The Jazz Journalists Association in Conjunction with
The New School Jazz & Contemporary Music Program
Presents

Jazz Matters
How and Why, In Wake of Events of Sept. 11

Panelists: Ira Gitler, author of Masters of Bebop, editor of the Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz; pianist/composer Vijay Iyer; professor Farrah Griffin; discussion from the floor by Tina Pelikan (ECM Records), an unidentified New School student from Europe, Larry Blumenfeld (Jazziz, Nat'l Arts Journalism Program), Jesse Tampio (Jazz At Lincoln Center), and others

Howard Mandel, President, Jazz Journalists Association, moderator

Transcriber's Note: Speakers are identified when possible.

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HOWARD MANDEL

This is the first of the Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Matters discussions, produced in conjunction with the New School Jazz and Contemporary Music Program, for the fall, 2001. We originally intended this to be the third week of September but everybody knows that there's been sort of a shaking up process in New York City since September 11th and we delayed until now to try to focus on questions of how jazz reacted to -- how people in the jazz world reacted to the attacks at the World Trade Center.

Jazz somehow seemed so pertinent in New York City if you were here during the week of September 11th, and the evidence was that those of us constantly involved with jazz, professionally, gravitated towards some sort of jazz activity fairly quickly. It struck me that jazz is a music that's particularly well suited for responding immediately to shock and to conflict and also is a music that is quite good at embracing cultural differences and begin to assimilate those differences and to make them work together in some way that's really practical and functional, beneficial.

So I asked this distinguished panel to come together and discuss some of this tonight, and we will treat it as kind of a town meeting. To begin with, I want to introduce Vijay Iyer, pianist/composer, who has a new CD out called Panoptic Modes. Ira Gitler the author of Masters of Bebop, and the editor of The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Farah Griffin who's a professor at Columbia University and has been studying Billie Holiday, among others. Patricia Parker who's the producer of the Vision Festival and currently a series From the Ashes taking place at C.U.A.N.D.O. over on 2nd Avenue and Second Street.

I'm Howard Mandel, president of the Jazz Journalists Association. And in the past it's been recommended that we try to introduce each other from the audience too, so if I could start with Rose Mandel, Bethany Ryker, who's doing some really interesting work on a jazz survey of musicians and listeners in the tri-state area. Tina Pelikan who works with ECM records. Enid Farber, a photographer from the Jazz Journalists Association among others. Andrew Lepley, also a photographer from the Jazz Journalists Association. Gene Martin, a photographer and member of the JJA. And from there folks you have to take it yourselves. Sir.

MALE VOICE

I'm a student, I just passed by.

HOWARD MANDEL

Good. Welcome.

MALE VOICE

Matthew. I'm a student also.

GEORGE RIVERA

George Rivera, member of the Jazz Journalist Association.

HOWARD MANDEL

George, thanks for coming.

MICHELLE SCHROEDER

Michelle Schroeder from Jazz at Lincoln Center.

SAMANTHA SAMUELS

Samantha Samuels, also from Jazz at Lincoln Center.

HOWARD MANDEL

Very good. Well thank you for coming. Amazingly, Jazz from Lincoln Center for one thing, when I called to find out what the reaction was or whether it had affected the touring program, I guess you folks were largely uneffected, in that the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra was already in Los Angeles and did Wynton Marsalis's "All Rise" on September 13th, was it?

FEMALE VOICE

Uh-huh (AFFIRM).

HOWARD MANDEL

Which is a mammoth piece of his with a 100 piece choir and orchestra as well as the jazz orchestra. So in some ways, jazz just kept carrying on with things as planned. But let me say ask Vijay to begin with, you said that the attacks or the events seemed to have resonance for you and you began to think about your creative options and reconsider how you were working.

VIJAY IYER

Well, I'm sure that I won't pretend to be an expert on what's happened but I'm sure that like everybody else, or every other community, musicians have been pretty heavily affected by this. I mean we travel for a living. A lot of us have dark skin and when we travel and we're dark-skinned it becomes even more of an issue.

You know, I've got a good friend who's a saxophonist who's now started just walking around with his passport in his pocket because he needs to -- you know, because he's concerned about -- you know, as my friend Greg Tate put it to me, "Well, welcome to racial profiling." (LAUGH) So you know, so I -- I am concerned about all my friends who have to face things like that.

You know, I mail out packages all the time and now there's this mail scare so you know, my friend who works at a record label said that they use talcum powder when they ship CDs so that they don't stick together. So now like people are sending these packages that have talcum powder in them. (LAUGH) So --

IRA GITLER

I get a lot of CDs and I've never seen any talcum powder.

VIJAY IYER

Mainly when there's like a -- a box of CDs.

IRA GITLER

I get boxes too and I've never seen talcum powder.

VIJAY IYER

Maybe it's just a recent thing.

IRA GITLER

Different company.

VIJAY IYER

Yeah. So there are all those kind of logistical practical kind of issues that I'm sure everybody's facing in some way. And then there's the issue of what this music is about. You know, I've always been someone who's been concerned with the aboutness of my music or of anybody's music. And how especially when we're dealing with instrumental music, how we generate meaning and significance and thinking about where it's coming from and where it's going.

And so I guess I mean as it's true of just about every other aspect of our lives, music has been completely, radically re-contextualized by us just having a little bit more awareness of our mortality and our place in the world. I've always -- I like to see my music as a sort of thing that at least endeavors to push you into another world or tries to maybe challenge your sense of reality or normalcy. And now it's like, well, do we even need that anymore? I mean do we need to -- does anyone need to be challenged?

I mean we have challenge in our daily lives now, so it's not even clear what kind of role music plays if it's, you know, confrontational. And also like I have -- but you know, at the same time, some people like to hear music that kind of validates their reality and maybe music that is confrontational can validate the sort of feelings that we already have.

Also in terms of details of pieces I've been doing a lot lately with my ensembles that have a specific intent behind them. Like I did one piece that was dedicated to this man, Rishi Majarah who was a brown skinned south Asian-American who was a victim of a hate crime in New York City three years ago. And that's the first piece on my new record. You know, and then I was supposed to mail out all my new records on September 11th and then I thought, "Well, wow," you know, I didn't even go near a piano, let alone the mailbox for at least a week after it.

So I had to think, "Well, what is this really about anymore?" And then I saw that well, okay, that piece was about something but now it actually has much more resonance because this keeps happening. You know, people in my community have been attacked as we all know, across the country, across North America. You know, my parents have -- my mother is affiliated with the Indian Community Center in Rochester and they had -- I mean it wasn't violent but they had like (LAUGH) -- they had a stuffed monkey with a noose around it placed at the front door of the community center. So there's stuff like this that's affecting us much more closely than we ever anticipated. So I guess some of these pieces have much more new and renewed significance, other, I guess I have to think about whether I even want to do them anymore.

HOWARD MANDEL

This is Vijay's new CD by the way.

IRA GITLER

May I ask Vijay a question. Why didn't you go near the piano for a week?

VIJAY IYER

Maybe that's an exaggeration. I think it's more like I didn't feel like I wanted to practice. You know, I didn't feel like playing hand and exercise -- that wasn't really called for. I actually did sit down at the piano I think maybe Wednesday or Thursday of that week and wrote a small sort of dirge. But I wasn't sure if that was something I wanted to try in public, 'cause that can also feel kind of opportunistic. You know, like, Well, here's my piece that's dedicated -- (LAUGH) that's not necessarily what we need, you know.

IRA GITLER

But I would think that maybe just playing the piano would give you some kind of a release or an epiphany or --

VIJAY IYER

Well, usually it does. I mean that's always how music has functioned for me but something else happened that week, you know, it was -- I can't even entirely explain it. You know, I had two gigs cancelled that week. I was supposed to play the Jazz Gallery which is in SoHo, just near Canal Street, so very close. And we had actually hoped to make that gig happen anyway, mainly as a way of bringing people together because that's one thing that music does.

BETHANY RYKER

What day was it supposed to be?

VIJAY IYER

It was on the Thursday.

BETHANY RYKER

So it was before they opened that part of the city.

VIJAY IYER

Right.

HOWARD MANDEL

Well, I reviewed Dale Fitzgerald, the director of the Jazz Gallery ,and he said that on Tuesday actually after the towers went down that he began to broadcast music into the street and he opened up the Gallery in case anybody wanted to seek refuge, just come in. He said that they had very few takers -- people just wanted to get home. And that he did start activities at the Gallery I think on the Saturday which was a private party for a man who is a bassist, not a high level professional, but had been a little bit of a working bassist.

Dale read me a couple of letters of thanks that he'd gotten from the man and from his daughter who'd said it was a 65th birthday party or something and that they were quite grateful for the beginning of some activities there, just to hear some music. And also, Dale said that -- and this sort of is a complement to some of what you're saying, that it renewed his feeling that the Jazz Gallery should be an international center for Jazz that is projecting jazz as a global music.

VIJAY IYER

Yeah.

HOWARD MANDEL

And that that is really the mission that they've had to begin with and that it sort of validated him and emphasized that that is the way to go. So he had bands with Dafnis Prieto, one of the young Cuban percussionists, and he had Sam Newsome's Global Unity Orchestra and he had a group led by Salim Washington, a Coltranesque group from Boston -- also sort of projecting these spiritualist and sort of internationalist qualities.

