On April 30, a panel including two JJA members and a performance representing the global reach of the jazz community took place at the United Nations to celebrate International Jazz Day and to continue the long tradition of jazz ambassadorship. Saxophonist, composer, writer and educator Dimitri Vassilakis organized the event around his concept of “Jazz Democracy,” showcasing “how
Aidan Levy speaking about Sonny Rollins; photo RI Sutherland-Cohen
jazz has become global and has embraced the broad democratic values that were first established in ancient Greece.”
The event, which took place in the United Nations Trusteeship Council Chamber, was sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Greece to the United Nations. The speakers included Vassilakis; JJA members Bill Milkowski and myself, Aidan Levy; tenor and soprano saxophonist and educator Dave Liebman; drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts; pianist and impresario Spike Wilner; Georgia Tech professor and jazz robotics designer Gil Weinberg, and Director of the Isidora Duncan International Institute Jeanne Bresciani.
Introductory remarks were made by Greek officials including Stavros Lambrinidis, the European Union’s special representative for human rights. The evening culminated in a performance by Vassilakis, Liebman, Watts,drummer Sylvia Cuenca, pianist Benito Gonzalez, bassist Essiet Essiet and reeds player Craig Bailey, followed by a reception and dance performance by the Isidora Duncan Institute.
Bill Milkowski, quoting Dave Brubeck: “No dictatorship can tolerate jazz.” Photo by RI Sutherland-Cohen
“No dictatorship can tolerate jazz,” said Milkowski, quoting Dave Brubeck, who delivered this powerful message in1958 to a Polish audience. Milkowski discussed the history of jazz diplomacy, from James Reese Europe and Sidney Bechet to Louis Armstrong and the State Department’s Jazz Ambassadors program. He concluded his talk with a poignant remembrance of the late Bob Belden, saxophonist, arranager, producer and researcher, who used jazz to spread the democratic spirit across the world.
I spoke about Sonny Rollins and Freedom Suite, quoting the Saxophone Colossus’s eloquent liner notes and his ongoing commitment to civil rights. My biography of Rollins is forthcoming from Da Capo. I ended my talk with a sentiment Rollins expressed to Ira Gitler, collected in his seminal volume Swing to Bop: “Jazz was not just a music;
Dave Liebman, Essiet Essiet, Jeff “Tain” Watts at the UN for International Jazz Day
it was a social force in this country.”
Following the panel, the band paid homage to jazz as an international, multicultural art form. Vassilakis’s buoyant “Aegean Samba” was propelled by Cuenca, who then passed the drumsticks to Watts for a New Orleans second-line groove. The event reached a climax with a B-flat blues, in which Vassilakis invited his son, tenor saxophonist Nestor Vassilakis, to the dais, symbolizing the future of “jazz democracy.”
Exemplifying diplomacy in harmony and rhythm, the band traded fours. Liebman, soaring in the upper register with his inimitable soprano sound, pushed the exchange to the outer reaches of blues harmony, until the band launched into a spontaneous shout chorus of Rollins’s “Sonnymoon for Two.” If only diplomatic discussions always ran so smoothly, or could be so swinging.
