From The Periodic Table of Jazz
March 20 2011

Three cerebral atoms collided this week to trigger a reaction in the Pianobabbler's mind. The atoms derive from the What Is Jazz? periodic table, i.e. the intractable question we periodically put on the table.

1. A young music lover wondered why every other jazz musician these days seems to have abandoned standard jazz tunes for music from the 1960's. She meant this neutrally. I heard it as derisive, depicting jazz players as the desperate herd of a dying breed chasing fads in the baked desert of desiccated creativity and withered imagination.

2. The New York Times' Ben Ratliff, an experienced jazz writer, wondered in his disappointed review of Jazz: The Smithsonian Anthology whether (a) "maybe we've reached our limit, jazz-canon-wise", and (b) "if maybe it's no longer worth exploring what the new jazz reality... might have in common with King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton." He answered "no" to both maybes. But his asking in itself bears meaningful doubt.

3. David Braid, a brilliant pianist and stellar person, distanced himself articulately in an interview from the "jazz" label usually affixed to him:

[...] in looking inward at myself as a musician and being confident about displaying the music which is most innate and honest to me, I feel that what comes out is fundamentally different than what some die-hard jazz fans would agree as jazz music.

Three confluent atoms of jazz doubt. They stimulate these thoughts.

1. Perhaps we should think of jazz as a movement. The Jazz Movement. Movement. Move. Motion.

Jazz lives in permanent motion. Jazz must negate its current state to move forward. Jazz is a permanent future. A fixed, final state of jazz would be its own negation, the death of jazz. Yet jazz listeners pursue and preserve the history of jazz with the fervor of old growth forest zealots. For them, jazz is a permanent past.

Paradox.

2. Echoing Northrop Frye's description of God, Braid in his interview declares "Jazz is a verb". He does not say what action the verb describes. The Pianobabbler says it describes searching. Searching for what? For something more, for something other.

Jazz searches beyond itself. When it reaches its destination, it stops being jazz by definition. The search has ended. Jazz needs to search, to move yet further. This cloaks Jazz with a mystical in my end is my beginning quality.

Mystery.

3. The kinetic theory of gases describes a gas as a large number of atoms or molecules in constant random motion, transferring energy.

Let's have a kinetic theory of jazz. Musical atoms remain in constant random motion, ever changing, generating energy. Jazz, like gases, is a dynamic state of nature.

Primal matter.

Jazz. A verb. A movement. A paradox, a mystery. Primal matter.

Jazz, like atom, is a four letter word.

The Pianobabbler has babbled.

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