VIJAY IYER

Yeah, and I have to say that both of those elements that you just mentioned are very important ingredients in my own music and you know, within the following week I was back to trying to bring my music to the fore and sort of see it -- re-contextualize it as a kind of healing gesture, you know, see it as something just one small contribution among the millions of contributions in the city to just try to move forward, heal.

And the other thing was, I had the chance to change my liner notes because they had actually printed them incorrectly for the CD. So I took the chance because it's like, well, the world is a different place now, so I think I want to say something different in this CD. So I was fortunate.

There's another piece on that record that's dedicated -- well this is something -- another piece I wrote maybe three or four years ago that was dedicated to the people of Iraq because of the hardship that they've endured over the last decade. And now that's about -- now it's everybody. Now we're part of that same world. So everything is closer.

HOWARD MANDEL

Let me jump over to Patricia for a minute because some of the work that you've done in the last year really has anticipated some of the things that we're looking at now. You had the Vision Festival having a theme of --

PATRICIA PARKER

Vision Against Violence.

HOWARD MANDEL

Vision Against Violence. And I assume that the -- the C.U.A.N.D.O.series that you're working on now, From the Ashes, also was planned prior to the September 11th events?

0PATRICIA PARKER

Well, it was called Witness before September 11th and we changed the title, From the Ashes on September 13th.

HOWARD MANDEL

Maybe you'll tell us a little bit about that series and --

PATRICIA PARKER

Why don't I just go ahead and talk, it works better that way . . . The day after the 11th, I got together -- it was a Wednesday, and on Wednesday nights it was supposed to be improv. And a few people showed up. And so I talked about when I was first doing -- let me go back. I'm a dancer/choreographer as well as an organizer. I first got together back in the '70s and I would improvise with William Parker and other musicians who would start the first half hour of every rehearsal with a half hour improv which was a prayer.

And I suggested we do that that night and it was -- there were younger musicians and they played the best I'd ever heard them. And we just improvised for about an hour straight. And someone found their way into C.U.A.N.D.O. from Houston Street which is actually kind of unbelievable. Because C.U.A.N.D.O., at that point, there was no lights on. There were no lights in the building, they had to come around -- find their way around the building in through a parking lot with the gate closed which there are dogs -- the back of the parking lot to find the door to hear the music. Someone wandered in and found it and just sat there while we improvised. And it was good. It was really a good thing.

For me, everything that I do should be connected. And I think that my concept of art is -- art is creation which is a part of life. What happened on September 11th was against life, so therefore is evil. Because evil is that which destroys life. Anything that is created which is about life and the more that it's about life and really, truly creative, that's the most good that we can get out of it, right?

And when September 11th happened, it was like this giant evilness happened and the world was like -- especially in New York or -- I don't know if it's especially because from what William was -- in Europe and everyone was reacting all over the world. This -- this photographer who I had dealings with recently told me he was in Italy and that he saw -- he had just arrived in Rome and there was this procession through the streets. And he thought, "Oh, there's a big procession, I wonder what -- " and they were processing -- it was like a thousand people, because of what had happened. So it's actually not just in New York. So it was like this big. All of a sudden like you know, a weight of evil. Not because people are evil, but because to destroy like that is evil.

And so like what I try to do in my response to that is to do as much positive, 'cause I mean I am not responsible for the whole world but I am responsible for who I am and what I do with my life and I have to do what I can to bring things back into balance. So I have to do as much life affirming, positive and good things as I can. I mean it's not different than what I was supposed to do on September 10th or 9th, it just becomes more imperative.

All right. So from the original idea from what I was doing was called Witness and it was a little less intense than what it became when it became From the Ashes. And From the Ashes, you know, 'cause the title is more focused, communicates more quickly what it's about and originally was about -- Witness was the idea that artists witness what happens in the world around them and what was happening at C.U.A.N.D.O., it's another community center the city is trying to level and build up you know, mostly higher income housing and commercial -- a mall on the bottom floor. You know, another mall. An the lower east side (LAUGH) just won't even need or want -- oh my God. (LAUGH) Nightmare, right? So we're fighting that and then this happened. So we focused it on that and I put together a building-wide art show and a month of performance activities. And I just invited a lot of curators in because you know, I don't know everything, it's my taste but others have their taste. Community means you bring people together. You don't like say, "This is good and that is bad and you're not good enough to be in my club." You know, it's a little more open. Not that I'm not an opinionated person -- which I am -- but I know that they're my opinions. And so we tried to open it up in places like I have more than I can deal with.

HOWARD MANDEL

Did you bring cards about the series?

PATRICIA PARKER

I have some stuff.

HOWARD MANDEL

When does it begin and who are some of the early performers that you can see in the next couple of weeks?

PATRICIA PARKER

This is October 24th through the 17th of November. This is the card for -- starting Wednesday. And every Wednesday I have like a younger music group for an hour and then I have open improv where musicians and dancers can come and improvise. That's every Wednesday. That's basically seven to 9:30 or so. Then on the 18th, Thursday, John Zorn curated a night and with Danny Zamir, at 7:30 and 8:30 is -- I don't know if I'm pronouncing this name right, Hana Kim and Ecstatica. And then the next night I have Cooper Moore doing a group. David Budville, the poet is doing something probably with William Parker and then other dimensions in music. That's the 19th. And I have these cards, I'll hand them out.

Then the next night is Zorn, Dalachinski and Karen Borca and then the next day is Eseet Sahar, Noreen Mitchell and Orrie Kaplan. But anyway, that's this four days among about 30 that I did. And I curate everything. As I said, I had Zorn do something, Roullette's doing a night, Thomas Buckner's doing a night. Jump Arts did a night -- actually on the night that Jump Arts had their night, HPD which is the real estate arm of the City of New York came in with the Fire Marshals to try to close the building down. They were unable to. So I'm also fighting a political battle.

HOWARD MANDEL

C.U.A.N.D.O.had been a performance space that was quite active in the '80s I recall.

PATRICIA PARKER

Seventies, '80s.

HOWARD MANDEL

And it was a rehearsal space also.

PATRICIA PARKER

It was the site of the Sound Unity Festival. You were there.

HOWARD MANDEL

And Butch Morris conductions and a major piece called "Goya" in which there were 17 painters doing their own versions of the Naked Maja. And actors who swept through like the Inquisition -- Spanish Inquisition. Quite a dramatic place. Sir.

EUROPEAN STUDENT

was just gonna get back to what he was saying here, 'causeI think also some facts in order to make jazz sort of a -- keep people or make people more aware of what's going on in the world. I'm a foreigner of course, you can hear by my accent but I think -- I mean evil has happened in this country much before, with the blacks and the Indians and the way we know about jazz history many times is not discussing this, so its like a club.

IRA GITLER

Right.

EUROPEAN STUDENT

But black people couldn't go there, so where did the black people hang out? There's not much literature about that, about the suffering that went though jazz that people can identify and also spread those vibes to people and then eventually also to those guys who are trying to trace down dark looking people. 'Cause there's miseducation in the society.

IRA GITLER

Well --

EUROPEAN STUDENT

At least we take the notes, you know, but still like I think jazz people -- even educated people don't know too much and don't have the opportunity to learn too much about the history that went through in this country and which developed jazz.

HOWARD MANDEL

Well, we have two people here who really serve as historians so let's turn to them about that. I mean it's always been part of mythology that I'm aware of about jazz is that this is an ennobled art form because it's deal with serious questions of racism and oppression and inequality and that this has been one art form that has been very welcoming and a voice of expression that does not exclude people who've not been in a superior position in our society and who've not been made to just merely entertain. But it's actually more of a multi-dimensional form. I mean that's sort of the way I came to it thinking about it in the '60s. Maybe Farrah, do you want to?

FARRAH GRIFFIN

I appreciate your comment. One of the things that I've been thinking about over the last few weeks is -- and none of this is very clear 'cause I'm still very confused, but I always go to the history and I've been thinking that if you think about certainly not the only source but one of the sources of this music is from a history of people who on a daily basis suffer adversity and kind of sometimes quiet and sometimes not so quiet terror.

And that music was for them a response to that situation that not only contained it -- I mean when I think about why jazz is so appropriate, that it's appropriate at this moment because kind of what we're all experiencing now, this kind of uncertainty and fear about you know, always looking over our shoulder, when is it gonna come again, is something that you can find at one of the sources of the music. That the only place where some people could even experience freedom was almost a kind of metaphorical freedom in the music, in jazz, that it's embodied there. It recognizes the way that people are profiled or fearful for their lives or fearful for the future.

And yet also imagines extraordinary human freedom. And why I think that's really appropriate now is because it speaks to all of us. Kind of we call ourselves Americans but it also speaks to the conditions that lead to what we're calling terrorism too. You know, it's something that you know, this kind of radical openness about the music that can certainly have in it things that we're experiencing and things that people who are being painted as our enemy experienced as well. And I can't really think of a lot of other forms, musical forms that embody both of those things. So I think historically that's kind of what I see through the history of jazz music, American music.

PATRICIA PARKER

Absolutely.

