Jazz is the Sound of God Laughing

A breath-takingly beautiful essay by Colleen Shaddox. I admit that I lived for years here in Kansas City, surrounded by great jazz venues and performers, and never really listened to jazz. Recently, though, I've been listening more often - both live and recorded, and the music resonates.

I believe in the fundamental optimism of jazz. Consider the first four notes of "Rhapsody in Blue." Can you hear it? It's saying, "Something monumental is going to happen. Something that's never happened before. And you are alive to witness it."

Jazz is always like that. Even the songs that take you to despair lift you. That’s because the music remembers where it came from, from people kidnapped and enslaved. It came from a humanity that was attacked a thousand different ways every day, but never defeated. It's the People's Music.
. . .
In jazz, anybody can sit in. It's dogma-free, which allows the music to take more than its share of detours. This forces you to have faith. Faith that if you keep moving forward, you'll get there.

Take a minute and read the whole essay - it's wonderful!