The Blue Soul of Jazz: Lessons on Waves of Anguish

Abstract

Refrain: " Love me, companion. Don't abandon me. Follow me. / Follow me, companion, on that wave of anguish " (Neruda 2010, p. 8) It has become terribly difficult—perhaps 'impossible' is a better word for it— to write about jazz without, on the one hand, extensive knowledge of the technical ways that jazz historians, critics, and academicians map and make sense of it. On the other, non-technical hand, the term 'jazz' is misused as a cheap, popular adjective, thrown around willy-nilly, without the slightest clue or concern for the performative craft, histories, and developments of jazz. Trapped. Between rigorists and sentimentalists. In both cases, the art and artist are lost. This chapter will attempt to think and improvise about this vexing " state of jazz " in the widest possible sense, extending to the perils embedded in the fading understanding of the teacher as artist and teaching as art. By contrast, I will advocate for a notion of the teacher as a tragic companion and teaching as very specific, folk form of soulcraft, on display in the blue spiritual song of the broad spectrum of jazz. In