HOWARD MANDEL

And American-based music though, it's open to -- it's actually --

PATRICIA PARKER

Absolutely global.

HOWARD MANDEL

Global and even more so in the last ten years.

PATRICIA PARKER Absolutely. Open, I mean --

HOWARD MANDEL

Continues to be open.

PATRICIA PARKER

And -- and I think the other thing that you see is the kind of -- and that's why I want to stress kind of radical openness to global influence and to dissent.

VIJAY IYER

Yeah.

PATRICIA PARKER

That you know, it's okay to bring something different to the table. And that's one of the things I've been really concerned with now is where are the places where dissent is okay 'cause dissent now is being shot down --

VIJAY IYER

Yeah.

PATRICIA PARKER

As being unpatriotic. And I think one thing jazz understands absolutely you know, is -- one of those ways you move forward is to have a place where dissent can also be there. It doesn't question your identity and your commitment to the larger vision. So.

HOWARD MANDEL

That's an interesting point. Ira, let me ask you to try to respond, too, and think about the shifts from swing to bebop -- I hope it'll make sense of this idea of dissent sort of being encompassed within the formats of jazz. You've seen several sea changes, stylistic sea changes in jazz while you've been a professional observer. And it's always struck me that jazz is a strong enough, like a concrete enough form, self assured enough to be able to be open and accept a different way of playing even on bands that mix the styles, any given night. Is that true or in your experience seen the bop players take over from the swing players or was there conflict in those kind of styles?

IRA GITLER

Of course there was a conflict and part of it was economic because the people that were playing in the swing style saw their jobs being threatened by these new musicians. So part of it was economic. Part of it was just not wanting to accept this new style. But this happens over and over again and sometimes a new style takes a while to convince people that it's valid. Usually the musicians catch on first and then the public follows if it follows at all. But there's always been a give and take.

But to me, the music, and this was your theme I think -- the music has always been healing, you know, and as Farrah said, that it was also an outlet for pain and oppression, you know, you said terror, yeah. A lot of the people were in terror under the larger umbrella of oppression, daily oppression. And the music was a balm for the soul. And it was an expression.

And then it became a music that told people in this country and around the world who black people were. Because I consider the great players in jazz as ambassadors. And when I was a little kid, I heard them -- before I was even a teenager and was taken with this music. And then as I listened to it and saw the personalities and then began meeting them, you know, even before I was a professional writer, it said something to me about the black community. And now it's global, as you said, and on the days after the attack I got e-mails from all my friends in jazz from all over the world expressing concern. All over Europe and Japan and you know, "Are you all right?" I mean so it's a community, it's a worldwide community now.

HOWARD MANDEL

I should say that Vijay works among other connections with the Asian-American improv label which has demonstrated how -- what some of the connections, maybe unsuspected, lesser suspected connections are between some of the cultural traditions that arise out of jazz and other forms of improvisation.

And I've been watching records come in over the last couple of years that demonstrate more and more it's in the beginning of outreach -- especially to the middle east, with musicians like Anour Brahem who ECM has put out, Rabih Abou Kahli on Enja, distributed by Koch . . I think he's Tunisian, isn't he?

VIJAY IYER

He's from north Africa.

TINA PELIKAN

Anour Brahem is Tunisian.

HOWARD MANDEL

And maybe this gentleman is Lebanese or something. I don't know how many examples we can find; the Scandanavian bassist Jonas Hellborg made a record with Syrian musicians, very unusual to find Syrian musicians recording in a contemporary context. Butch Morris has been recording with Rom and Turkish musicians including some Sufi Dervishes . . .

VIJAY IYER

There's a degree of which -- well, I guess -- I remember Muhal Richard Abrams said about four years ago, "The world is starting to look more like itself." Because really I think there's a degree to which internationalism was always part of jazz and actually always a part of America. And it reminds of -- there was a -- Edward Said had a piece in the Nation recently, and there was a line in it that stuck out to me that said

"Islam is inside from the start," referring to the west, like it was actually -- you know, this kind of radical divide between us and them actually was to some degree never fully there.

There was always this -- I've heard stories from musicians about like you know, I've heard that maybe second or third hand that Max Roach was checking out North African and Middle Eastern players in the '40s. I definitely heard -- you know, I listen to Lenny Tristano's stuff and like I hear him using his rhythmic progressions that he had to get from Indian music, 'cause they don't exist anywhere else.

IRA GITLER

Well, he was kind of a freak of nature anyway.

VIJAY IYER

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

IRA GITLER

He might have gotten it out of his own head.

VIJAY IYER

But you know, these records were available in the '50s. So you know, I think what it is is that maybe people have more access to people from different communities now than they did but the information has been flowing around for ages, so --

TINA PELIKAN

Didn't things really start to change in say the '60s and '70s when it became easier to travel?

VIJAY IYER

Yeah.

IRA GITLER

Well, I was with Randy Weston in Morocco in 1972 and he was you know, he was living there in Tangier and playing with the Berber musicians and also with the Gnawas and he was into that long before many people. And now the world is even smaller so it's quite natural that there's gonna be more cross pollination.

HOWARD MANDEL

Patricia.

PATRICIA PARKER

Yeah, I wanted to say in a little different vein. My response to all these things. I mean if -- I mean I agree with pretty much everything what's being said here, but if we're going to do anything better than what we've already done, we've already done what we're doing. And but we need to see things -- to deal with what's happening, we need to see things a little bit newer. And you know, we talk about terrorism and then you spoke about the history of terrorism and jazz is good because it -- so the history of terrorism is here, is in the United States and that's what you were referring to.

EUROPEAN STUDENT

Yeah, most definitely.

PATRICIA PARKER

Yeah, that there's a history of terrorism right here, it's not just somewhere else coming in. And so therefore, I mean even though I think of myself as a good person and I talk about trying to do good, you know, I have to say that, one, everyone, no matter how good you think you are, you have to -- if you want to change things, if you want to make anything better, you always have to begin with yourself. You have to see -- check yourself out and how you deal and understand the seeds of what has happened.

And then when I see -- you know, in yourself and in your own small community, not just see -- you have to also see the good that you do otherwise -- 'cause you can't build on a negative, you can only build on a positive. And there's lots -- and I agree that jazz is a wonderful, wonderful way -- has a good history to enable it to handle stuff because it has gone through so much. But where is it now and how is it going to proceed forward now? And it leaves out questions that -- like I think that there's an answer to. There's an answer for each one of us that we have to come to.

But if we just -- we don't want to just feel good and we want to be a little uncomfortable 'cause if we're completely comfortable with our answers and just where we're at, we're just gonna be like, you know, those little mice that run through all the little lanes and we keep running through the same little lines all back and forth and you know, we think we've got it 'cause at the end we hit our nose against the little beep and the little thing drops down. You know what I mean? But I think that's what most people do in their lives. They keep going the same exact track, and if you're on that same track, you feel good and comfortable. So if you're always feeling good and comfortable then there's something wrong.

MALE VOICE

Everybody has decided they have the time or the efforts to look into themself --

(OVERTALK)

PATRICIA PARKER

Well, we all have the time we make time for. But you know, people aren't willing to take the time.

HOWARD MANDEL

Well, it does seem to me that jazz is one of the -- and I don't know, this is what I subscribe to -- that it's one of the art forms that resists convention and complacency.

PATRICIA PARKER

Oh absolutely.

HOWARD MANDEL

There's certainly some complacent music being made (LAUGH) you know, we can put our fingers on that, I don't think we have to. But the whole challenge of jazz, to be in the moment, the spontaneity, the inner dependence, and independence of the improvisational gain --

VIJAY IYER

But I think the focus on process -- I mean processing is a sort of therapy word but I think that this music is very much about process and you know, it takes all of its participants including the audience through a process or through a journey and that is a sort of -- that's a very healing kind of thing to be able to do. So I think that's one of the ingredients in this music.

BETHANY RYKER

I think that point brings up something I was thinking and I don't know, I think it should be integrated into this conversation but it doesn't necessarily have to be. But that the first few days after the strike, there was a lot of talk about what this would mean economically and I think only time is going to show what the really does for music and clubs -- jazz clubs that already struggle. Government assistance for arts that is already dwindling, will this become a smalle amount and how will the influence and force the music to do one thing or another.

And so when I was thinking about that I thought perhaps in my opinion of all forms, jazz has kind of had the least assistance in those categories for the longest time that perhaps it wouldn't feel the strength and the stronghold of that crisis if there is to be one, of what does that mean for musicians who make their living touring and playing clubs and depending on audiences to purchase and participate in jazz events. And we know that the entertainment industry is kind of being the first to go.

IRA GITLER

Kind of a jazz has always had a small piece of the pie.

FEMALE VOICE

That's why I thought that --

IRA GITLER

To begin with.

FEMALE VOICE

But it's still within this bigger industry of music.

HOWARD MANDEL

Yeah. I have a little bit of data about that. I talked to the people from the New York State Council on the Arts and the woman who's the officer of supervising music grants right now, she said immediately they were cut ten percent in their budget. And that she thought that that was quite a light cut just coming from Albany because she could imagine that there would be even more resistance 'cause there's someplace else that that money should be going. Not that there's hardly any money going to jazz fellowships right now anyway.

