“You can’t steal a gift. Bird gave the world his music, and if you can hear it you can have it.”
Dizzy Gillespie defending another musician from accusations that he stole
Charlie Parker’s style, quoted by
Jonathan Lethem in an essay on the effect very contemporary ideas like copyright and plagiarism have on creative culture. Jazz is an excellent example of an artistic form that depended on free exchange of styles and ideas; it would have been killed by what Lethem rechristens copyright:
usemonopoly.
“If [official segregation] is a nightmare no longer, Armstrong’s shining trumpet certainly contributed to the wake-up call. But there is only so much art can do against injustice, and the blues, from which jazz took flight, were an embodiment of the sad truth that much beauty begins as consolation for what can’t be mended.”
Clive James, on the role jazz played in American history. I think this is very beautiful, and not solely because I love jazz; it’s also a sound appraisal of where art stands in relation to justice: it can provoke shifts in mass consciousness that assist change, but it is just as important as a source of meaning when injustice reigns.
More jazz!
