Manufacturing Joy

And so we began last night, an instant community of 22 teachers doing the work of manufacturing joy in the Jazz Factory. In our outlet, there is no assembly line doing repetitive tasks for mere efficiency and material profit grown from narrowing our full human promise. Instead there is the “Second Line” following our dancing feet to the infectious music in free-form exultation. There is no “one-size-fits-all” mass-produced garments to cloak the physical body, but instead the clothes tailored just right for our particular spiritual bodies. Each game, each song, each dance and piece of music is made to clothe our soul, to accent the curves, bring out the particular colors that make us look and feel good, warm us in times of cool weather and cool us when it’s hot. The currency at the check-out counter is the smile not faked for the camera, but radiating in each cell of the body. When the whistle blows to signal a break or the end of the day, it’s a saxophone riff, swingin’, soulful and each time different. Time in our factory is not a slow-dripping faucet to be endured, but the refreshing pool of water in which we wholly immerse ourselves, a return to the womb of comfort and belonging where al boundaries momentarily dissolve. 

 

Welcome to the opening session of The Jazz Course in New Orleans, 2026