Myra Melford I interviewed for a Down Beat article I just finished about what the response of jazz musicians was. She said that she played at the Knitting Factory on I think it was the Sunday following the attacks with Marty Ehrlich and they had a small audience but the audience was very grateful for the music. And she felt that it was a situation which was like playing before there was a music industry. (LAUGH) That people came to hear music, they came to come together.

VIJAY IYER

Yeah.

HOWARD MANDEL

To hear something in common. She also cited the prayer analogy. She says, you know, when -- when prayer is spoken in a group, everybody has their personal experience of the prayer but that it's something that the entire group is participating in in some way also. And she compared it to architecture which she often does, also saying it was a question of creating a space with the music and it was a space in which everybody listening could again find their own way or have their own reaction, but it was one common space that everyone she hoped would find something in.

VIJAY IYER

Yeah, I'm sure we all experienced this sort of gathering or hoarding instinct that sort of kicked in immediately after this happened. Everyone wanted to be with other people and a lot of -- I had that gig that was cancelled and a lot of people had called me to see what was happening 'cause they really wanted to come out. They really wanted to be around some other people.

IRA GITLER

Well, it's like when you're listening to music at home, if you listen with at least one more person or more, the enjoyment of it is magnified or the experience is magnified. So there is a communal thing about it. You can enjoy it on your own but it multiples the experience.

HOWARD MANDEL

I would say also that I interviewed Mark Ribot and he did a benefit at Tonic, almost immediately I think also that first weekend, and then John Zorn and Bill Laswell and Milford Graves and --

FEMALE VOICE

Matt Shipp.

HOWARD MANDEL

-- and they continued to do benefits at Tonic, for the next week, for American Red Cross. But Ribot said that he was more on -- this is not only a question of healing, this is a question of reassessing. And he felt that the music could help to be provocative and to reassess.

He said that the most touching response and aesthetically significant response that he felt that he experienced during the time was actually the shrines that were popping up sort of spontaneously which he said really has this kind of horrible beauty to it, were his terms. And that they were very non-professional but very spontaneous and genuine.

VIJAY IYER

Yeah, especially when they were popping up in a place that people don't normally gather like at the hospital. Like there was one around St. Luke's --

FEMALE VOICE

Yeah.

VIJAY IYER

That was really heart wrenching to see, because I mean I remember that weekend I saw -- there was plenty of stuff happening in Union Square, but then if you walked across town and you're at St. Vincent's and you're like, "Well, why is all this happening here?" And you realize because people were looking for it. And so to have that kind of spontaneous display of public creativity at this place of tragedy was really -- yeah like --

FEMALE VOICE

Awful.

IRA GITLER

But you were talking about the processional in Rome.

PATRICIA PARKER

Right.

IRA GITLER

But I also have seen pictures of shrines in Rome and in London and places like that where people have done this in response.

HOWARD MANDEL

Let me mention a couple of other musical responses that I was told about. Art Baron held a jazz funeral in the community garden at 6th Street and Avenue B with Marty Ehrlich and Roy Nathanson and Curtis Fowlkes and Lou Grassi was drumming and they did it as a traditional jazz funeral. And actually this is something that Ben Ratliff wrote about in the New York Times too, that it begins as a dirge but then the second part is the cut loose and the more life affirming and upbeat and trying to sort of encompass the experience and move along.

And then there's the entrepreneurial side of that -- that several of the clubs reacted in a very, I've got to say shrewd way to the crisis knowing that they were in danger of closing, as you were saying -- these clubs are marginal also. And to be down for a month -- the Knitting Factory, as soon as the employees were allowed to get back in, they sent the employees out to explore the perimeter of the frozen zone and to figure out where the loose entry points were.

And then they hacked into their own web site because their T1 line and internet servers were down. So they hacked into their own sites and they put up a map about how you could get into the frozen zone if you wanted to. (LAUGH)

And then because they had opened their doors to the rescue worker and relief workers downtown, they had a little bit of leverage with the precinct commander of the police station. They got on to him and he had agreed to take their advanced ticket sale lists and take the names from the advanced ticket sales and the -- Guy Compton from the Knitting Factory told me that essentially they turned the checkpoints into their role call desk. (LAUGH)

So because the cops had the list of who had bought tickets and they would let them in and sort of escort them to the Knitting Factory. (LAUGH) And in this way, the Knitting Factory was up and running in about --

IRA GITLER

It's called survival.

HOWARD MANDEL

Ten days, twelve days. And they --

FEMALE VOICE

They would let people escort them to the club --

HOWARD MANDEL

Yeah.

FEMALE VOICE

After Canal Street was still shut.

HOWARD MANDEL

Right. And as Guy said, "God bless New Yorkers, they want their music and they're gonna find a way to get it," you know? Now this is not the same -- this may sound really crass of the Knitting Factory to operate in this way but it's an institution, they've got to work. On the other hand, I've heard of clubs that asked musicians to take reduced fees because the turnouts were not what they wanted them to be. These same clubs were giving away tickets so that they could have people in there drinking.

I heard of one club which I guess I'll keep it nameless, but they asked musicians to play for free in benefit of the club keeping open, which is like not exactly a gig, I would say. There has been a lot of work in the musicians union, the musicians union has been meeting with a group called New York Nightlife to see whether there were ways to provide some slack I guess to the clubs in terms of the union requirements and the union opened up its emergency funds to non-union members for the first time ever and has been offering to people who've lost gigs and things like that.

The Jazz Foundation of America had a very successful benefit on September 24th at the Apollo Theater in Harlem and they came up with about $250,000 that they made that night which Wendy Oxenhorn, Executive Director said that would be about a year's worth of operating expenses in a normal year but now she's afraid that there will be many more musicians who are feeling the pinch of need and will be coming to them because gigs have been closed because some clubs have cut back on their schedules, private parties have been cancelled and things like that. So that was some of the media stuff that I found out. Rose.

ROSE MANDEL

This isn't exactly on the topic but just being with somebody make a lot of people feel good.

HOWARD MANDEL

That's true. Andrew.

ANDREW LEPLEY

A friend of mine had found that after the attack, she couldn't listen to the kind of music that she really enjoyed, she felt too guilty. She's very into (UNINTEL). She found that she could not listen to that music for weeks 'cause she just felt guilty about listening to the music that --

FEMALE VOICE

Made her feel good.

ANDREW LEPLEY

Made her feel good. And she's just now starting to get back to it. Have you found anybody or noticed anybody who's having that kind of reaction with jazz?

VIJAY IYER

I've heard of maybe some of you are on this list, a friend of mine who writes music reviews on the west coast, she said she's on some Listserv and the general consensus was that the only thing that people can stomach was Coltrane (LAUGH).

IRA GITLER

I've got to say, the blues has always had the healing thing and it makes you feel good but to me it doesn't make me feel guilty because it speaks to a lot of people that you are thinking about as well as yourself. And I know that I put on some Charlie Parker because he told a story of feeling pain but out of that pain came a beauty that made you feel better. And the blues has always been about sad/happy, you know? It's always had that duality, but I don't think you have to feel guilty about listening to the blues that kind of eases your pain a little bit.

FEMALE VOICE

I would say I'd heard just the opposite. I heard people who were so frustrated with news, right?

MALE VOICE

Yeah.

FEMALE VOICE

And with CNN and -- that they felt like they really wanted music --

MALE VOICE

Sure.

FEMALE VOICE

Because it didn't pretend to try to articulate what was happening or depend on words -- words weren't making sense anymore, so a lot of people I talked to were running to music.

HOWARD MANDEL

I had an interesting experience with Coltrane though. I was up in Vermont that first weekend and we'd gone to a kind of very she-she little ski town which was filled with outlet store for very fancy name brand products. And I walked into a shoe store, and I was pretty dazed and this shoe store was -- they had on Coltrane's Alabama, which is a gorgeous piece, you know, and it was just want I wanted to hear.

But the disconnect between people buying and -- (LAUGH) and people are buying and buying and buying -- there was money all over the place, and it was so strange. And that felt to me like sort of what's wrong with our society. It was so highlighted that the music was so right but the activity that was accompanying was not equal to it, you know? And that was disturbing to me.

EUROPEAN STUDENT

But there is a lot of struggles going on today in the society though. And I have to say like the black people -- most pioneers or almost every pioneer in jazz I mean that I've been listening to are black people. And I believe that there is a lot of struggles going on today and for some, I mean even more than ever I think. But the problem is that this medium jazz -- that used to be like a medium for people to express this is not there for somehow, or it's been taken away. I don't know.

HOWARD MANDEL

Well --

EUROPEAN STUDENT

But we -- I wish we had more people today expressing -- more people were able to express certainly the poorer people, if blacks could express themselves in the way they used to be. That's how I think also jazz has -- are more looking into new age and looking elsewhere, I mean I think the soul is here as a foreigner definitely. And we always looked up to the blacks -- Americans as like the soul of the world basically, almost like a religion, you know.

IRA GITLER

You're saying that people are going more into new age music?

MALE VOICE

Yeah, because it doesn't have the pure -- it's not an expression for pain anymore or the people who can express themselves that way cannot express themselves through jazz.

