New Day Jazz
Justin Desmangles
Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph.
This is triumphant music.
Modern jazz has continued in this tradition, singing the songs of a more complicated urban existence. When life itself offers no order and meaning, the musician creates an order and meaning from the sounds of the earth which flow through his instrument.
It is no wonder that so much of the search for identity among American Negroes was championed by Jazz musicians. Long before the modern essayists and scholars wrote of racial identity as a problem for a multiracial world, musicians were returning to their roots to affirm that which was stirring within their souls.
Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from this music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down.
And now, Jazz is exported to the world. For in the particular struggle of the Negro in America there is something akin to the universal struggle of modern man. Everybody has the Blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith.
In music, especially this broad category called Jazz, there is a stepping stone towards all of these.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Opening Address to the 1964 Berlin Jazz Festival
pictured at right, Miles Davis at his “Miles Davis Quartet” session of March 6, 1954. (Francis Wolff © Mosaic Images LLC)
Genre
Jazz
Missed the Show?
Artist | Song | Album | Label | Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|
Charles Mingus | Stop! Look! And Sing Songs of Revolutions! | The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady | Impulse | |
Charles Mingus | Saint and Sinner Join in Merriment on Battle Front | The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady | Impulse | |
Charles Mingus | Of Love, Pain, and Passioned Revolt, then Farewell, My Beloved, 'til It's Freedom Day | The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady | Impulse | |
Etta James | At Last | At Last | Argo | |
Nat King Cole | You're Looking at Me | After Midnight | Capitol | |
Airbreak | ||||
Charles Mingus | Take the A Train / Exactly Like You | Mingus Revisited | Limelight | |
Art Pepper | Four Brothers | Art Pepper + Eleven | Contemporary | |
Miles Davis Nonet | Godchild | Birth of the Cool | Capitol | |
Miles Davis Nonet | Venus de Milo | Birth of the Cool | Capitol | |
Chris Connor | Lullaby of Birdland | Chris Connor Sings Lullabys of Birdland | Bethlehem | |
Chris Connor | What is There to Say | Chris Connor Sings Lullabys of Birdland | Bethlehem | |
Bill Evans Trio | What is There to Say | Everybody Digs Bill Evans | Riverside | |
Kronos Quartet featuring Eddie Gomez | Nardis | Music of Bill Evans | Landmark | |
Airbreak | ||||
George Russell | Nardis | Ezz-thetics | Riverside | |
Langston Hughes (Ellen Holly) | I've Known Rivers | A Hand is on the Gate | Verve-Folkways | |
Robert Hayden (Moses Gunn) | Frederick Douglass | A Hand is on the Gate | Verve-Folkways | |
Paul Laurence Dunbar (Cicely Tyson) | We Wear the Mask | A Hand is on the Gate | Verve-Folkways | |
Ornette Coleman Quartet | Focus on Sanity | The Shape of Jazz to Come | Atlantic | |
Roland Kirk Quartet | Rip, Rig and Panic | Rip, Rig and Panic | Limelight | |
Richard Pryor | God | Are You Serious? | Laff | |
Richard Pryor | Grandmother | Are You Serious? | Laff | |
Thelonious Monk Quartet | Criss-Cross | Criss-Cross | Columbia | |
Airbreak | ||||
Beverly Kenney | Surrey with the Fringe on Top | Beverly Kenney Sings for Johnny Smith | Roost | |
Sonny Rollins | Surrey with the Fringe on Top | Newk's Time | Blue Note | |
Jackie McLean | Stablemates | Swing, Swang, Swingin' | Blue Note | |
Ted Joans featuring Jimmy Garrison | Jazz Must Be A Woman | Europa Jazz (EJ-1050) | Europa Jazz | |
Ronald Shannon Jackson featuring Michael S. Harper | Last Affair: Bessie's Blues Song | Pulse | Celluloid | |
Ron Carter / Jim Hall | Bag's Groove | Live at Village West | Concord | |
Airbreak | ||||
Ken Nordine | Looks Like It's Going to Rain | Word Jazz | Dot | |
Lenny Bruce | Psychopathia Sexualis | The Sick Humor of Lenny Bruce | Fantasy | |
Stan Getz | Jordu | Stan Meets Chet | Verve | |
Bill Evans Trio | Peri's Scope | Portrait in Jazz | Riverside | |
Kronos Quartet | Peace Piece | Music of Bill Evans | Landmark | |
Ronald Shannon Jackson featuring Michael S. Harper | Those Winter Sundays (Robert Hayden) | Pulse | Celluloid | |
Sarah Vaughn | Chelsea Bridge | Duke Ellington: Song Book Two | Pablo | |
Airbreak | ||||
Charles Mingus | Half-mast Inhibition | Mingus Revisited | Limelight |