“Jazz is not just, you know, it’s existence music, it doesn’t take you out of the world, it puts you in the world, it makes you deal with it…..and that’s it!”  ~Wynton Marsalis

“Jazz washes away the dust of everyday life”. ~Art Blakey

“Jazz music is the power of our Freedom Movement… It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

I am lucky enough to have a local jazz station here in the Twin Cities (Jazz88, KBEM-FM). It gives me something to listen to each day as I commute to and from work.

Having a local, dedicated jazz station means having a human-curated experience that is in tune with what is happening in the world around me. For example, during the ICE surge, Music Director Yonci Jameson—a North Minneapolis native who hosts the afternoon show—understood the moment and provided listeners with the kind of music about resistance and hope that we very much needed.

I have been thinking a lot lately about why, at this point in my life—while I am doing a lot of re-reading of old fiction favorites—I am craving and listening to so much jazz.

I have listened to jazz on and off all my life, of course, and most of the vinyl I own consists of jazz recordings. But it is not the music of my youth; that was Rock.

Now in my 60s, I listen primarily to The Dead, Classic Country, and jazz. Classic Country makes sense because, after all, you can take the boy out of Montana, but you can’t take Montana out of the boy. And The Dead make sense for a thousand reasons of temperament and outlook.

But why jazz? Is it because when I was growing up, my mother—who played clarinet in high school—loved Big Band and jazz and always had it playing on the Hi-Fi or Magnavox stereo console? Is it something about my Central Auditory Processing Disorder that makes jazz more comfortable and accessible than other kinds of music?

In the end, I suppose the three quotes about jazz at the top of this post probably hold the answer.