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In November of 2024, I attended a performance by a jazz pianist at the Village Vanguard in New York City. This forward-thinking artist from the hip-hop generation, playing the music of a notable figure, created an enchanting performance. He incorporated fragments of various elements, reinterpreting songs by the jazz icon Ellington into something both new and equally impactful. Through diverse polyrhythms, Moran demonstrated jazz’s ability to create simultaneous, harmonious experiences. The effect was profound and distinctly American.
That evening reinforced my belief that jazz is the most vital expression of American innovation and creativity, deserving of both celebration and protection. Jazz shapes and permeates the arts and culture of our nation, forming the core of our grand experiment. It originated in New Orleans with cornetist King Buddy Bolden, born in the year Reconstruction ended. Bolden drew inspiration from both the Blues traditions of Black evangelical churches and the ragtime music of French-speaking Creole Black musicians.
From its inception, jazz has been a uniquely American Black art form, the first original art form developed in the United States. By the 1930s, nearly all the top musical artists in the country were considered jazz musicians. In subsequent decades, jazz figures such as Fats Waller, Benny Goodman, and others dominated the charts. Today, rap and hip-hop, among the nation’s most popular genres, draw from jazz’s creative origins, embodying the artistic ingenuity that poet Amiri Baraka described as “the digging of everything.” Emerging from the hardship, challenges, and condemnation of slavery, along with the unrealized promise of post-Reconstruction justice, Black musicians embraced experimentation, innovation, resourcefulness, joy, and a multigenerational dialogue speaking truth to power that continues to this day.
“Jazz is freedom,” Duke Ellington stated in 1945. “Jazz is the freedom to play anything, whether it has been done before or not. It gives you freedom.” His words reveal how jazz’s multivocality and polyphony are fundamental to the American identity. Our country is a composite of many places, and our primary language is a blend of numerous languages. We are not “mono” in any sense – not monotheistic, monoracial, or monolithic in our media, markets, education, endeavors, political beliefs, or backgrounds. Instead, we are multivocal, multicultural, and free.
It is therefore unsurprising that jazz and the freedom it embodies have long thrived in New York City, particularly in venues like the Village Vanguard, where I witnessed Moran’s remix and reimagining of Ellington’s work. The slender island of Manhattan has been a fertile ground for unique cultural expression. The Vanguard, for instance, stands as the oldest jazz club in the world. This intimate, enduring space provides both sanctuary and beauty, as evidenced by live performances and iconic jazz recordings made there by artists like Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Geri Allen and esperanza spalding.
During his Vanguard performance, Moran paused to display a talisman: Duke Ellington’s address book, a tangible representation of the intergenerational dynamism inherent in jazz. This American art form has a clear origin. Through shared performances and the passing down of stories from teacher to student across generations, jazz possesses a defined starting point known and experienced by all its musicians. King Buddy Bolden discovered Edward ‘Kid’ Ory, who later collaborated with Louis Armstrong. Miles Davis, a successor of Benny Goodman, mentored Jack DeJohnette, who then mentored Terri Lynne Carrington. Though only six generations separate Bolden from the present day, the mentorship, stewardship, and transmission of this quintessentially American music have always depended on the craft’s elders. This is where a sense of urgency now resides.
Shortly after seeing Moran’s performance, the *New York Times* featured an article about the famous photograph of American jazz musicians from the mid-20th century. Titled “Harlem 58,” it’s widely known as “A Great Day in Harlem” and was taken by Art Kane.
Only one of the 58 jazz artists in the photo, saxophonist Sonny Rollins, is still living. Rollins, now 94, said this about the elders in the photo: “I had been following jazz all my short life up to that time, so I knew a great deal about the guys. My particular idols, Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, were both in that picture. Those guys are much beyond me, but I guess I’ll be remembered with them when people look at : ‘Oh, there’s Sonny Rollins, and wow, look, there’s Coleman Hawkins!’”
The learning and guidance inherent in those lineages—the relational excitement, energy, and awe that Rollins, now an elder himself, still remembers—must be preserved if we want jazz to continue as an artistic driver of innovation and creativity in our country.
One lesson from great jazz musicians like Moran is that keen listening is crucial for effective community function, just as understanding our shared history strengthens American society. Jazz is often seen as a “playing” art, but it is fundamentally a “listening” art. Without that reciprocal exchange, neither jazz nor America can thrive. As Wynton Marsalis said of our democracy, they must always be “in swing.”
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