mingus

Jazz and The Art of Movement

Where do we consider being at home? When do we feel that we belong in a place and how quickly can we become dispossessed?

In this edition of Liner Notes, Rabbi and jazz historian Neil Blumofe talks about how jazz traces various migrations – some arbitrary, some forced, and some chosen – and beyond appropriation and broad-stroke caricature, reveals difficult truths of identity, well-being, and honest relationship.

Jazz and the Art of the Other (9.18.16)

Sigmund Freud wrote: “every normal person, in fact, is only normal on the average. One’s ego approximates to that of the psychotic in some part or other and to a greater or lesser extent.” How are we complicit in dehumanizing others, and how are we in turn, dehumanized? How do we cope with the unsettling of our fears and the scars of our traumas — in our amusements, and in the casual conversations that we have?

In this edition of Liner Notes Rabbi and jazz historian Neil Blumofe helps us take a deeper look at how we interact with the world and ourselves.

How does music help us navigate both our civilizing presence and our raw emotions that run much deeper, beneath? How do the experiences of 20th century jazz musicians help to instruct us in the powerful lessons of difference, Othering, and perseverance?

 

Jazz and the Art of Psychoanalysis (11.8.15)

In this edition of Liner Notes Rabbi and jazz historian Neil Blumofe talks about the relationship between jazz and psychoanalysis.

These early 20th century emerging ways of life have had a profound effect on our individual spiritual development as well as our identity as a larger civilization, as we consider our dreams, desires, loves, and fears. How do these two disciplines inform each other? How do those who have been outcast or in exile within society find a home in these inventive arts? What happens when Freud and Coltrane meet?

What does it mean to listen and what does it mean to reveal? How can disclosing our vulnerabilities make us more resilient? How can making peace with our past establish a more secure present and future? Where is music in all of this? We will listen to standards within the jazz canon, as we reflect upon the open and concealed ways that our spirit and mind conjoins.