Editor's Note, 11/6

This past week, millions of people practiced their individual rights by heading to the polls to cast a vote. For me, this past week, I had the opportunity to perform with and be coached by Afro-Latin jazz pianist and composer Arturo O’Farrill as part of the jazz ensemble. Reflecting on both of these offered me the opportunity to draw parallels between voting and jazz music.

In my short time in the jazz band, Arturo was certainly the most vivacious, passionate instructor we have had the pleasure of teaching us. Through attention to detail and anecdotal encouragement he truly brought the life out of the music we were playing. Because it can be easy for jazz to tend towards artistic exploration when it should also be relatable entertainment, it is crucial to keep the music visceral and unprocessed. Although, jazz can only be an abstraction of life, the goal is to make it feel as much like the real thing as possible.

Voting is also an abstraction. Arguably, it’s an abstraction of freedom. Realistically, an individual vote will not determine the outcome of an election one way or the other. Still, the vote represents the idea of freedom. Yet, when all the votes are taken together, the people as a whole declare a decision, ensuring that the people continue to be free. Logically this presents a paradox that a jazz aficionado might relate to when he realizes the music is only sound, a representation and not the spectrum of life.

This phenomenon is true of all music, though, not just jazz. Improvisation makes jazz specifically a celebration of the individual and his or her interaction with the audience. While a musician is improvising he or she seems completely free and at ease to the audience. Of course the artist is carefully following chord changes and concentrating to construct melodies, but the audience only hears the end result. Likewise, on election day each individual makes a decision, but in the context of the voting situation their influence is confined to who is actually available to support.

My point in drawing these similarities is to point to one significant difference. While jazz has been heralded up to the artistic stratosphere, voting remains very much by and for the people. Almost ironically, in a reaction to the artistic invigoration yet personable alienation of free jazz, the most famous jazz artists are now playing in older styles. Artists such as Wynton Marsalis play beautiful music, but it is done in a way that seems almost like a study of the past. Recordings are done cleanly and almost always in the studio setting. Many excellent groups exist outside of this neoclassical sphere in a realm of crossover with hip hop, but these are mostly appreciated in smaller artistic circles.

In an interview, Wayne Shorter once said that jazz will have died once it becomes rich kids in large auditoriums showing off their music lessons. Jazz is very much alive and well artistically, but it no longer reaches the people as it has done historically. People are much more likely to be shocked by someone saying they did not vote than saying they do not enjoy jazz music.

By definition, elections cannot really be much else than by and for the people. Still, once Americans lose their faith in the vote, it becomes nothing but an artistic gesture, even if technically done by the people. With the constant detritus that is the state of the economy, world affairs, and domestic relations, Americans may be losing faith in their power of influence with the vote. There is much talk of discontent with the current state of things, particularly taking into account the hot-button issues of Israel-Palestine, Ebola, Russia-Ukraine, Super PACs and voter ID laws. Of course people are working to help change, but maybe we need to help initiate a movement towards bringing back individual involvement in democracy, before voting joins jazz as a beautiful abstraction, a relic whose golden age is in the past.