The Art of Changemaking

As I write this, Grammy Award-winner and legendary blues man, James Cotton “Superharp”, is playing live with his band just outside my balcony. True to the classic definition of jazz, I’ve had a swingin’ time here in the Miri International Jazz Festival–but it’s not just because of the music and the excellent media treatment courtesy of the Sarawak Tourism Board. Over the course of this short festival I have made new friends, made many interesting discoveries about music and the language that binds us all, and have come certain realizations about what truly matters to me.

I’ve realized that my approach to music, to asking questions, and to writing was very much like my approach to life. I’m not afraid to take risks and try new things. I’m not afraid to ask questions. I’m eager to seek out new discoveries and face new challenges. I enjoy making connections between concepts and ideas that at first don’t seem to fit together.

However, my most striking realization of all is that, as much as I didn’t want to put labels on the kind of music and the kind of art that I appreciate, I have found myself paralyzed, over and over again, by the thought that the world is putting its own labels on me. In my own twisted internal universe, I have somehow convinced myself through the years that I have to conform to some convoluted social notion of who I should be and what roles I should play.

For someone who valued freedom, connections, and expression, above many other things, I had allowed myself to be entrapped and enslaved by some external perceptions of myself. For someone who appreciated jazz and the things that it represented, I have stopped myself from fully moving with the beats and rhythms, choosing instead to stand still and worry about what others thought about the way I danced.

Jeremy Tordjman of Switzerland in the Miri International Jazz Festival (photo: NTZ)

I realized this as I went about the press conferences and the interviews. What I wanted to know, more than the artists’ latest projects and what we should expect from them after this festival, was how they have evolved through their art form and how they have contributed to jazz’s own evolution and the shaping of its identity through their respective artistic contributions. I also wanted to know more about this whole debate on purism versus fusion in jazz. How is jazz defined, and who makes the definitions? Who’s to say what’s right and wrong? Where are the lines drawn, and where does one genre end and another begin?

These questions were very revealing about my own state of mind, about what often worried me and filled my mind. And the answers were just as revealing.

“Rules are irrelevant!”

“What’s pure anyway? When you stop being true to who you are, and when your music stops being honest and authentic, that’s NOT pure.”

“Jazz has always been a fusion. It will always embrace what’s being offered to it and will always expand. The lines will always be blurry.”

Mellow Motif of Thailand at the 2010 Miri International Jazz Festival (photo: NTZ)

And I think that’s why many of us are intimated by jazz–why we shy away from it and instead stick to the formulaic bubblegum-pop rhythms that are very often bland and lacking in character. Jazz scares us and drives us away because it is BIG, BOLD, and AUDACIOUS. It is not afraid to break the rules, often calling attention to itself and to the many complex things that it wants to say. Jazz can be arrogant in that it will ask you to set aside all your preconceived notions and see things from its own point of view. The jazz way of life can also be very unnerving because it encourages us to challenge, to question, to doubt–and then to experiment, to create, to go out on a limb, to improvise.

Don’t know what to do? Make it up as you go along.

Never tried this before? That’s why you should try it now.

Don’t think that they could fit well together? Well, says who? I think it works together just perfectly.

Jazz screws up our conventional notions of right and wrong; of proper and improper; of lines, shapes, colors, and textures. It forces us to twist and bend lest we break, shaking us out of our shells and leaving us exposed, vulnerable, and unwrapped.

But that’s also why jazz brings with it such a great feeling of emancipation and catharsis. When you swing and dance and move with the groove, you’re saying, “F*ck you, world! I don’t care if I don’t know how to dance. I’m going to DANCE!!!” And this newfound sense of freedom makes you feel bolder, more confident, more flexible and … loose.

Ah… THAT’s what scares us most of all–the thought that we could completely lose control and shock the world and ourselves with what we’ve managed to come up with.

For in our world, losing control means losing respect. In the world of jazz, however, losing a bit of control means getting into the flow of the moment and letting the rhythm take over you. THEN you are in touch with yourself. THEN you are in touch with others. THEN you can expand, and EXPLODE.

What’s so scary about that?