Is Jazz Black Music? The Panelists Answer

DR. HARRY EDWARDS: We're going to try to be as informal as possible with this. We're going to have our panelists simply come out and have a seat, and I will introduce them. [applause]

DR. HARRY EDWARDS: Tonight we will be discussing an issue-at least as it is titled-Is jazz black music? Was it historically and is it now? Now, the issues of authenticity and ownership have pervaded the discourse on race for generations. And for better and for worse, the prerogatives of power and privilege have spawned the function of white authenticity and legitimacy that have de facto called into question, if not flat out infused, the validity of so-called nonwhite contributions and creativity.

The various ways in which this kind of impugning of legitimacy is expressed are many. For example, I don't know how many times I have picked up a newspaper and seen "Dr. Harry Edwards, the black sociologist at the University of California at Berkeley." I never pick up a newspaper and see "Dr. Bob Bellows, a white sociologist at the University of California at Berkeley," because there's a presumption of authenticity and legitimacy. And the burden unfortunately is put upon those who are nonwhite to demonstrate their authenticity and legitimacy, even under circumstances where there is a pervasive notion that somehow blacks, for example, are the real deal, the real leather, as opposed to the naugahyde. You still have to show your legitimacy. And so it is not surprising that we have this question of placing the burden of proof upon those who would advocate a black legitimacy and authenticity and authorship.

Is jazz black music? Was it historically and is it now? I would like to-and I think I have this prerogative as the moderator-turn that around and ask: Is jazz white music? Was it historically and is it now?

[applause]

DR. HARRY EDWARDS: That is the question that I would like to have addressed, and maybe we can get more expeditiously to a veracity that would allow us to have the critical conversations here. So Mr. Hentoff, I think, is going to be the first to address the issue. Thank you very much.

[applause]

NAT HENTOFF: Well, I'm going to start with the original question. And I think the second one that Harry just posed will be-maybe will be answered at least in part. Is jazz black music? Was it historically and is it now? Let me the answer the second part first.

Duke Ellington told me that he never liked the term "jazz." He went to Fletcher Henderson and said, "There's a lot of confusion about this word 'jazz.' Why don't we call what we do 'Negro music.'" Black or African-American were not being used then. Fletcher Henderson did not agree. Ellington made it clear again and again that, as he put it, he wanted his music to "tell what it is to be a Negro in this country," as you can hear in "Black, Brown, and Beige," "Harlem Airshaft," "The Deep South Suite," "Black Beauty." But, as he told me, in terms of "jazz," to use that word, over time it became integrated. Louis Bellson, for instance, was his drummer for a long time and one of his favorite drummers. However, Duke's own mission did not change in terms of his music.

To go back to the question-and here's where we're going to have a debate, I'm sure-there are and have been originators and originals. The originators, of course, have also been original, but they have substantially, fundamentally, shaped and reshaped the music. You know the names: Ellington, Basie, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, among them. And I would add Bix Beiderbecke, 'cause he brought a particular clarity of lyricism which Louis Armstrong recognized and much admired when he jammed with Bix after hours in Chicago. In those days he couldn't have played with Bix on the stand. Mixed bands weren't allowed, especially by the guys who ran those clubs.

But the originators so far have been almost entirely black. Bix excepted, I would add Jack Teagarden. I expect Richard Sudhalter would add some more.

As for the originals-and I recognize that these lines are to say the least open for debate. And they have included Frankie Trumbauer on C-melody saxophone; he was a key influence on Lester Young. Bill Evans. Pee Wee Russell, who was so singular that he did not create a school, because who could follow him? Even the musicians who played with him never thought he could come out of his solos, but he did. And among black originals, Herbie Nichols as pianist and composer, Eric Dolphy, Booker Little, and Clifford Brown. I mean, it goes on and on. They were influences. Clifford would have been more had he lived long enough. But they weren't fundamental originators.

Now, as to whether jazz is black music now, I think I've already answered that. But a couple of weekends ago, I was at a four-day session celebrating the 74th birthday of Ruby Braff. It used to be said that jazz was a young man's game. But now it's a young-not only a young man's or a young woman's game, but they also grow older and survive.

Ruby is a very original cornetist based on his deep roots in black and white music, largely black. And among the 60 or so musicians there was a 26?year?old tenor saxophone, Anat Cohen. She comes from the lively jazz scene in Tel Aviv. She works here now with Sherry Maricle's Take Five. She has a big sound and beat on the stand, with Wycliffe Gordon, Ruby, Joe Wilder, other jazzmen of substance.

