The Presence of the Ancestors

For a suburban American Jewish boy who went intermittently to the Unitarian Church and whose main mythological point of reference was the Donna Reed Show and Leave It to Beaver, it’s weird how much I talk in my workshops about the Ancestors. All cultures have some kind of notion of honoring those who came before and many cultures still continue the practice of inviting the Ancestor’s voice into community decision-making. For example, every time we take students to Ghana, we go the Chief where he asks permission for the Ancestors to welcome us. (So far they haven’t refused.)

But growing up in non-mystical religion and a scientific cultural thinking, it’s hard to know what to make of the notion that the Ancestors are present here and now, that the Other World is intimately connected with this World, that nothing problematic here can be wholly solved by logic, politics, law or political correctness. Without the participation of the Ancestors, we are like peer gang members trying to initiate other without the guidance of elders. That never ends well. 

Conversely, without us two-legged creatures with opposable thumbs, language and voices, no true healing can take place in the Other World where wandering ghosts who were unjustly murdered, brutalized, traumatized, ignored and not properly grieved roam the earth and make us feel haunted without knowing why. Our responsibility is to live well on their behalf, to use our precious human incarnation to move the arc of social justice closer to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, to make more just laws, to cultivate kinder and more knowledgeable children and yes, to grieve, grieve, grieve until the tears run dry and then get up and dance!  It’s only in the conversation between the two worlds that any real change and healing can take place.

Enter my Jazz Course. Ever since the first one I taught in 1988 at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota (thank you, Jane Frazee!) with 6 teachers, I have felt the unseen presence of some ancestors moving through me in each minute of class and beyond. And never more so than this 10-day course in the place where the whole glorious music began—New Orleans. As noted in the post “Perpetual Baptism,” they tested me to the hilt to see how serious I was and I believed they smiled and were convinced, “Yeah! This is the real deal!” And then gifted me with such blessings that in spite of every reason to be exhausted managing 45 strong personalities (they’re teachers!) in a variety of trying circumstances for 10-days straight with barely a break, often teaching 6 hours a day, trying to be fair and equitable with giving time and space to my seven other assistant teachers and keep them happy, keeping track of the budget and certificates and forms and 10,000 other tasks, my energy was constant because I was riding on the wave of the Ancestor’s blessings. Not an ounce of ego here—no place for it in that other world—but gratitude and slight astonishment that they have chosen me and I have not been found wanting. 

I write this on a plane returning to San Francisco after six weeks away. That opening course in Lapland feels like several lifetimes ago, the bike riding in Sweden and touristing in Stockholm, the World Music Course in Halifax and then the 10-days here in New Orleans. The gods were with me all the way, but never so tangibly, forcefully and palpably as in this Jazz Course. America is the place I landed in the reincarnation shuffle and I owe it my allegiance. It asks for the whole of my meager self to help make it what it was meant to be and feels so far away from being at the moment. 

So it’s no wonder that that’s where the presence of the Ancestors feels the strongest. I felt them not only in my own teaching, but also in my performing during this time and again, with the remarkable guest artists doing the same work in their own voices at yet higher and deeper levels (musically, not pedagogically) speaking the exact words and thoughts I shared in their own beautiful way. Herlin Riley, Germaine Bazzle, Khari Allen Lee, Ali from the Whitney Plantation—without ever having met each other, we found ourselves all singing the same song in our own key and vocal style. And I felt their blessing as we sang to them when they entered the room and had them grinning ear-to-ear, stopping in their tracks and thinking, "Whoah! What is this?" Extraordinary. 

And so on I continue, back to another World Music Course in San Francisco on Monday. Hope the Ancestors have it on their calendar!

Do You Know What It Means…

I don’t have anything against Cleveland. Or Portland, Chicago, Boston, Kansas City and all the rest. But I agree with Tennessee Williams that these cities hold a special character and mostly because of the mix of diverse cultures. I grew up outside of New York, I moved to San Francisco, so I well know the pleasures of these two places. But now, after these 10 days in New Orleans (and a 9-day trip last year), I’m beginning to get what makes NOLA the extraordinary place it is. 