HOWARD MANDEL

Patricia, maybe you'll talk about Vision Against Violence now, because it seems like a lot of the musicians that you features at the Vision Festival, or that you know, your committee has curated there, have been of the old school expressionism, you know? And sometimes it's called the new ecstatics or something, but it's about this very direct -- a lot of the music --

PATRICIA PARKER

Yeah, I don't know. This is very -- I don't know where to -- this is such a big thing that you're opening up here.

HOWARD MANDEL

Just take a little bite. A little bite. (LAUGH)

PATRICIA PARKER

Well, you talk about the fact that jazz has lost its roots in the black community. You can talk about that.

IRA GITLER

Yeah. That's thanks to radio and television.

TINA PELIKAN

But no -- I don't agree -- I mean if you went to any of the Jazzmobile --

IRA GITLER

I disagree with you --

TINA PELIKAN

-- this summer --

IRA GITLER

Once rock took over and the payola, you had programs that only played that music and the jazz lost its roots in the black community because they couldn't hear it on the radio anymore, whereas they used to hear it all the time along with R&B and other black music. But you heard jazz even -- 'cause when I worked for Prestige Records, we'd listen to Dr. Jive in the afternoon to see if he was gonna play the latest record of the company and you heard B.B. King and you heard -- but you heard Count Basie. And you heard the Platters and you heard James Moody. You know it was a panorama of black music. So the community was getting it. And it was on jukeboxes then in all the black communities. So I think that had a lot to do with breaking that link.

FARRAH GRIFFIN

I don't think that's true, though, that there's not a black audience anymore, or right now. Number one, I think you know, people are complex and there's no one form that contains their suffering or their joy. And that there are -- let me try and make sure that I say this correctly -- I think that if you go to the clubs where people go to hear jazz maybe you think jazz has lost connection to a black audience. If you went to any of the events of the Jazzmobile that happened uptown that were free and you know, Randy Weston did one and Roy Hargrove did another, 99.5 percent of those were black people across generations listening to the music, still dancing to it. Right? All the things that people say doesn't happen was happening in those spaces. It's not the only space, it's not the only music that people listen to or that people feel like articulates what they experience, but it certainly isn't I don't think that -- I don't think that connection is as dead as people insist that it is.

EUROPEAN STUDENT

No, I know it's alive, I'm just saying that the -- historically hasn't been kept in the right way.

FARRAH GRIFFIN

Does it necessarily have to be?

EUROPEAN STUDENT

Yeah, I think so. I think jazz for example is a put down word, to start with. I mean I think there's nothing wrong with going back and show how people lived and how people were treated. I think there should be more witnesses from people actually experienced it. You know, I think it's nothing wrong with that. I think that actually would be to the benefit to the nation actually.

PATRICIA PARKER

I don't think that what you each said is contradictory to each other.

FARRAH GRIFFIN

No, I'm not contradictory.

IRA GITLER

I agree.

PATRICIA PARKER

And I just wanted to make that point.

IRA GITLER

I agree.

PATRICIA PARKER

That they're not contradicting each other. The problem is I know that my husband when he gets out and plays and when a whole bunch of musicians that I'm connected, they are upset that the audiences are -- well, actually it's better. It used to be they were 99.9 percent white.

IRA GITLER

Yeah.

PATRICIA PARKER

Now they're -- I would say they're like 94 percent white. This is better. But it's really important because my husband's a black man, he plays music from his experience and then he looks out in the audience and then he looks at the young musicians and -- is a problem. And it's upsetting to him. And I'm his wife and I care about that because he cares about that and because it's part of my reality now. So I care about it.

All right now, also you were talking about like what I -- well maybe she should just leave this -- but the kind of music that I present predominantly in the Vision Festival is like this sort of -- most of the musicians that I present are black. Not all. Many of them are. And it's a very in -- I mean it's called avant garde jazz, avant jazz, free jazz, one person calls is ecstatic jazz. (LAUGH) Anyway, but they're all words trying to describe the kind of music that I present -- that I help present -- it's actually an artist run organization. It's not just me, I'm just the chief cook and bottle washer involved in it. You know, it's this -- and it is very connected, it's very connected to the heartbeat, to the -- it's very soulful music. But it's not you know, traditional music either.

HOWARD MANDEL

I think it takes off -- from an outsider status that jazz musicians often have claimed for themselves or have been forced into though. I think that the music of Cecil Taylor for instance is determinably outsider music. Cecil's message is to be an idiosyncratic person in this world is perfectly fine to do if you can do it at this level. And similarly Ornette Coleman you know, presents that message

we need to add an alternative point of view to organize this. It is not less valid for being alternative, it is just alter -- it's different and it still makes sense in a way. Rose?

ROSE MANDEL

I think the heritage of jazz is really changing but the heritage of rap for instance is not really, if you can find a white rapper, that's amazing.

TINA PELIKAN

But there's a lot of them, Rose.

FEMALE VOICE

There's a lot of them. There are a lot of white rappers.

TINA PELIKAN

They're just not as famous yet --

FARRAH GRIFFIN

But I think Rose is onto something here. (LAUGH)

BETHANY RYKER

Yeah, what -- the most famous, Eminem is -- I mean he won the Grammy.

ROSE MANDEL

Yeah, but --

IRA GITLER

Is that coincidental?

ROSE MANDEL

The ones that don't really curse --

BETHANY RYKER

That he's the most famous one?

IRA GITLER

And he's white.

FARRAH GRIFFIN

Possibly. (LAUGHING) Possibly not.

BETHANY RYKER

No, I mean he pitched himself as a controversial figure which gave him a lot of attention.

IRA GITLER

And he's white.

FARRAH GRIFFIN

And other people of different nationalities have done that and used that same ploy I think to be popular.

HOWARD MANDEL

But what is Rose onto, Farrah?

FARRAH GRIFFIN

I think Rose is onto something (LAUGH) because you know, maybe not the most commercial forms of rap or the forms of rap that are most well known to people who aren't involved in the hip hop community are doing exactly some of the things that -- I don't know what your name is -- but except some of the things that you said jazz did in an earlier time.

BETHANY RYKER

And still does now.

FEMALE VOICE

And still does, right. Still does now. You know, that it's an important form that can't be dismissed for doing some of those kinds of -- articulating some of those political needs and concerns. So thank you Rose.

VIJAY IYER

I think what's true about the -- just what's true about both jazz and hip hop is that they're both at this point quite vast. So you can't really generalize about either.

HOWARD MANDEL

Let me ask our historically-attuned panelists, was jazz, did it make public attempts to grapple with conflicts, sudden violence and things like that during World War II, during the Korean War, during Vietnam? Did Billie Holiday ever make a public sort of song that was sort of a propaganda song any more than "Strange Fruit" or --

FARRAH GRIFFIN

Yeah, she did a song that was banned. It was the reason why her FBI file was opened. And it was before the U.S. entered World War II and it was called "The Yanks Aren't Coming." And she performed it maybe twice.

IRA GITLER

Never heard of that.

HOWARD MANDEL

So this was in criticism of our non-involvement?

FARRAH GRIFFIN

Right. Of our refusal to enter --

IRA GITLER

Wow.

FARRAH GRIFFIN

Yeah.

HOWARD MANDEL

And you told me a story --

TINA PELIKAN

Were they her lyrics?

FARRAH GRIFFIN

No. Not her lyrics. And I think she might have even sang it at -- I'm not sure, don't quote me on this -- but I think it might have been at a rally for the con -- there was a black leftist Congressman from Harlem, so it might have not only been the song but the context that she sang it in.

IRA GITLER

Benjamin Davis.

FARRAH GRIFFIN

Benjamin Davis. Right. Right.

HOWARD MANDEL

Did she do USO tours or anything like that?

FARRAH GRIFFIN

She did not and she didn't do any of those State Department tours either. (LAUGH)

HOWARD MANDEL

Was she asked to?

FARRAH GRIFFIN

I think she would not have been asked. (LAUGH) I have no evidence that she was asked.

IRA GITLER

I think the first time she went to Europe was when Leonard Feather had that tour.

FARRAH GRIFFIN

Exactly.

IRA GITLER

Which was --

FARRAH GRIFFIN

It was late '56.

IRA GITLER

The recordings exist from that.

HOWARD MANDEL

This is probably because of her presumed drug involvement?

FARRAH GRIFFIN

Yeah. From the government she wouldn't have been asked but she did go -- yeah.

HOWARD MANDEL

Ira, you told me an amusing personal anecdote about using jazz early on in your life to --

IRA GITLER

Well, you were asking -- Howard was asking me about you know, in inviting me to come down here how did you know, I remember jazz during World War II because I was I guess about -- I turned 13 right about the time of Pearl Harbor. And I was telling him that I remembered I was well into jazz by that time, I'd been listening since I was about eight years old.

And I was being bar mitzvah'd this morning -- particular morning and of course I had to make a speech. It was a reform temple so I learned the Torah phonetically which is really cheesy but you know, I can do some reform temple jokes but I won't. (LAUGH) Anyway, but I had to make a speech in English related to Judas Macabeeis, you know the festival of lights which occurs at the same month and I was -- you know, naturally nervous, because I was up there to perform.