She told a story, a penetrating, swinging story. Her influences were Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, and now Joe Lovano. So how can one say that Anat Cohen or Joe Lovano or Jim Hall do not play jazz?

There would have been no jazz without its foundations in the black experience in this country: field haulers, work songs, gospel, the common language of the blues. But as Ellington noted, it certainly has become integrated. However, he made his own mission unmistakable. But like all durable art, it's universal. Albert Murray said it very well, I think. "I don't think anybody has achieved a higher synthesis of the American experience than Duke Ellington. He transcended the experience of American Negroes into the actual texture of all human existence, not only in the United States, but in all places throughout the ages." And Duke is not the only jazz musician to have done that.

DR. HARRY EDWARDS: Thank you. [applause]

DR. HARRY EDWARDS: And, Mr. Hentoff, I will take that as a maybe. [laughter]

DR. HARRY EDWARDS: Mr. Sudhalter.

RICHARD M. SUDHALTER: One of my favorite words is the word "synecdoche," which stands for or defines the use of the part of something to define the whole, usually to the exclusion of most other parts. I think this word and the concept it represents has been used for good and mostly for ill by those who have chronicled the history and development of what we have come to call jazz.

Specifically, I would like to deal less with the matter or origins, because I take no issue with what Nat Hentoff and others have said about the origins in the black American experience, but rather the by now well-documented fact that from almost the music's earliest days, not only in storied New Orleans, but elsewhere in other cities all over the United States, there were white musicians active in and contributory to, and in sometimes major ways, the music that was evolving almost from its earliest times-in other words, which means that in a way I am most uncomfortable with the entire question of whether jazz is black music or jazz is white music. I think by defining it along those lines and by introducing race as a determinant we divert attention away from the place which we could be concentrating on, and that is to say, the music itself.

From its earliest times on record, we have examples of music that is recognizably and discernibly jazz played by black bands, by white bands, and, starting at the end of the 1920s, by racially mixed bands. And indeed, in my own life, as a teenager, I entered what was to me at that time a wonderful and welcoming and warm world of musical freemasonry, a kind of democracy which existed sometimes in spite of the pressures and influences of the external society and in which your worth was determined only by the content, as a colleague of mine has said, of your choruses.

If you got up on a bandstand and played eight bars and that eight bars was right, it didn't matter whether the people you were surrounded with were black, were white, were Creole, were Sicilian, were Jewish, were German, were anything else. If you played well, that identified you to a group which since the 1920s had thrived, had existed, and flowered, sometimes in spite of the fact that America was a race conscious society, a discriminatory society, a segregated society. And as was mentioned earlier, Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong may not have been able to play in the same bands together in public, but they found a way to play together at a time when such things were not countenanced by the society at large.

So what I'd like to do is keep the focus of all these remarks not on the politics and not on the racial divisions, but on the music. What does the music tell us? What do the early records tell us about who contributed what? I could sit here and name people I consider innovators within jazz, be they Red Norvo or Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang or even Bing Crosby, who was so often scanted in his role as a jazz-determined and highly jazz-aware singer at a time when very few people were singing and absorbing those influences.

I think it's much more important to approach the music as music and to try to forget, however often we're reminded of racial division in these times, that anything exists except what comes to our ears and comes to our consciousness and in so doing enriches it.

DR. HARRY EDWARDS: Thank you very much, Mr. Sudhalter. [applause]

DR. HARRY EDWARDS: I admire your dexterity tremendously. Like some of my more developed and illustrious students over at Berkeley, when they have a question that they would prefer not to deal with, they answer the question that was not asked. But you did so very well. [laughter]

DR. HARRY EDWARDS: And that's admirable. Mr. Coleman will speak next to-whatever he chooses. [laughter]

STEVE COLEMAN: Well, I'm-I agree with certain of the things that have been said. I also feel a little uncomfortable with the question, mainly because I feel that if it wasn't for the way that society is set up, it wouldn't need to be asked. I mean, the question -- [applause]

STEVE COLEMAN: I doubt if a question like that came up among Beethoven or Mozart or people like that. You know, they're saying, "Well, is this white music that we're doing?" you know. I mean -- [laughter]

STEVE COLEMAN: The only reason we need to ask this question is because of the situation that's happening. And I also wanted to address something that's said about the music. There is definitely a-well, I call it an African sensibility that exists within the music itself. And this is aside from all of the politics and the race division and everything that we're talking about. When I hear Charlie Parker play, when I heard Louis Armstrong play, when I see Muhammad Ali box, Gayle Sayers, Michael Jordan, Allen Iverson, there's definitely an African sensibility or African retention that comes through that I don't see with John Stockton, for example, you know.

