From Malik Wilson's, "RosZ," Fall '99 From Malik Wilson's, "RosZ," Fall '99Freshman year, 1995. Mid-September. 12:45 a.m. Because nobody could tell me not to, I decided to go check my mailbox. After descending three flights of dusty stairs, I entered the upper courtyard of the Quad. A starless purple sky blanketed the city. Except for a couple talking quietly on the dark benches behind me, I was alone on my journey through the courtyard. Suddenly, I heard a voice falling down sweetly from up high. It was the voice of a woman, singing softly in Portuguese. Flop. I stopped walking. Although I understood very little Portuguese, I could decipher a few words. At 12:45 am, I listened in my pajamas as she told the story of the girl from Ipanema. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The song was from Stan Getz's Live at Carnegie Hall, 1963. This album was not part of the typical student's collection; it could only be the choice of a true enthusiast, someone who spoke the language of jazz. Without even pausing, I raced by the mailboxes and up the stairs, determined to find the music's source. My introduction to jazz music came from my parents. As a child, I grew up hearing Sarah Vaughan, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane in my living room on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Aside from their musical contributions, they were also cultural heroes in my household, black men and women in the vanguard of American artistry. There is a reason people love modern art. There is a reason people love football. There is even a reason people love Celine Dion. Underneath descriptions of "I just like it," or "I think she's cool," there is an aesthetic system in operation, a set of rules guiding one's tastes. Whether it be a passion for modern art's uncompromising boldness, football's blend of strategy and violence or Celine Dion's dramatic lugubriousness, your artistic interests speak to your life and your experiences. Jazz was created by black people in America. It is the music of the grandsons and granddaughters of slaves, men and women who wrought their terrible struggle into an object of beauty. Their musical creation mirrors the experience of African-Americans in the 20th century. On the one hand, it relies on traditional European standards of chord structure and harmony, and uses western instruments like the saxophone, the bass and the trumpet. But jazz also relies on improvisation and the additive syncopations of the drum, two elements essential to African music and generally not found in European music. Not only is jazz the music of the African-American, it is the music of the African-American. But, like any great art, it is not confined to this story. William Shakespeare may reflect the particular social, political, and ideological constraints of his time but the meaning of his work, like the meaning of jazz, is universal. For me, jazz is America's classical music because it is America, a hybrid creation of extraordinary possibilities. That night during my freshman year, I followed the voice of the Portuguese woman to a room on the third floor. I knocked and a white student answered. I explained to him how I had arrived there by way of the Portuguese woman. He laughed and I knew he understood. Four years later, we're still talking jazz.
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