And the way I relaxed that morning before going to temple was playing Benny Goodman sextet records. That -- it cooled me out, those are some of my favorite records, with Charlie Christian and George Alt, Cootie Williams and it just made me forget really what I had to do and make me calm down at least 'til I had to get up again and make the speech.

HOWARD MANDEL

The swing bands did go out and do the USO tours --

IRA GITLER

Oh yeah.

HOWARD MANDEL

And did a lot of entertaining and that must have been I think to reinforce that this is an American art form and you boys out there are fighting this war, here's the art that you know, you'd be listening to back home and we're bringing it out --

IRA GITLER

Well, it was a great morale builder. In fact, today I just got a package from RCA or whatever they're called, BMG and there was a -- Artie Shaw collection picked by him. So it's not the best of or Artie Shaw's greatest hits. And in the notes it tells the story of when he was called into the service, he immediately was put in charge of a band and of course it didn't get the publicity that the Glen Miller Army Air Force Band got, but it was stationed in the Pacific.

And he put together a very good band and he describes how he was playing on the deck of this aircraft carrier and unlike at the paramount, where you came up out of a pit, they were lowered (LAUGH) from above down to the deck. And he said when the band hit the opening notes of Nightmare, which was his theme song, the response that he got from these sailors was just the greatest feeling he had ever had because he knew what this meant to the morale of the, you know, a little bit of home coming to the servicemen.

EUROPEAN STUDENT

Were there any black artists that played for --

IRA GITLER

In that band? I don't know.

EUROPEAN STUDENT

No, I mean in that time.

IRA GITLER

Yeah, they toured for the USO, yeah.

FARRAH GRIFFIN

And the State Department tour, Dizzy Gillespie tour.

IRA GITLER

Well, that was later. But during World War II, black artists did play USO tours. In fact, a friend of mine was stationed in the army in Texas and he had been on duty for a long time and he's sitting in the front row because he was a jazz fan and it was Al Sears, the tenor player who had been with Duke Ellington and he was touring and my friend was asleep in the front row when all of a sudden he heard this sound and it was Lester Young playing with the Al Sears USO troop but he awoke to -- and Lester was playing his tenor. So yeah, there were black artists touring for the USO and playing armed forces radio programs and --

HOWARD MANDEL

Of course that goes back to World War I too with James Reese Europe going over, you know.

VIJAY IYER

Interesting, it seems like we've kind of covered a lot of basis in terms of the different functions that this music has had or can have either in times of struggle or difficulty because it -- you know on the one hand it can stand for comfort, or it can also stand for America in a sort of questionable way maybe sometimes. (LAUGH)

IRA GITLER

I think in its way it's done more to bring white and black people together.

HOWARD MANDEL

And Latin people and --

IRA GITLER

And continuing as we're talking about the global shrinkage, you know, people of all -- it welcomes musicians of all races. And when you talked about the years of extreme segregation when black people couldn't go to certain clubs or play here or play there, off the bandstand, black and white musicians were getting together and playing.

LARRY BLUMENFELD

I take it the point that you were getting at before is that jazz is like music of the struggle, music of a struggle. Of an oppressed class or a struggle. And I mean in this country whether it's blues or jazz, rock and roll, largely it's blues based and largely it comes from that. But I don't know that by now that struggle is -- that identification is what we're talking about.

I mean to a certain extent, you know, I bet that half the people in this room who are jazz lovers and music lovers, for them -- I know it's true for me, it's as close to or is your religion. And -- or serves that function to a very great degree. And I think that you know --

VIJAY IYER

So where are the prophets if it's a religion?

LARRY BLUMENFELD

Well, some of them -- some of the most famous ones are --

IRA GITLER

Where are the prophets in the Bible? They're dead but we're still listening to them.

LARRY BLUMENFELD

I think also if you pay attention -- if you go out and hear -- (LAUGH) I mean I guess what I was saying is that there's a certain communion that you're gonna get from just the authenticity that we feel like we get from someone who we'd call a real jazz musician. Or really a real modern musician of any stripe and that that's incredibly valuable. And the other thing that's incredibly valuable that maybe is prophet-like sometimes but you have to really listen carefully is you know, the more you watch CNN and I've really abused it, you know the less you feel like you're getting.

And I mean I can share one tiny anecdote which is back when the Gulf War first started, the first Gulf War, (LAUGH) I watched hours of CNN and I was utterly confused and I was on the list to hear Wayne Shorter at the Blue Note. That was back when he played the Blue Note. And I went and I was totally worn out and confused and then he just started dropping into his last tune, his last solos, a little piece of When Johnny Comes Marching Home, a little piece of the Star Wars theme, you know, the kind of thing Wayne'll do when he's happy. But also wasn't pointless and it was like -- I don't know -- a couple of people started catching it, looking at each other, nodding, smiling and hey that was a lot better than all the analysts I watched all night.

I had the same reaction about not wanting to hear music and feeling guilty but then I got myself to go out. I went to hear Andy Bey and he ended his set doing Sting's song Fragile, with the refrain

How fragile we are. Which I would never even associate Andy Bey with saying. (LAUGH) But it was like --

VIJAY IYER

I bet it sounded good.

LARRY BLUMENFELD

I mean I guess what I'm saying with that point is that unless you really search the internet carefully and you have good support groups, our thinking quickly is very limited about these things you know, or what you think you know, about the evil doers. And they're all these shades of gray. And sometimes getting hints at the from musicians who we think are either prophets or just really smart human beings can just help keep that consciousness open and I feel like there are lines of thought and communication that are being closed, not 'cause of censorship but just 'cause everyone' acting patriotic and the thoughts are emitted into the air.

PATRICIA PARKER

Well, censorship has been -- we've absorbed it into ourselves. It's like you don't have to be told to censor yourself anymore because you've been told in so many subtle ways.

LARRY BLUMENFELD

I guess what I'm saying is you know, Ornette or Cecil Taylor or a lot of musicians that we all like, even if they're not being overtly political and the music isn't referring to a civil rights struggle they're living through right this minute, if what we all know we appreciate it for partly and what we -- a lot of us have written about are things that suggest the kind of compassion and thinking that we want to nurture now. And to me, that's like a big part of what I get from going out and hearing music the past like month.

IRA GITLER

Well, you know, the '60s was a time where jazz musicians really got more political. But the musicians of the '30s weren't considered that way at the time and yet they were making statements that affected your thinking. You know, when you saw a man like Coleman Hawkins, not just the way -- well of course the way he played, but the way he carried himself, he was making a statement.

LARRY BLUMENFELD

Well, he suggested a way of being.

IRA GITLER

Yeah. And Benny Carter and Duke Ellington and people like this. You know, they raised your consciousness on a certain level by both the brilliance of their music and also themselves as people.

PATRICIA PARKER

It's sort of a weird thing to be an artist no matter what kind of artist you are. It's a weird thing because you know, you say well, you know, the world is falling apart and I'm an artist, I'm gonna paint a painting, or I'm gonna play some music and like it's not a logical thing. So then what is it? Why do you have this absurd desIYER to be an artist? You know, because it's not logical. And the only thing I can say is that it's like art is like magic. Art is about transformation. It's about the transformation of your heart which is about again, the beginning of life. That's how we change the world is through the transformations of hearts.

And that's what you have to dig deep and check yourself out and like make sure that you're like telling a truthfulness that is profound. Then you know, then the art has the meaning. And improvisation which is what jazz is all about and infused with, even that isn't enough because people have gotten sloppy with improvisation. They're not improvising, they're just repeating licks.

You've got like dig deep. You've got to like check yourself out and you've got to like follow a vision that will take you somewhere and that will take the people who are hearing you or are looking at you or listening to you or with you. And then -- you know, so in as many ways as we can we have to be about transformation.

IRA GITLER

Yeah, but not everyone can be profound all the time.

PATRICIA PARKER

No.

IRA GITLER

And talking about licks -- Sonny Stitt was one of my favorite musicians but he used to -- he had his licks, you know?

PATRICIA PARKER

Right.

IRA GITLER

And he played them. And some nights when he wasn't really into it, you know, it sounded like he was just going through the motions.

PATRICIA PARKER

Repeating himself.

IRA GITLER

But when he felt it --

PATRICIA PARKER

Right.

IRA GITLER

He was playing the same licks but he was playing them in a way because of the rhythmic, you know, that he would raise the thing and he would just swing you into bad health as we used to say.

PATRICIA PARKER

Yeah. (LAUGH) Well, if you're telling the truth --

IRA GITLER

Yeah.

PATRICIA PARKER

No matter what language you're speaking --

IRA GITLER

So it's --

PATRICIA PARKER

You're telling the truth.

IRA GITLER

Yeah, so it's feeling.

PATRICIA PARKER

And I'm not gonna --

IRA GITLER

Feeling.

PATRICIA PARKER

When I was a kid, I used to think, "It's not the notes, it's the spaces between the notes." I was a weird kid.

VIJAY IYER

It's magical but you're talking about digging deep into society or within yourself?

PATRICIA PARKER

Within yourself, 'cause you don't --

VIJAY IYER

So you mean to stay in a room and meditate and --

PATRICIA PARKER

No. (LAUGH) Well, I can't tell you how to do it. I can't tell you how to do it or that you should do it.