Now, it doesn't mean that John Stockton's not good. He's a great basketball player. I'm just, you know, using this as an analogy. This is not to say that Bix or Joe Lovano or any of these people are not great at what they do. They are, you know, or they were, the great musicians. You know, I've played with many of these people. I've played with bands with both white musicians and black musicians.

Those who have been honest who I've talked to-and it's mainly talked about among musicians behind closed doors for the most part-but those who have been honest also hear a difference both on the white side and the black side. I'm not going to mention any names, but they are major musicians who tell me all the time that they hear a difference in this way of being or sensibility or whatever.

And that's not to say that somebody owns the music. I'm very uncomfortable with the whole concept of ownerships of this kind of thing. And so it's that part of the question that I'm uncomfortable with. However, to not recognize that there are differences and there are-some of the people you've mentioned, when you said Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington-I think one of the things that Ellington was referring to-and I'm just guessing on my part-is-was coming more from the sensibility of the music, and also the stories that they were telling were between certain things, were about our experiences here, which, you know, some have been okay; many of them have not. And that's largely the story that most of the black musicians who I know, who are very conscious of who they are, that's largely the story that they tell, which is a different story than what other people tell.

You can call all of it jazz if you want. I mean, for me, that's not so much the issue. The issue for us has always been what we're trying to say, not what the music's called or who owns it or anything like that, but what we're trying to say.

When I speak through my music, I'm a black person in America, and that's definitely where I'm coming from. That's definitely what I'm talking about. I don't know what it is to be a white person in America. I don't know what it is to be anything else other than what I am. And if you're truly creating from deep down outside in of you, you're going to be coming from who you are, who you really are. That doesn't mean I'm going to go out and imitate Benny Goodman. And I don't know anything about his experience and what that is. I only know about my experience and the people around me.

So for me that's the main issue is coming from who you are. And if you-I mean, I've known Native American musicians who've played this music, and they were coming from that perspective. And they told me they were coming from that perspective. And the stories they had to tell had to do with that. And whether you call it jazz or not, that's where they were coming from. And to say that that's the same as what Benny Goodman was doing, that's not accurate as far as I'm concerned.

Now, as music, that's a different story. We all enjoy great music. I listen to Bela Bartók, and I can enjoy that. Bela Bartók came here, he listened to the music that black musicians was playing, and he enjoyed that. We don't call what Bartók did black music necessarily, but that doesn't mean that he can't go to North Africa and document that music and check it out and love it and come here and listen to Native American music and music made by African?Americans and love it and I can't listen to Stravinsky and love it. There's-you can deal with something on the level of what it is-it doesn't matter whether it's music or art or whatever-and love it just for that, you know, as being a true expression of the soul.

And something else was mentioned too about Duke Ellington and I think it was an Albert Murray quote, where you said something about-what was it?-that transcends the black experience and talks about the human experience or something like that. Well, you know, black people are human. So it's-there's no transcending there, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, you don't have to transcend the black experience and then go into the human experience. I mean, we're all human. [applause and cheering]

STEVE COLEMAN: I mean, maybe I understood it wrong, but you're human first, you know, before anything else, you know. That's the way I look at it. And so that's going to automatically be there. It doesn't matter whether there's some Pigmy somewhere or somebody in Australia or somebody here or whatever, you know. We all share that.

But then there are specific influences and specific experiences within that. And I guess that's what I'm talking about. And I think all of the black people here know what-when I say African retention, I mean, they know what I'm talking about. And that's what I hear that's the strongest in the music that's made, for example, by Charlie Parker. I hear that coming through very, very strong. I don't hear that in Bix's music, but it doesn't mean that Bix is not a great musician, and it doesn't mean that he's not necessarily playing jazz and everything.

The issue of ownership and all that, I don't deal with that. That's all.

