The word jazz covers a ridiculously broad band of music from the lite noodlings of Kenny G to the latest unlistenable honks of the avant-garde. The newcomer can get frustrated finding a satisfactory way into the music. Yet somewhere at the core of jazz tradition, sojourners encounter the real thing. Classic pop or rock music stirs similar testimonials, but there s something remarkable, even alarming, about the way jazz inspires loyalties and memories. Sid s Ahead jelled as one of the great private moments of their lives, summaries of existence and gratitude.
Jazz provides a moral about human creativity.
Its impure beginnings declare that excellence comes from a wildness in the human spirit, where shadowy insights are wedded to discipline to make art. Obsessions with purity slide into violence. Fascist societies have plenty of order and official happy slogans. Jazz anticipated world music trends by showing the genius that emerges when cultures mingle. Pop music luminaries of recent times discovered that insight by coming into their best work, a new-found spiritual wholeness, when they got in touch with musical sources from the other side of the world.