HOWARD MANDEL

I think of Don Cherry and as somebody who's very exploratory and traveler really, and who changes the face of jazz in some subtle ways. Not in like a fiercely expressionistic way but I think jazz sounds different because of the kinds of expeditions that he took which changes the way jazz sounds to maybe we don't recognize it as being the black jazz from the '30s exactly, but that's probably the transformation and to be --

PATRICIA PARKER

Right.

HOWARD MANDEL

Honest and looked at himself.

EUROPEAN STUDENT

You mean this world -- new age world stuff?

HOWARD MANDEL

No, I think it's all one thing. You know, to me, but --

EUROPEAN STUDENT

He tried. I have to agree with you.

HOWARD MANDEL

Jesse Tampio (from Jazz at Lincoln Center)?

JESSE TAMPIO

Well, one just to follow up on your comment and his question about whether it's an either or with meditating or helping society, it's like one in the same to me. You know, you do both at the same time really, so you know, it's not like an either/or thing. You know? Helping society helps yourself at the same time and that really plays into what I think is a crucial element of why jazz is relevant right now.

Like a lot of what Larry was saying about what it represents in terms of group interaction. Because that was kind of like the big wake-up call of what happened was not just waking us up to the dangers of the world and just how much people hate us and hate our society and our leaders and everything. It's just kind of an awakening of our conscience and a realization that we have to work with other people that we -- that like as a government we can't just act unilaterally and not participate in accords and not care about the third world. Like our government's doing that and the military's doing that you know, shoring up various coalitions.

But you know, along with that, there has to be a societal response along the same lines that we you know, cooperate and work together in the same way. And without being you know, too theoretical I mean jazz really does address that. You know, I mean when you see jazz you see people interacting in the most profound way possible, being themselves and yet serving a larger good, doing both at the same time.

And -- and also a lot of what jazz represents even when you're talking about it being political, and expressing people's anger that a key part of it -- like it wouldn't be effective if it wasn't beautiful on some level. Like you're not gonna pay attention to it -- to art -- I mean it becomes art because there's something aesthetically attractive about it. So even when their musician is expressing something political, he's finding beauty you know, in strife, in the conflict, in that statement that he's trying to make. So that's another I think really key area where jazz deals with the times that we're in by continuing to find you know, some kind of beauty in the internal turmoil that we're all finding ourselves in.

HOWARD MANDEL

Yeah, you know, that makes me really want to connect it to what Patricia was saying because the digging deep within one's self and the not being sloppy about improvisation and the not playing licks, it's -- you're dealing with a beautiful material. Playing a beautiful note, playing beautiful ideas. Beautiful because they're true and you know that thing about truth is beauty, beauty is truth and that's all you need to know.

And then jazz musicians are -- as soon as they pick up their instruments, if they're dedicated to the high standards of virtuosity and to the sort of soulful feeling that's identified, they're working with beautiful materials and if they address themselves as artists with a respect for the beauty and respect for the audience that they're trying to reach and to the moment that they're trying to make jell, you know, it seems to me that that's -- beauty is inherent in that process of working with those materials in an honest and truthful and deep way. And whether it's Billie Holiday transforming or Vijay transforming you know the moment, however complex it is, it sounds true.

VIJAY IYER

I think at the same time we have to have space for critique inside the music. I mean the music itself has a form of critique and maybe that's not always about beauty. Remember there's a quote from George Lewis (PH) in Coda magazine, he said, "Only a fool would like something just because it made a pretty sound." Because it can als -- I mean it can also be a sort of space for dissent. We were talking about this --

IRA GITLER

Yeah, it doesn't have to be a pretty sound to be beautiful.

PATRICIA PARKER

Beautiful -- beautiful and pretty are the same thing.

IRA GITLER

How about Monk? Ugly beauty.

EUROPEAN STUDENT

But it doesn't have to be beautiful at all, I think it can be --

IRA GITLER

Yeah.

EUROPEAN STUDENT

An awakening, it can be like a lot of knowledge in it.

FEMALE VOICE

It's also --

MALE VOICE

It just happens to be --

MALE VOICE

-- sort of like a --

FEMALE VOICE

You have to be careful of --

MALE VOICE

Using --

FARRAH GRIFFIN

You have to be careful about semantics. I mean the word -- anything that's in the mind of the beholder you have to be careful about. (LAUGH)

EUROPEAN STUDENT

But I read and spoke to an Indian friend of mine who actually is a Hindu and he said that most religions that came out of Hindu, like Krishna, et cetera, et cetera, is now run by white Americans or western people. And so in organizations sort of-

FARRAH GRIFFIN

You mean in the United States?

VIJAY IYER

Here, in the United States.

MALE VOICE

No, and worldwide, actually.

IRA GITLER

The Hindu religion is being run by --

EUROPEAN STUDENT

Religions coming out of Hindu. Different sects and so on that came out to the west is now run by west.

VIJAY IYER

Well, I think like jazz and hip hop, Hinduism is vast. (LAUGH)

IRA GITLER

Whatever you do, practice safe sax. (LAUGH)

EUROPEAN STUDENT

I think the same thing happened to this musical jazz will soon happen to hip hop, you know.

TINA PELIKAN

There's something that you said earlier that I wanted to -- since I live in both the jazz and the classical world, partly because of the label I represent does both musics. And you said something about worrying -- well that you were -- well, about writing piece in response and not wanting to appear -- I forget -- you used a great word.

VIJAY IYER

I think I said opportunistic.

TINA PELIKAN

Yeah, opportunistic. One of the first concerts I went to which was an incredible relief was actually a concert that combined the two worlds and it was a work by a young English composer named Mark Anthony Turnidge. A piece called "Blood on the Floor." And it is a piece for an orchestra with jazz trio. And he had written a small piece for piano in response to September 11th and he played it before this evening long composition which had been scheduled. And he said before getting up to go to the piano to play it, he said, "I don't usually play an instrument in public," but he had been convinced by George Steele who presents at the Miller Theater [at Columbia University] to do this. And it was lovely and it was given in an honest -- it was his -- I felt, gift to the audience and there was nothing opportunistic about it and I would encourage you not to hold back if you --

VIJAY IYER

Certainly --

TINA PELIKAN

Find that music.

VIJAY IYER

It's very contextual I think, I mean because maybe a -- you know, it was very sensitive especially here in New York immediately following. And I think we all -- you know, we all needed some sort of response and I know poets who were creating responses, other poets who waited weeks to write anything. That happened maybe two weeks ago, right? I remember it now.

TINA PELIKAN

It was quite early. And I think that the word opportunistic is really, really tough one right now for presenters.

VIJAY IYER

Right.

TINA PELIKAN

And for record companies. I think we're all treading a very thin line because we do want to go back to work and we don't want to seem opportunistic but the presentation of music, the dissemination of music right now, it is important and it's been very interesting for me as a publicist to get on the line with journalists and talk to them and -- like my first calls that I made, I was feeling apologetic. I was feeling really apologetic.

BETHANY RYKER

And in fact, ECM had artists in town. Who -- some of the `concerts were cancelled that week. Charles Lloyd was supposed to open at the Blue Note --

VIJAY IYER

Right.

TINA PELIKAN

ON the 11th. And when they opened New York below 14th Street, they opened the Blue Note on the Friday night. And I actually had to -- I was not very happy about this -- but I had to call a few journalists and let them know that Charles was gonna play that night. And the response was invariably, "Thank you so much for letting me know. I need to get out and hear music."

VIJAY IYER

And I think Charles Lloyd in particular has a sort of -- there is a sort of religiosity, there's a sort of aura that he has when he plays that actually can be very powerful in that kind of circumstance.

HOWARD MANDEL

But I went there Sunday to hear Dave Pietro at the Blue Note do his record release party for Standard Wonder, celebrating the music of Stevie Wonder. And you know, this didn't have an aura of religiosity to it but there -- and I couldn't stay very long to hear anything. I was very restless but I went by Small's, I went by the Vanguard, and nobody was playing anything shucking and jiving. I mean everybody was into it, what they were playing was to be direct and to you know, not -- there was no like glitziness to it and in -- a couple days later I went back to the Blue Note to hear Richard Bonaand James Carter and Steve Turre was the other band. And Bona had said -- not to me, but to Michelle Mercer, he says -- before he went on -- he said, "I don't know what to play. Should I play sad songs, should I play happy songs? What should I do?" And she said, "Just play yourself, Richard." And the set that I saw, he was singing really sweetly and he was playing great bass and he wasn't holding anything back, he was just being very genuine and -- and it was a balm. And in --

VIJAY IYER

I think probably what it was -- what it is about him is a genuineness, I think that's -- I mean because I think especially at a time like this people really see through I think a falseness. It doesn't last.

PATRICIA PARKER

Right.

VIJAY IYER

It doesn't work. And that's again, why I think a lot of people had to turn to Coltrane because I mean that's honesty personified, I think.

HOWARD MANDEL

It's so interesting the varieties though that really ring true. I was doing an article that same couple of weeks about movie musicals and for various reasons I had to watch Yankee Doodle Dandy with Jimmy Cagney. (LAUGH) Now this movie must have been completed just after Pearl Harbor, also it was released in '42. And it is so jingoistic, however, they were genuine about it.