DR. HARRY EDWARDS: Thank you very much, Mr. Coleman. [applause]

DR. HARRY EDWARDS: I was very taken with your very poignant and pregnant parallels between jazz and sports, being one who has spent some time with sports, and particularly the African tension that comes out when you compare a Michael Jordan and a John Stockton and so forth. But I wonder whether happened with Mr. Manute Bol and Mr. Mutombo. And that-maybe something happened once these Africans got to America. And maybe that's the real, the real story, because they're-John Stockton or Manute Bol, I think I'll go with Johnny in terms of the ball handling.

[laughter]

DR. HARRY EDWARDS: But as-Hakeem Olajuwon too.

[laughter]

DR. HARRY EDWARDS: Our next panelist will be Mr. Lundvall.

BRUCE LUNDVALL: Thank you. I believe that music does not have a color. And I also believe that music has many colors. Certainly, this music we call jazz was created by black Americans and then it was shared with musicians from all over the world. I think that Art Blakey may have said it best. He said, "This is not black music; this is American music. No America, no jazz."

Well, I think in this day and age, this great gift that came from black America has been shared by musicians from every country in the world. Whether I go to Japan and hear jazz musicians or to Cuba or to Europe, South America, jazz is a language that's embraced by many cultures now. It still remains in its very essence, I believe, black American music.

But I believe-when I was kid growing up, I was fascinated by this music. I didn't know any black people. I was in a town called Cliffside Park, New Jersey. It was largely an Italian?American community. There were no black people there. But I began to hear jazz on the radio. I began to collect 78 rpm records-I'm that old-and I became fascinated with this music.

And when I was 14 years old, we moved to a town that was-that had a large black population, Ridgewood, New Jersey. And with some of my friends, we would go into New York, with a borrowed motorcycle license, and we would hear Bud Powell and we would hear Bird and we'd hear Lester Young, and we'd hear all these great players.

But then also there were so many white players integrated into these bands, which I found to be quite enlightening. And so I-from that point forward, I never really thought of race when it came to jazz music. I thought that was the first really ecumenical, beautiful, kind of experience to be shared with all people, by all musicians who had the quality to play it.

I recently talked to a number of our artists on the label, most of whom are black, and asked them whether they thought that race was an issue in today's jazz world. And basically, they all said yes. And this probably is for a later point in the discussion. But there was a sense that there is a degree of racism still prevalent, particularly in the disparity perhaps of what clubs pay musicians to play and so on, and perceptions. Mainly perceptions. Nothing overt-nothing overt came up.

I have not in the 14, 15 years that I've been-it's actually been 15 years now-running Blue Note Records ever had a racial issue arise. And I thought, "Geez, am I putting my head in the sand? There must be racial issues that people just don't talk to me about." So I purposely talked to all of our artists about this issue. And indeed there is a perception that it does prevail, not to the degree that it did years ago when people had to sleep in other hotels and all that business, which was horrifying. But that there was a sense that it prevailed. But what I heard from all of them is, "It doesn't happen between the musicians. If you can play, you're accepted."

I asked Joe Lovano, who started playing when he was 14 years old, I think with Jack McDuff and people like that-he played with everybody-and I said to him, you know, "Have you ever felt a draft? Have you ever been in a situation where you felt uncomfortable because you are white, with other musicians?"

And he just laughed. He basically said, "What are you talking about, man?" He said, "No. As long as you can play." And that was the whole issue. If you can play. And I think that kind of sums it up.

But I do believe that it is in essence certainly black American music. But I don't ask the question-you know, we have so many great black classical artists. No one says, "Can they play at the same level as some of the white classical artists?" It's not even an issue. And so-and I deal in that world every day as well, because I run Angel Classics.

I find that it is absolutely a joyous experience to be working with this music with people from every area of the world who can play. Our job is simply to identify the people that actually do have an original voice and who have something to say that goes beyond technique. And that's the job of a record company.

My bigger concern is with a minority. And the minority is jazz, 'cause those of us who fight for this music every day know that the audience is shrinking, that the market share for jazz is down to about two percent. That it's very very hard to fight the good fight when you're working for large corporations that are looking at a bottom line. And I've been fortunate enough to be supported where I work now. It wasn't always the case.

When I was at CBS Records many years ago, I was a big jazz fan, and I signed Dexter Gordon and a lot of other people. And everybody else-behind my back-was saying, "Why doesn't he sign some rock and roll acts? Why is he always signing jazz people?" I mean, I heard it all the time, usually not to my face, but always behind my back. But I loved this music from the time I was a kid. And I continued to support it along with a lot of other people.

