doors of the Village Vanguard, you descend the narrow staircase into a low-ceilinged triangular room that hasn’t changed for decades; It gives the impression that jazz belongs to a bygone era.
Village Vanguard Jazz Club is located in Greenwich Village, New York.
On stage, a large double bass is sandwiched between a Steinway piano and stripped-down drums. In front, rows of antique tables and chairs with their occupants stretch back, past photographs of famous artists over the years, including Miles Davis and John Coltrane, to a colorful mural on the back wall.
“We try to keep it very simple here,” said owner Deborah Gordon.
But when the Sullivan Fortner Trio enters through the back doors onto the stage, the band begins to improvise and the space jumps from nostalgia to something very alive. We enter with them into that unpredictable territory.
Unity through jazz
The Village Vanguard used to welcome all kinds of artists, from poets to calypso dancers and folk singers, and was a “platform for presenting all kinds of cultural and political events,” Ms. Gordon said.
In 1957, the club decided that jazz was the best way to provide that platform and became the exclusive medium on stage.
Aside from a brief period after World War II, when jazz entered the mainstream, “it has always attracted a kind of fringe, niche audience,” Gordon said.
“There are a lot of gray-haired people like me, and there are also a lot of young people like you, it’s a great mix of people,” he said.
April 30 is International Jazz Day
Melodies and messages.
As Sullivan Fortner and his trio continue to perform, changing tunes, there is an undercurrent running through the room.
“It’s like an energy that goes from the music, from the stage to the people. And it comes back… it’s circular… and you can really feel the unifying force of what music can bring,” Ms. Gordon said.
Evolution and revolution
Its unifying force is what made it a tool of empowerment and social change for the marginalized black communities of New Orleans, where jazz began.
“The way the music started was pure protest…we were born out of a rebellion of artists trying to take a stand,” Fortner said.
Later artists such as Bille Holiday protested racial injustice and promoted integration through their music as jazz became the soundtrack of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.
Today, jazz is constantly changing: “It incorporates different types of music all the time, coming from different places,” Ms. Gordon said.
“Jazz goes beyond notes and rhythms. It’s language. It’s the way people talk. It’s the way people gesture to each other.” Mr. Fortner added.
As jazz acquires new instruments and forms of expression, it has retained its capacity for social commentary and activism.
Don’t forget the streets
Speaking about its place in music today, Ms. Gordon said: “It’s still kind of peripheral music in the culture. And I’m okay with that, because to me, that means it’s going to last. It’s not a flash from the pan. It’s solid. And within that solidity, it changes and evolves.”
Although many now see jazz as a high art form, much like classical music, musicians say it should not forget its roots.
“Sometimes we’ve become so intellectually deep that we forget to reach out and take the sewer with us. I feel like we can’t forget that this was born on the streets, that it was born in the brothels,” Fortner said.
“We have to remember that this is street music and that it has to be accessible to people who don’t necessarily have shoes,” he added.
“We have to remember that and take those people with us every time we perform or anything we touch.”