And George M. Cohan, his music was real gung-ho American theater music, you know, in the early part of the century. But he was genuinely pro-American in this way. And the way Cagney portrays it also, it's -- you buy it. I mean it doesn't matter that it's all flag waving, which we might consider corny in some way, but it connected with the spirit of the time in a very genuine way. And it doesn't seem corny, it seems you know, heartfelt. And not jingoistic. It's not cheap or you know, it's genuine in some form. It represents something about American culture which is genuine and the circuit between audience and art piece there -- I mean I didn't see it in 1942 but it must have been a genuine close circuit.

IRA GITLER

Any movie with Jimmy Cagney was in, I'd go to see. (LAUGH) He was one of the greats.

EUROPEAN STUDENT

But this brings back a little bit to the issue that if every body can afford taking lessons, if there are enough instruments in poorer communities of the countries, you know, I think it comes back to that. So maybe we can -- they would come up a new whatever -- what we call genius or people to --

IRA GITLER

Those things exist. I mean even -- we were talking about Jazzmobile, I mean Patricia and her husband William really -- he and a lot of musicians he play with got instruments in their hands and started doing what they were doing through Jazzmobile.

VIJAY IYER

I think people keep making music with whatever --

PATRICIA PARKER

But they don't -- but it's not as -- I don't think it's as available as it was then when William was coming up.

BETHANY RYKER

There's a lot of programs that have gone down.

PATRICIA PARKER

Yeah.

TINA PELIKAN

I mean that's what -- on the -- again, on the classical side, that's what Mr. Holland's Opus was about.

PATRICIA PARKER

Right.

TINA PELIKAN

That there were a lot of kids in my generation, I got handed a viola when I was in junior high school.

PATRICIA PARKER

Right.

TINA PELIKAN

That doesn't happen in the public schools now.

IRA GITLER

Yeah, that's a truism. You wonder why so many great musicians came out of Detroit and jazz because they had very strong --

FARRAH GRIFFIN

They got those instruments in school.s

IRA GITLER

Music programs in the high schools.

HOWARD MANDEL

Would we be doing well to include in our humanitarian aid to Pakistan or Afghanistan, instruments along with the mix? Should we be doing more cultural propaganda?

VIJAY IYER

They don't want any saxophones.

HOWARD MANDEL

Or drums.

TINA PELIKAN

That's an excellent idea actually.

HOWARD MANDEL

Or flutes, or you know, whatever --

IRA GITLER

Stringed instruments.

HOWARD MANDEL

Stringed instruments. I mean you know, instruments that are not --

LARRY BLUMENFELD

You can't because the Taliban forbid -- that's one of the forbidden fruits in --

HOWARD MANDEL

Well, how about in Pakistan? What about in Iraq? You know, places where we have -- in Uzbekistan? You know, or like --

VIJAY IYER

I think these people already have --

HOWARD MANDEL

They have some music -- they have their own music but it would be even a propaganda coup to reinstate the sort of voice of America, radio free jazz that Willis Conover you know, broadcast for years to the Soviet Union and --

IRA GITLER

All over the world.

HOWARD MANDEL

Is that a good thing or is it an imperialistic thing?

IRA GITLER

I don't know but it's interesting, you say Uzbekistan. I was reading a report from Uzbekistan in the paper the other day and the reporter was saying in the background was boom, boom, boom, boom, of Uzbekistan disco. (LAUGH) They need more jazz.

PATRICIA PARKER

The problem is that although it is slightly imperialistic, it's the problem is that we've done that, the culture has already done it -- we've already pushed in a big way the most --

IRA GITLER

The worst --

PATRICIA PARKER

Mediocre --

IRA GITLER

The worst of our culture.

PATRICIA PARKER

Mediocre --

IRA GITLER

The worst of our culture --

PATRICIA PARKER

Which is actually worse than worse. (LAUGH) The most mediocre of our culture has been -- has flooded the world and so you get back at you like, you know, in every other culture's version of our mediocre culture.

HOWARD MANDEL

So if we sent out Sly Stallone, we get back like action figures but if we sent out images of Louie Armstrong or the music of Coltrane, we might get back some reflection of that in some way.

PATRICIA PARKER

It'd be more -- yeah, it'd be a little more positive.

IRA GITLER

Speaking of mediocre, we haven't given 101.9 [jazzlite radio station] yet. That'll put them to sleep.

EUROPEAN STUDENT

Do we teach about Coltrane in schools here?

BETHANY RYKER

If you talk to Ori Kaplan or Aseem Sahar about the improv scene in Israel, I mean there's stuff happening there.

HOWARD MANDEL

We have a pieced posted at Jazz House about Arnie Lawrence opening up a jazz club in Jerusalem actually on the 11th also. Yes, Michael Zwerin wrote about Arnie Lawrence opening up a jazz club in Jerusalem on September 11th and going into the Palestinian sectors also with the band and how difficult it was to cross the border. That's posted at www.jazzhouse.com right now.

That piece.

EUROPEAN STUDENT

Do they teach about Coltrane in schools? In the States? Is that part of the program in the schools? To teach about Coltrane, Duke Ellington?

PATRICIA PARKER

They don't teach about any music --

IRA GITLER

Well, Duke Ellington --

HOWARD MANDEL

Well, General Motors funded an educational component with Ken Burns' (PH) Jazz. I mean it's a cheap way of going at it but somebody did something, you know?

TINA PELIKAN

Yeah, wait a minute, we've got the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra people here who are going into the schools and playing this music --

HOWARD MANDEL:And have done a wonderful job --

TINA PELIKAN

Am I right?

HOWARD MANDEL

Of setting up competitions to --

LARRY BLUMENFELD

Who put Ellington's music in the hands of high school teachers to teach, real transcriptions.

TINA PELIKAN

Right. We have the preeminent organization for teaching jazz in this country sitting in this room.

PATRICIA PARKER

The only problem --

EUROPEAN STUDENT

But it's the country's music, I mean that's the only thing --

HOWARD MANDEL

It's our music.

EUROPEAN STUDENT

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It should be taught in schools.

HOWARD MANDEL

It is.

IRA GITLER

It should be.

EUROPEAN STUDENT

It should be taught more.

TINA PELIKAN

I don't know why you have the feeling that it's unknown here. I get the feeling from what you're saying that you have the impression that it's unknown or -- am I wrong?

EUROPEAN STUDENT

Yeah, kind of. That's the impression I get.

FARRAH GRIFFIN

I don't think that's the case.

ROSE MANDEL

I'm sorry if you like Ken Burns, but who put his stuff on videotape? (LAUGH)

EUROPEAN STUDENT

I'm not saying that the music is unknown but the culture and the -- what really went on back in the past in history-

HOWARD MANDEL

You know, I think there's progress in there. I think that there's been some progress. And I think that just that we're sitting in this room talking about this with such an open agenda for it also demonstrates that there are a lot of different ways that you know, we've learned to go at it and we've probably transmitted this information in educational situations too.

EUROPEAN STUDENT

And is it supposed to be that the music is more accessible for people with money than than people without money.

FARRAH GRIFFIN

Everything is --

EUROPEAN STUDENT

Yeah, but it's not right. It shouldn't be like that.

VIJAY IYER

I think you shouldn't forget that the music exists in this society as it is. . But there's music coming out of every community, whether it has money or not. I think that hip hop came out of people who were broke who could afford a record player and their voice.

TINA PELIKAN

Didn't have instruments.

EUROPEAN STUDENT

So that situation will stay like that until we make something change.

HOWARD MANDEL

Well I guess it takes a total revolution to change that. We're not seeing a total revolution, we might be able to make some adjustments within the structures that we have now, it seems to me. And we're recognizing how much can be done without paying attention to the commercial structures is a very valuable thing to do. Because it seems to me that the musical response immediately after the attacks had very little to do with commerce. It was not opportunistic. That it was genuine. And it revalidates that our music operates in an alternative track and no, we're not well funded, we don't have the hype, it's not sold like Brittany Spears is sold at Tower Records. But the message gets out and it's there all the time. And almost all Americans recognize that. They hear it on TV, they hear it on movie soundtracks, they hear it in the street, it's our music. It's the way we operate.

And it's not that anybody's profiting from it very much but we're breathing it like the air, you know, nobody -- knock on wood -- is charging us for air yet. (LAUGH) So, you know, this music is just as vital and as necessary and as functional in all these different ways regardless of whether it's like pushed by the conventional commercial forces it seems to me.

And I'd like to cut it there. So thanks everybody for coming. If you're interested in going to hear Kurt Nurock and Chico Hamilton (PH) who's unbelievably 80 years old at Joe's Pub, this is a New School record release party tonight and the publicist said that if you went over there with identification that you're somehow related to the Jazz Journalist Association, that she would let you in free even though the shows start at eight -- I don't know what time it is now -- 8:30. But Joe's Pub is just over at Lafayette and 8th Street.

VIJAY IYER

I have some flyers for my gig at Joe's Pub if anyone is interested.

HOWARD MANDEL

And there are copies of the Jazz Notes over there for free. Vijay Iyer, Ira Gitler, Farrah Griffin, Patricia Parker, thank you very much for coming. (APPLAUSE)

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