But we are dealing with a problem, I believe. For all of the young, brilliant musicians that are coming up all the time of all colors, the audience seems not terribly interested. The way to get the music through to the public has narrowed in many respects even though the media has certainly increased in so many ways.

So I'm very very concerned about this minority music called jazz. And what happened with the Ken Burns' series, when we all had problems with it, I know, was all of a sudden we began to see people going out and buying jazz records, mainly catalogue records, but it was a revelation. People were going out and buying Louis Armstrong records, Sidney Bechet records, Miles Davis' Birth of the Cool. We could see the numbers. And I'm so thankful that that show actually did run, because it woke up an awful lot of people, the people I call civilians. People that are not interested in jazz suddenly decided they'd better have some records in their collection, you know, and find out who Louis Armstrong actually is, or was, etc.

So our fight is to fight for this minority music, because it is that important, and to spread the word and to grow an audience for it. And all the musicians that are part of that of all colors have a real battle. And I take my hat off to any young person that wants to be a jazz musician, because the economic reality of making that decision is not the same as doing something in banking or insurance or for that matter in pop music or rap. It's a struggle. It's-you are a real artist, and you're going to be fighting for a long time for your economic well-being and for your art. And so that's how I see this.

[applause]

DR. HARRY EDWARDS: Wow! There were-I mean, just sitting here as the moderator, there were so many issues and things that were raised by Mr. Lundvall's statement. I mean, I really don't have-I guess I would have to bring this panel to an end if I were going to comment on it, because there were just so many issues raised. So, in conclusion, let me start with-no. I'm not going to do it. We're going to go on to Angela. Yeah, go ahead. Ms. Davis is going to speak now. [applause]

ANGELA Y. DAVIS: Okay. I just want to point out that I think you hear us better than we hear each other. There's an echo here and-yeah, we need monitors, as Steve said. And I'm actually not going last because I'm the only woman on the panel- [laughter]

ANGELA Y. DAVIS: -but because I want to try to raise some other kinds of questions. I want to try to make a few observations about popular understandings of jazz and about prevailing ideas on the significance of race, particularly within the contemporary context. And I want to begin by saying that understanding social, political, cultural phenomena, is as much a function of the kinds of questions we pose as it is of the answers that we devise to those questions.

So in response to the question, "Is jazz black?"-and I guess I could also say, in response to the question, "Is jazz white?"-I want to raise some questions that might be intentionally-but I hope also insightfully-provocative. And I want to preface my questions by saying forthrightly that jazz as we know it and the many music, dance, literary, film practices that have been sports practices spawned and influenced by jazz are inconceivable except in the complex context of black culture in the Americas.

I want to actually quote Robert O'Meally from his anthology, The Jazz Cadence of American Culture. And he says, "Somehow jazz is black music with the voices and values of U.S. Negro life and times even when nonblacks are playing it, for as literary historian Gina Dent has asserted, 'You don't have to be black to be a carrier of black culture.'"

In the same breath, O'Meally's quote continues: "It is the music of the country that its creators, often with little affection, call home. Call it freedom music with a tragicomic black arc."

Now, our thinking today about jazz and race is inevitably influenced by the recent Ken Burns documentary. And I don't know whether that's been evoked yet. I couldn't hear everything you said, Harry, in your introduction. And also about our commonsense notions of what constitutes race or racism, racial equality, and of course American democracy.

It is argued, of course, that jazz is the United States' most original musical offering to the world. And if we, I suppose, forget about the recent elections, we can say that the United States represents the triumph of democracy in the world. [laughter and some applause]

ANGELA Y. DAVIS: Thus, if jazz is American music par excellence, it must also be democratic music. So I want to ask, what does it mean to talk about jazz as democratic music? Do we refer to the form and structure of the music, the dialectical interplay of solo and group collaboration? Are we talking about the creative resolution of the contradiction between the individual and the community? Is jazz a utopic site for the practice of democracy, racial democracy? Or I want to ask, should we also consider, apart from the music and in relation to the music, the apparatus through which jazz is produced for popular consumption?

Now, one of the most poignant moments in Ken Burns' documentary for me was the story Dave Brubeck told about the appearance of his picture on the cover of Time magazine, as the first jazz musician to be so honored, before, of course, Duke Ellington. And the irony was that Duke Ellington brought him the magazine and informed him that he was on the cover of Time.