"Do You Know What It Means, to Miss New Orleans” asks the old jazz song, a song that now takes on a new meaning as I prepare to leave this city that hosted 10 of the most intense, exhilarating, challenging and soulful days of my life. "The birthplace of jazz" refers to so much more than mere musical notes! The city itself, with its turbulent weather, its below-sea-level dangers, its constant surprises, demands that you learn how to move through the changes like a jazz musician, be ready to switch directions when the piano offers an unexpected chord, know how to turn an unexpected note into something beautiful. Up until the last minute—like moving the Orff instruments in an open truck with a thunderstorm threatening to soak them (we made it in time)— it was throwing our one hurdle after another. But we cleared them all, with intelligence, teamwork and an improvisatory spirit. One final shout-out of unconditional love to the 45 extraordinary teachers who lived this time together. It has been a remarkable 10-day party interrupted by classes. Ha ha! Better put, when the class ended at the University each day, it continued out on the street and in the clubs. 

I believe we all will indeed, miss New Orleans!

Perpetual Baptism

As we began, so we ended. With another door slammed in our face to see how serious we were about opening it. Five times in this course, my extraordinary NOLA host St. Allen greeted me with, “I got bad news.” We had just finished a stirring final song, cleaned up the room a bit and were heading to our final party on the Steamboat Natchez with its Trad Jazz band. How I was looking forward to just kicking back and enjoying a well-deserved party with no heavy decisions to make! 

But the bad news? Delivered at 4:30, two hours before our boat-boarding time—“Reservations cancelled due to mechanical failure.” So a few desperate phone calls and the agreement that the reservation would be switched to “The Creole Queen.” We just would have to show up.

And so we did and the people at the box office said “Huh?” No such transfer had been made and they said the tickets might be at another site a mile away. Allen's on the phone with the people at Steamboat Natchez who say they’ll transfer him to the right person to talk to. He hands me the phone and takes off running for the tickets, with 5 minutes before the boat is scheduled to leave. I get on the phone and hear an answering machine message. The Captain won’t let our people on without a ticket. I’m calling Allen back on his cell-phone and he’s trying to give me a confirmation number while he’s running. The people in the Creole Queen box office are friendly and helpful and they finally figure out a way to make it work while the Captain impatiently taps his foot waiting for the tickets to print out. But now Allen is a mile away and just shouts at me, “Get the people on the boat! Get the people on the boat! I’ll meet you after!!”

And so we get on the boat. Drinks are in order and off we go and after loving and fun small-group conversations with a slight night breeze, we head up to where the band is playing and have an all-stops-out dance in front of the exuberant band. When the boat docked, we followed the band out like a NOLA Second Line and had a jam session on—what else? —When the Saints Go Marching in. 

But the evening was still young. On we went to the remarkable Frenchman St. and back to the Snug Harbor club (our third time there) to hear the Ellis Marsalis Quintet. The drummer was Herlin Riley, the extraordinary drummer who had come to our course as a guest artist and lifted our spirits to the sky. He was the undisputed star of this show and when it was over, he came upstairs and hugged each and every one of us and then gave us an impromptu lecture of jazz, music, love and life. So this was the real climax, the Steamboat  being a deceptive cadence. We spilled out on the street and people started hugging each other goodbye, but then we discovered an all-women band across the street at the Spotted Cat and so we danced across for a delightful coda. Another 20 minutes of music and now the goodbye hugs began again. Well, for me. I left around 12:30 am, but many stayed and I’ll hear some of the stories later. 

The bottom line is this. All of life’s curve balls are necessary to keep you alert and agile and attentive so you can duck and not get beaned. Or to switch metaphors, there are guards at the gates whose job is to test you to see how serious you are, how badly you want something. From the severe and real threat of Tropical Storm Barry to the University officially locking us out of our room for three days (it actual ended up being open for two of them) to instrument orders that didn’t arrive on time to a cancelled Plantation Tour (then finally was re-scheduled and happened yesterday) to one of the guest artists never responding to our invite (and then at the last minute showing up)  a brief tornado warning to the last-minute cancellation of our Steamboat tour, it was one slammed door after another. But nevertheless, we persisted. Like the jazz soloist who is suddenly fed an unexpected chord from the piano player, we had to respond in the moment and find our way through without stopping the music. 

