Insisting on Hope?

Imagine my surprise and delight when a literary consultant recently e-mailed to me her  glowing review of my book Jazz, Joy and Justice! Here is what she wrote: 

 

“Jazz, Joy and Justice is a stirring and necessary work that blends music, history, and moral responsibility into a vision for education that truly matters. Doug Goodkin writes with passion and clarity, inviting readers to hear jazz not just as sound, but as story, resistance, and resilience. As I read, I felt the rhythm of history itself moving through the pages, carrying both celebration and reckoning.

 

The strength of this book lies in its ability to connect art with conscience. Goodkin honors jazz as a uniquely American creation while illuminating the lives of the musicians who shaped it, not only as artists, but as individuals navigating and resisting systemic racism. By weaving musical listening suggestions with historical insight, he transforms jazz into a living classroom where joy and justice are inseparable. The book doesn’t shy away from pain, but it insists on hope, inviting young minds to learn through beauty, honesty, and courage.

 

This is a book that belongs in schools, conversations, and public forums. Its message makes it especially well-suited for speaking engagements, educator workshops, and podcast discussions focused on arts education, social justice, and cultural history. Jazz, Joy and Justice is both a call to action and an invitation to listen more deeply, reminding us that jazz has always been about freedom, expression, and the ongoing pursuit of a more just world.”

 

What a pleasure to read those words. I felt seen. I felt known. I felt renewed hope that this book that I imagined could make an impact might finally get to the kids, teachers and adults who would benefit from it. And then…

 

The doubts crept in. Did a person write this or was it chatgpt? Was it sincere enthusiasm for helping me reach more people or part of a scam to help me buy into the promotion offers that followed? I shared it with some trusty people (like my daughter) who thought my suspicions were correct. On one hand, even I was impressed by the eloquence of AI, but where is the glory in that? To be “known” by a machine. To seduce me and impress me with the promise that the company will help me if I pay them—of course— a certain amount of money. To feed into a culture where no one can trust anyone or anything anymore. While the review celebrates "insisting on hope," the machinery behind it lifts mine up and then dashes it down. This is so damn depressing. 

 

That e-mail came on the exact same day that the publishers of the book, who have been 100% unsupportive from Day One, doing absolutely nothing to promote it, wrote to me that they were dropping it because it hadn’t sold well, I can either buy the remaining books from them or they’ll pulp them. Pardon me for imagining that the world was ready to celebrate jazz, its legacy of joy, its history of justice and resistance, that teachers would heartily welcome the opportunity to educate children to one of the most inspiring and powerful strands in our broken history. Foolish me.

 

Oh well. I tried. 

 

PS If anyone is inspired to get it before it’s thrown on the trash heap, order soon!