The notion of democracy we usually take for granted, I want to suggest, is linked to ideologies of capitalism. The individual proves his worth, his worth, on the capitalist market, and somehow through individual competition harmony is created by the invisible hand. Whenever I heard Wynton Marsalis evoking democracy among the great jazz heroes, I couldn't help thinking about Adam Smith's invisible hand.

But this is, of course, the 21st century, the era of global capitalism, along whose circuits music, jazz, and many other musics now travel. So that this obsolete notion of laissez faire capitalism, this notion still informs our ideas about both capitalism and democracy, and it is an obsolete notion.

So I want to raise questions about the marketing of music and musicians. And again, to be intentionally provocative, I attended the concert here not too long ago, with Dianne Reeves and Jane Monheit. The question I would ask is why a Jane Monheit receives so much media attention when a Dianne Reeves has been making music for decades and has never been featured on the cover of The New York Times Magazine. [applause]

ANGELA Y. DAVIS: And, of course, there is the issue of Eminem which I won't mention. So I have another question. Is jazz color?blind? What does it mean to raise questions today about the relation between race and jazz in the era of the decline of affirmative action and the disenfranchisement of vast numbers of black people, especially those who have been convicted of felonies?

But also what does it mean to raise these questions at a time when the dominant discourse tells us that race is declining in significance, but nevertheless we see a persistent preoccupation with and anxiety about race. Look at the cover-the front page of today's San Francisco Chronicle about whites now constituting a minority population in California, given the increase in the Latino population.

What does it mean to raise questions about race when we have supposedly developed a far too sophisticated appreciation of race to assume that race is always about a black?white opposition that needs to be resolved in a more harmonious relation? And don't we know that race is not always gender as male. Do we really think that racism is an unfortunate social problem to be solved by developing harmonious race relations, good relations between black and white men, who know how to get along with each other both within and outside jazz?

I said I wanted to be a little provocative. [laughter]

ANGELA Y. DAVIS: Dominant jazz historiography and certainly the historiography that framed Ken Burns' Jazz has a hard time explaining the place of musicians who are neither black nor white. Consider the important contributions of Cuban, Puerto Rican, Brazilian musicians. And it has a hard time moving away from the assumption that jazz musicians are quintessentially male. Legitimate women musicians are described almost always as playing as well as a man. And I always wonder, "Who is this man?" you know. [laughter]

ANGELA Y. DAVIS: Any man? [laughter]

ANGELA Y. DAVIS: Lil Harden is mentioned in the documentary I think only as the first wife of the most ubiquitous jazz figure in the film, Louis Armstrong. Mary Lou Williams receives short shrift. A few vocalists, of course-Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan-are alluded to, but Toshiko Akiyoshi, for example, is not mentioned. Flora Bryant, whom Dizzy Gillespie once pointed to as one of the finest trumpet players, is not mentioned. Melba Liston, the trombonist. And, of course, these are only a couple of a vast group of women instrumentalists who seem to remain relegated to that field of jazz studies that is associated with women's studies-the works of Sally Plaxon, Linda Dahl, and most recently, Sherrie Tucker's "Swing Shift," the all?girl bands of the 1940s.

And so-I'm about to conclude. And I think I took a little bit more than my six minutes. But most of you didn't use your entire six minutes, so-

DR. HARRY EDWARDS: They gave theirs over to you. [laughter]

ANGELA Y. DAVIS: -I get a little extra time. So finally, if we are going to talk about race and jazz, we need to consider the complicated way race still profoundly structures our economy, our ideologies, including, and especially our ideas about gender. For jazz music is always more than the music that moves, inspires, and educates us. And that music in turn is always more than the social terrain on which it is produced. Jazz music does indeed suggest the possibility of something like the practice of freedom. Thank you.

DR. HARRY EDWARDS: Thank you. [applause]

DR. HARRY EDWARDS: Thank you very much. If you think that I'm going to sit here in the Bay Area and tell Angela Davis it's time to be quiet, you've got another thought coming. [laughter]

DR. HARRY EDWARDS: I'm never going to-I may be confused, but I'm not demented. [laughter]

DR. HARRY EDWARDS: I think we're going to take a break, get some questions, come back, and answer those questions from the audience.