A Valediction Forbidding Jazz Mourning

Anthony Dean-Harris
Editor-in-Chief
anthony.deanharris[at]nextbop[dot]com / @retronius

The most humbling thing about my involvement in the jazz community is my ever increasing cognizance of what I don't know. There are so many figures of whom I'm not aware and so many works I've yet to take to the time to hear. There's such a wide history of the genre I need to learn and the task often seems daunting. Yet I continue to press on and learn what I can and I appreciate what I know little by little. It is in that spirit that I always try to keep a certain degree of sincerity, especially for those (seemingly) monumental figures who pass on (in an ever increasing frequency).

If there's anything the recent Jazz 100 list has told us, it's that this genre holds its past in high esteem. Perhaps too high esteem but I'll try not to beat that dead horse of a topic this week. Still, we are part of a genre that reveres its past greatly. That, in some fashion, is a good thing. We have traditions and values that we hold quite highly. If anything, the constant battles we have in the genre is in part due to our reverence of this rich history, as important to itself as it is to the history of the American landscape that is its hearth. Unfortunately, it is this reverence for jazz's past that often overshadows its zeal to push its present figures upward into comparable prominence.

What this eventually leads to is a reverence of figures in jazz who find more accolades upon their deaths than when they were ever alive. Too often in this genre do we note the accomplishments of deceased musicians, especially recently deceased musicians, yet give not a thought to them in their twilight years. Even more could be said about the general indifference we give to upcoming musicians, a pattern we're only very recently attempting to escape.

A good friend of mine has told me I can't tell people how to mourn (the topic of discussion that brought this about was the recent passing of R&B vocalist Teena Marie, yet another artist whose body of work I sadly have little familiarity); I can concede to that fact just as I can also concede to the corollary that I cannot tell people how to feel about those who are still alive (although as a jazz critic and journalist, I try to walk that fine line of doing so). Yet I can certainly note the disservice it does to the genre for a community to exhibit a Klosterman-ian stance that the best thing jazz musicians can do for their careers is die.

If jazz is meant to live, we should cherish the living. We should note the ongoing progression of careers. We should support our newcomers and praise our veterans. We should act as the family that comes together to help one another out year round, not the family that only comes together for the funerals. We should be the genre that does all it can to move forward, not because the past should be kept on the top shelf, always unchanging and gaining dust, the wafting remnants of those today collecting and adding to the same old conventions without reinventing for themselves because we never gave them the chance, encouragement, and support to be anything more, but because in the ongoing debate of the future of jazz, we must cherish all that we have today, new and old. If jazz lives, we need to stop mourning it. If jazz lives, we need to celebrate it in all its permutations.

It's for these reasons that I envelop myself in the genre in the way that I do, always trying to learn more about jazz's past while shouting the promise of its future from the rooftops. It's also why I stay sincere in my reverence. I don't talk about the adoration of a musician I never knew or spoke of once he or she has passed unless I had a true visceral connection. When James Moody passed on last year, I only knew of "Moody's Mood for Love." When Freddie Hubbard died in December 2008, I could speak wholeheartedly of my love of Red Clay but I honestly could speak of little else in his career. There's so much more of jazz's past that I need to learn and I'm trying to feel less shame about my (what feels to me) galling ignorance of the artform I love so dearly yet I also will not put on airs and show glowing adoration for historical figures who have yet to be truly relevant to me (at least until I learn a bit about them).

Mourning is for the living so we can cherish the memories of those we love who have passed on. Without those memories and without that love, mourning rings hollow. I'm not suddenly grasping at memories so I can join in the steady stream of memorial services the jazz community seemingly throws every other week as of late. I'm growing attached to the figure of today to make the new memories that makes this genre live. I do this because I know jazz lives.

Anthony Dean-Harris is a contributing writer for African-American Reflections and hosts the modern jazz radio show, The Line-Up, Fridays at 9pm CST on 91.7 FM KRTU San Antonio. More of his writing can be found at his blog, In Retrospect and you can also follow him on Twitter.