Time and time again, Allen and I had to figure things out quick. And the students had to deal with uncertainty and be prepared to respond immediately as needed. But being jazz musicians and Orff teachers, we knew all about flexibility and lo and behold, every door that was meant to open indeed did open and that made everything so much richer for all of us. It’s nice when the trains run on time, the meal you ordered comes to your table and the teacher follows the course syllabus, but those aren’t the stories you will tell your grandchildren. 

Each day of the 10 was an extraordinary awakening, in company with a diverse group of committed, dedicated, fun and beautiful human beings determined to be the best versions of themselves, to do the hard necessary work to become better teachers, more informed citizens and more compassionate human beings.

People, it doesn’t get any better than that. 

The Stern Teacher

One day left in some of the most powerful and beautiful 9 days of teaching I’ve had in the last 45 years or so. And still one day more!

Today was the tremendous pleasure of welcoming Ms. Germaine Bazzle to come sing with us and for us and share the deep wisdom of her 87 years. (And the extraordinary look at how eloquent, clear, physically present and in-shape a human being can be at 87 years! I would not have put her as a day over 50!). Next guest was a saxophone (and beyond) player named Khari Allen Lee, husband to an Orff colleague who impressed me when I met him a year ago in my first trip to New Orleans as a fabulous musician and super nice guy. 

But today, after the great pleasure of playing with him for the group with the Pentatonics band, he began to speak about music with an eloquence, passion and musicality that made us all feel—“We are in the presence of greatness.” An old soul in a young body who is as long in understanding as the Mississippi River and as deep as the ocean. 

In a short chat after his presentation, we were talking about the political circus and these strange, strange times we live in. I confessed my complacency during the Obama years, my naïve sense that simply electing a man of integrity, intelligence and the darker skin than any of the country’s previous Presidents was enough. Meanwhile, the Repugnantcans set to work to spread fear so they could hold on to and regain the power and privilege, got organized with gerrymandering and town meetings and media control and the like and landed us in the swamp of Trumpdom. 

Khari compared it to teachers who constantly affirm kids and tell them how wonderfully they’re doing to the point where the kids get complacent and lazy and think they’re just fine as they are. But none of us is wholly fine as we are. We are always a work-in-progress and to attain the elder status of someone like Germaine Bazzle requires doing the work your Soul demands to meet your promise. Years alone are insufficient. So many are simply children in adult bodies and that is dangerous for everyone. 

So Khari followed this image of the over-praised child meeting a stern teacher who says, “Uh-uh. Not good enough. You need to learn about this, you need to practice that, you need to take this all more seriously than you are and do what it takes to master the difficult.” And that’s what the current political scene is telling us. We have to work harder, do better, enlarge our understanding, speak out stronger to stop the damage of the adult-toddlers and move toward genuine healing. 

And I’d like to think that’s exactly what we’re doing in this Jazz Course. Tomorrow we go to Whitney Plantation to witness the deep suffering that has brought us such joyful music. I suspect it will double our admiration for those who survived the worst humanity has to offer and double our determination to tell their stories, sing their songs and play their music. And pass it all on to the children. Then someday we will thank the stern teacher of our times for the needed reminder. 

Transparent to Transcendence

It was the great mythologist Joseph Campbell who coined the title phrase. He noted that to accomplish anything worthwhile requires a great deal of will power, self-confidence, ego-driven drive. What often passes as humility is a refusal to do the work necessary to meet one’s talent and genius. We both admire and disdain ambition, often asking people to tone it down and make sure that everyone has the exact number of minutes on the floor. 

And yes, it’s true that we need to share space and leave room for others to step forward and say their piece. But the fact of the matter is that those who often speak out more often and more strongly are those willing to do whatever it takes to meet their promise. How to balance that with being a nice person concerned about whether the folks they’re around are comfortable?

Campbell suggests that the issue is not turning down your light because it’s too bright for some people’s comfort, but making sure the focus is in the right place. If the light becomes a spotlight shining on your own ego, it’s the wrong use of your spiritual power, A lot of performers and political figures get caught in this trap, much to their own detriment and that of the culture around them. “Transparent to transcendence” means you let that light shine through your small ego self, illuminating all in your presence. Along the way you will be accused of (sometimes rightly so) arrogance and worse, but if you use your power and turn your efforts for the benefit of all, you will arrive at a true humility. 

