Gadfly's Muse

Raw Exuberance: The Early Louis Armstrong

{Public Domain, Louis Armstrong]
At the height of his powers, Satchmo never rose to the heights of purely technical competence of, say, Wynton Marsalis, yet when it comes to the legends of Jazz, it is Louis who will remembered as "the greatest!" 

In random rotation this morning, Armstrong's "Indiana" surfaced on my IPOD being routed through the BOSE speakers in my car.  I couldn't help it... the volume had to come up.  As the sheer joy of the music shakes away the morning blah's, that weary ennui that ordinarily requires a caffeine high to finally sever its bonds, it was impossible to keep back a smile and a tear.

Nostalgia can be a near fatal disease in men of advancing age and I am certainly not exempt from its infection, but it is hard not to slip into a bitter sweet longing for a time when a young man of dubious roots could rise out of the raging cauldron of Old New Orleans and become a legend in his own time.

I don't think Armstrong's appeal and popularity are hard to explain.  It certainly isn't rooted in his exemplary personal life.  He was a black jazz musician in an age of Jim Crow.  He had money and a musical place in the Depression.  He lived in a constant tension of competing desires and was, as was necessary, a man of passions.  His world was entirely different than that of Glenn Miller and he lived entirely differently.  That is not where his greatness lies.

What sums up Armstrong, in my mind, is the title of this piece:  raw exuberance.  The message of his music is a commentary on his own world view:  life is to be lived, gulped in great quantities, and without too many backward glances at "what might have been."  Perhaps Satchmo was truly most alive on the stage for it was there that he read his audience like a well worn novel.  He played the talents of his musicians on stage with him the same way he wheezed his vocals or strained his trumpet.  He freely gave them their head and the lead, adding his own trumpet as a commentary and conclusion. In execution, lyrics were something that went along with the melodies and were never allowed to get in the way.  Mixing up verses or simply resorting to vocalizing the jazz riffs kept attention where he wanted it, on the energy of the music itself and the life of living that it proclaimed.  Louis was Jazz...

With all its failures and hypocrisy, still it is hard not to be nostalgic for a time when men clung to joy in the face of a world that proclaimed the ultimacy of sorrow and despair.  Armstrong never let go of joy and firmly believed that though hidden, yet it would not remain so forever.  Only pure simplicity can hold that for long, and in Armstrong's raw exuberance, pure simplicty is always dominant.  There is something to be said for that... and though falling far short of Christian fullness, as a worldly philosophy it has more to commend it than many others. 

As I listen my heart responds... "Thanks Louis.  May you rest in peace."

Let Your Mind Dwell On These Things- Christians and Art

[Christmas Wreath, 2008, JAVanDevender]

Philippians 4:8  whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy -- meditate on these things.

One of the more unhealthy aspects of our modern culture is an warped view of "realism."  I suppose a lot of it stems from the residue overflowing out of the academic sphere, where the conscious attempt to "de-mythologize" cultural issues is so smugly present.  Those infected with this predisposition take it upon themselves to make certain that nothing and no individual is ever presented as fundamentally 'noble'. 

Thus "realism" is understood as emphasizing that individuals, life, history, etc. are all essentially comprised of an essential sordidness.  Great heroes, especially Dead European/White Males are always presented as "flawed" men, people of their time, who may have stumbled into greatness but at root do not possess any special qualities which might raise them above the herd.  From this last statement, you can readily see that, from my perspective, the great attempt at "leveling" is always an attempt at reductionism, lowering the bar of striving.  If everyone is sordid then there is no reason to emulate anyone else and certainly no reason to try to achieve heroic status ourselves. 

The first thing that is lost in this perspective is "hope" because "hope does not disappoint" (Rom. 5:5) and this rooted and foundational cynicism is essentially "hopeless" and therefore "disappointed."  The proof of this last statement is self-evident.

However it is our Christian duty to not fall into this trap.  And no where is it more important for us to avoid this than in the arts.  Yes, I know that the presence of evil in this world requires Christian art as true art, to reflect the reality of misery.  But reflecting misery and portraying it as sordid and hopeless are not identical propositions.  Misery does not dominate this life unless we are hopeless.  In the presence of even the greatest difficulty, Paul enjoins us to let our mind dwell on noble things.  Contemplating great art is an exercise in renewing hope for it is the communication of beauty, even in the presence of pain.  The best artists never lost hope though they lived in terrible times.  It is a feature of modern cynicism that such a basic idea is now viewed as sentimental rather than "real."

 Let your mind dwell on this - there is beauty and it is possible for human beings to be noble.  Jesus was a man, a true man, as well as God.  It was not His divinity that made Him noble - it was He that made His humanity noble - and through Him, though sinner we may be, nobility of heart and mind are attainable in this life and guaranteed in the next.

Perhaps our art ought to thus express itself.

[Jacob van Ruisdale_Windmill & Town]

The Fruits of Lawlessness Abounding

2 Thessalonians 2:7-8  7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way.  8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.

1 John 3:4   Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.

There is a disturbing survey posted at BREITBART.COM (thanks Shane for the link).

There it is reported that the degree of lawlessness among American teens is truly "alarming."  They polled 30,000 young folks and discovered that lying, cheating and stealing is part of the lifestyle of about 30% of the teen age population.  Most disturbing is that those youngsters in religious private school demonstrate the same behavior patterns.  The only group that shows a better record are those in non-religious private schools, an interesting and perplexing data point.

We might begin to wring our hands at this and wonder how this circumstance has arisen.  We might point to the cynical nature of much modern music and cultural influences (video games that make lawless behavior the means of "winning").  I don't think we need go that far.  We only need look at the trees from which these young folks are the fruit.  When we do it is not quite so much a problem "out there" anymore.

A single, seemingly trivial example might suffice.  It is no longer unusual, when I am at a particular intersection I often cross, to have the first car in the oncoming lane to accelerate quickly and with tires squealing make an illegal left turn in front of me.  It is irritating to the max but my irritation is not the worst consequence.  What this behavior reveals, in the adult driving the other car, is a fundamental conviction that "it's OK if I can get away with it."  The driver most like is not at the intersection for the first time.  He/she could have gone another, slightly more circuitous route and avoided this intersection, but they chose not to.  This is conditioned behavior stemming from past experience.  It is lawlessness.

When Jesus speaks of those who have been faithful "in little" being given much in the way of responsibility in privilege, His words are directed at the little things in life.  The ordinary circumstance when someone is not looking, that opportunity for self-gratification or enhancement in some form is possible, but which is illegal, immoral or both, is in view.  Being faithful then requires an idea that virtue is its own reward, that integrity is more important than convenience, that breaking the least of the commandments and teaching others to do the same, by example or precept, is specifically condemned by Christ Himself.

Christians today need to awaken to the call for personal holiness in detail.  To be sanctified unto the Lord is to turn away from lawlessness in all its wickedness at every level.  How can we expect our teens to honor Christ with their lives as well as their lips when they see the wicked prospering at every turn and people, even their own role models, not taking notice nor speaking against it.

We have a problem.... a generation of vipers is not born from parents who are sheep.  We need to fix it... now.