Emancipating Syncopation

Sometimes location is everything. Picture the cross between a circus house and a deco bar. A large cylindrical animal cage sits on empty exhibition, cradled in the recessed space as glazed glass panes stand sentry. Inside the tavern, hot, blistering lines of saxy jazz penetrate the air. Families lounge about sipping their ciders. Assortedly sized glass vessels gleam in kaleidoscopic hues, grouped on tables like cellular pods of honeycomb. It’s December after all. The seasonal shopping coma has them at the mercy of alcohol’s luring embrace. Collectively, they seek reprieve, a hive mind fixated on the highs and lows of America's giftasia. Tucked into a small corner, a four-piece layers warm, crisp melodies, spiced with a healthy dose of Creole swing.

Blake Shaw Quartet Playing at Cidery

Gettysburg, PA, is not the first place that comes to mind when imagining a venue for the African-American arts. An uncanny awareness is drawn to the memorial just miles away. Scattered throughout the town are numerous sites that harken to a dark period full of extraordinary racial strife. Despite the jolly scene, I couldn’t help but find myself ruminating on the underlying narrative.

Jazz has strong connections to the American Civil Rights era. Dr. Martin Luther King (MLK) identifies the connection between jazz and the ethos of civil freedom; in his speech at the 1964 Berlin Jazz Festival MLK writes: [“This is triumphant music… singing songs of a more complicated urban existence…”] Jazz is often depicted as “dirty music”, even garbed in it’s classy smooth tones, it seems to manifest the noir of urban living. Recently, I came across a video of an Israeli quartet playing a rooftop show, missiles illuminating the night sky in the distance. The baleful scene somehow exuded an alluring milieu. As if the musicians were dependent on the impending destruction, without it, their tune would lose its glamor. Jazz is about facing life's difficulties, smiling in moments of trial and tribulation, and recognizing the miracle of simply being alive. I wonder if I could smile in 1863, the way that I can now. Ear to ear. Knowing, even while people try to ignore the injustices and suffering in the world, it's captured by the sweet-like-honey melodies of musically inclined sages. Telling us to find it in ourselves to love inwardly, just a fraction of the amount we try to display outwardly. That our unadulterated self is the greatest gift we can give.