Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say

 

                        “I said it! I meant it! I’m here to represent it!”  -Rap song

 

I had great hopes for my Jazz, Joy & Justice book to make a big splash in the world. The theme couldn’t have been more timely and no one had ever written anything quite like it. My decades of teaching more than qualified me for knowing how to talk to 5^th grade and above kids and make it readable and interesting for adults as well. The blend of telling “The Stories Every American Should Know” (the subtitle), the fabulous Youtube videos I suggest and the call to action as I ask reflective questions at the end of each chapter seemed destined to make this book a “must read” and qualify it for the YA New York Times Best-Seller List. 

 

Of course, none of this has happened. (At least not yet.) One thing working against it is the fact that jazz is on the bottom of the list of most-listened to musics in America, hovering somewhere around 2% of the listening population, according to various surveys. Another is that I have no literary credentials beyond my little world of Orff music teachers. If John Grisham or Ann Patchett wrote it, I believe it would attract attention. Another is that while I constantly shine the light on black culture and the black musicians who created and sustained this music, I myself am not black. If Isabel Wilkerson or Angela Davis wrote it, more people would be interested. Finally, I have no reputation (deservedly so) as a jazz musician, so I can’t put it out in the public spotlight the way Wynton Marsalis or Esperanza Spalding could. That’s the way the business works and I get it. 

But still I wish this publisher had their act together more. The whole reason I didn’t publish this book myself with my own Pentatonic Press was to try to get a bigger engine behind it to reach a larger audience. It also was attractive that they offered an e-book and an audio book. When I say “offered,” it meant I had to pay a certain amount of the production courses with hopes that I’d eventually be paid back with royalties. Sigh. 

 

Well, they did finally publish the book, with some 10 mistakes that need correcting in a next edition. They’ve done absolutely nothing in terms of publicity, getting the book in libraries, reaching an audience beyond my friends and work colleagues. They did put together an e-book that someone said was terrible, just photos of the pages. And they did send me samples of the audio book that had problem after problem.

 

The first problem was that of the five sample readers, four were from England with British accents in a book about American jazz. I declined, asked them to try again and strongly suggested that they get an African-American person to read it (Morgan Freeman would have been great!) Or else let me read it since I wrote it and knew exactly how say what I meant and how to represent it. But no, that’s not the way they work and yesterday, they sent me the whole book read by a white American guy who starts off pronouncing my grandson Malik’s name wrong in the dedication and goes on to read the book as if he’s just reading a book out loud. It’s clear from the tone that the words don’t mean much, if anything, to him. It seems to me that there’s nothing in his background— not a black man, not a jazz fan, not a teacher, not a crusader for social justice—that qualifies him to read this book. It’s hard for me to imagine a listener convinced, inspired, uplifted by a book that deserves some passion and instead, is read like a someone reading a newspaper article out loud.

 

If this post was only to air my grievances, that would be unfair to you as a reader. The greater point is in the opening quote. We all need to mean what we say and say what we mean and represent it through our very lives and actions. I certainly did all of it in writing the book and it’s a shame that it won’t come across in this audio version. But if you’re intrigued, buy the book and read it yourself. 

 

And imagine Morgan Freeman’s voice.