All of this triggered by an evaluation I just received in one of my courses from a person I highly admire and respect. Because she is on that same path, she gets it. Reading it in the midst of this intense, exhausting and exhilarating jazz course here in New Orleans, it’s just the reminder I need to keep going. Onward!

Thank you, Doug, for sharing your love, your soul, and your lifework as a humanitarian thinker, artist, performer, educator, publisher, person. There are so many paths of personhood you could have chosen in the music arts, but you have chosen a path of humility and service. Thank you for choices that have been such a benefit to so many people, in so many ways.

Today's Jazz Lecture

This from Yogi Berra, the catcher of my childhood favorite baseball team, the Yankees: 

Interviewer:Can you explain jazz? 


Yogi: I can't, but I will. 90% of all jazz is half improvisation. The other half is the part people play while others are playing something they never played with anyone who played that part. So if you play the wrong part, it's right. If you play the right part, it might be right if you play it wrong enough. But if you play it too right, it's wrong. 

Interviewer: I don't understand. 


Yogi: Anyone who understands jazz knows that you can't understand it. It's too complicated. That's what's so simple about it. 


Interviewer: Do you understand it? 


Yogi: No. That's why I can explain it. If I understood it, I wouldn't know anything about it. 


Interviewer:Are there any great jazz players alive today? 


Yogi: No. All the great jazz players alive today are dead. Except for the ones that are still alive. But so many of them are dead, that the ones that are still alive are dying to be like the ones that are dead. 

Interviewer: What is syncopation? 


Yogi: That's when the note that you should hear now happens either before or after you hear it. In jazz, you don't hear notes when they happen because that would be some other type of music. Other types of music can be jazz, but only if they're the same as something different from those other kinds. 


Interviewer: Now I really don't understand. 


Yogi: I haven't taught you enough for you to not understand jazz that well.

Welcome to the Gumbo Shop

Each day in this New Orleans Jazz Course feels like a lifetime. Yesterday was playing some New Orleans-style music (formerly called Dixieland), followed by half the group Lindy Hopping to the other half playing Jumpin’ at the Woodside. In-between, a discussion about the term “Dixieland,” taken from Stephen Foster’s nostalgic song about wishing he was back in the land of cotton, where old times were not forgotten. This was yet more propaganda for White Supremacy, yearning for the “good old days” when the blacks were happily picking cotton in the fields while the whites sipped mint juleps on the porch of their lovely plantation house. After the Civil War, the South was infuriated that their genteel way of life was broken and still are angry about it to this day. It goes without saying that black folks were never happy and that that "gentility" was based on brutality. So when white mainstream named the New Orleans-style music (now called Trad Jazz) “Dixieland,” it was another case of one group feeling the power and privilege to define another in their own terms. Now the move to correct that. 

After the morning class, we all headed down to the French Quarter to hear a Preservation Hall concert just for us and wasn’t that fine? Yes, it was. The rains had stopped, the heat and humidity was kicking it, now we were getting the real New Orleans summer (though still overcast and a slight breeze). Post-concert, we walked to Louis Armstrong Park, stood for a reverent moment in Congo Square, stopped at the statue of Tootie Montana and learned a bit about Mardi Gras Indians and then sat under the stature of Louis Armstrong while I told the story of his life. Well, wasn’t that special? Yes, it was. 

Then the 45 of us were free to go off on our own and I ended up playing pool in a bar with about 20 others (one of the better games I’ve ever played!). On to The Gumbo Shop for dinner and one of the best waiters I’ve ever experienced, who gave us a fast, rhythmic patter going over the menu, always ending with the phrase “Welcome to the Gumbo Shop!” We had the traditional red beans and rice, gumbo, crawfish, blackened red fish and more and every time he came in to check on us, he ended with “Welcome to the Gumbo Shop.”

Gumbo has long been a perfect metaphor for the mix of cultures that created jazz, all the way down to the burnt roux that is its base with its musical counterpart of the blues. 

Tomorrow we resume the first of the last four days (starting to feel some sadness at the impending farewell) and I think I’ll start with: 

“Welcome back to the Gumbo Shop.”