Lay Your Comfort Down

Ten days ago, I took the "Last Train to Clarksville (Tennessee)" to teach a most unusual 7-day Jazz Course that we finished on Saturday. What made it different?

• It began with an all-day Saturday and Sunday afternoon, followed by two hours every night of the week (except for Wednesday) and finishing with an all-day Saturday.

 

• It was combination of University students, working music teachers and a few jazz musicians. 

 

• It was free to all because of a grant, including a free Now’s the Time book (my opus magnus on combining Jazz and Orff).

 

• Both because people had busy schedules and the commitment was more causal because no one had their own money invested in it, people came and went. Sometimes there were ten people, once there were 25, new people were still showing up Friday night and Saturday and there were only two people who attended every single session.

 

• The course is built on a sequence that builds on itself, revealing the next needed piece of knowledge and material that draws from the former. At the same time, each activity can stand on its own and people just have to jump in and start swimming with us. And they did. 

• Tennessee is one of far too many states threatening to fire some teachers if they tell the truth about American history. Nevertheless, I persisted and no one in the course objected (though tragic that some can’t carry that information to their students). 

 

• It was in a building shared by the University ROTC students. One day while we were putting out xylophones and mallets on the floor and putting them to the use of making beautiful music, they were in another room taking apart guns and rifles to prepare for killing if ordered to do so. I was tempted to invite them in for a session— and actually think they would have enjoyed it.

 

We ended, as I sometimes do, with one of the children’s games from the glorious black musical tradition, Johnny Brown. One by one, each goes into the middle of the circle and lays down a scarf while we sing “Little Johnny Brown, lay your comfort down…”. One the scarf is laid out, the verse changes to “Show us your motion, Johnny Brown…”, then, “we can do your motion, Johnny Brown…” and finally “Take it to your friend now, Johnny Brown…”  and the next person goes in the middle. It’s a most beautiful invitation to show us who you are, how you feel, make visible some of your unique character and an equally beautiful affirmation from the group as they copy the motion and mirror each person’s beauty back to them. It’s a wholly democratic process where no one person gets to be the center of attention longer than anyone else, a lovely conversation between standing out in the middle and blending in back in the circle singing and clapping. It captures the essence of jazz’s way to both solo and play in ensemble working together, listening and responding, bringing soul and spirit out into the open.

 

Finally, the “comfort” is the comforter that keeps us warm and like Linus’ security blanket, makes us feel secure and at home. The invitation to “lay it down” is to show that your true home is not in a piece of fabric, but in the dancing circle there to celebrate you and hold you up. That we are each other’s comfort if only we take the time to consider it, to show it, to live it. To create and sustain a music education in schools that teaches the games, songs and practices to take this thought out of mere conjecture and give it legs, muscle, breath. To make it available to each and every student. 

 

One of the teachers who came both Saturdays was a former student of mine at school and both participating in the activities yet again and watching the videos I showed of the kids at my school, he was transported back to the comfort of that magical time. The cellular memory of it all was like smelling grandma’s pies cooking. As it is for me each time I teach the things I have taught kids for over 50 years, no matter where I am or who is in the circle.

Today’s inspiring quote that came over e-mail is simply another way to describe those seven marvelous days, with its great music, new understandings, solemn moments to face up to our history, joyful moments to carry a better story forward, much laughter, the invisible presence of jazz ancestors we know by name, all those musicians in the fields or churches or jook joints whose names we don’t know, the children we all have taught, teach or will teach. It was a time for us to learn, directly in our hearts, minds and bodies, how to "be human together."