Jazz pianist Julian Reid on music, theology, and improvisation. The keys element of The JuJu Exchange uses the history of blues, gospel, and jazz to discuss how we communicate emotionally and spiritually through music, teaching an important lesson in how to live and long for home while we remain exiles. Features score from The JuJu Exchange's latest release, The Eternal Boombox. Interview by Ryan McAnnally-Linz and Evan Rosa.
Jazz pianist Julian Reid on music, theology, and improvisation. The keys element of The JuJu Exchange uses the history of blues, gospel, and jazz to discuss how we communicate emotionally and spiritually through music, teaching an important lesson in how to live and long for home while we remain exiles. Features score from The JuJu Exchange's latest release, The Eternal Boombox. Interview by Ryan McAnnally-Linz and Evan Rosa.
Julian Reid is a Chicago-based jazz pianist and producer, writer, and performer (not to mention B.A. Yale University, and M.Div. Emory University). The JuJu Exchange is a musical partnership also featuring Nico Segal (trumpet, Chance the Rapper; The Social Experiment) and Everett Reid—exploring creativity, justice, and the human experience through their hip-hop infused jazz. Their new 5-song project is called The Eternal Boombox.
Show Notes
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Evan Rosa: Hello listeners, Evan here. Before we jump into this week's episode, featuring Julian Reid on how music, and in particular, jazz, teaches faith and justice, a brief statement from the Yale Center For Faith and Culture about the situation in Eastern Europe. The bombardment and invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces, accompanied by chilling threats from Vladimir Putin that any nations who might interfere would, quote, "face consequences greater than any you have faced in history." You've cause for fear and alarm. The results of this aggression will be dreadful. An estimated 5 million refugees, a potential humanitarian crisis with fifty thousand to a hundred thousand civilian casualties, and a severe threat to European and global democracy. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, "At no time has the world been without war, not in seven, or ten or twenty thousand years. But this reality does not justify a new war, nor does it leave us with no choice but resigned acceptance of a chaos that threatens the integrity of human life. What can, what must we do? Despite the significant place it played in U.S. politics several years ago, most of us still know very little about Ukraine, and even less about the history of Ukraine's relations with Russia. Faced with a frightful situation, it will be tempting for each of us to draw this unjust invasion into our existing frames of reference. We will be inclined to see it in lessons that confirm our views of politics and the world, or to jump at the opportunity to score points against domestic political rivals. Perhaps, we will feel the urge to treat Russians or people of Russian background as proxies for Russia's leaders. We must resist these temptations and focus our prayers, and our concern, on the people of Ukraine. We do not need to let our understandable fear and worry drive our response to this distressing news, because we trust in the Prince of Peace, who is also the Created Word, who endowed the world with a primordial goodness, that no human sin or violence can erase. The way is open for us to respond in faith and in faithfulness to the peacemaking Word of Christ. As we all discern how to respond faithfully, we humbly offer a few guiding principles. We ought to prioritize care for those whose lives have been cruelly upended by unconscionable aggression. We ought to be ready to welcome and support those who flee the consequences of war. We ought to express to our representatives and to each other, our denunciation of the violent aggression ordered by Russia's leader, and perpetrated by its military. We ought to guard our hearts against the growth of hatred, even in the midst of justified anger. Above all, let us pray for peace. Thanks for listening today, and now on with the episode. Today, in appreciation for black history, Julian Reid on how jazz teaches faith and justice. Julian uses the history of blues, gospel, and jazz to discuss how we communicate emotionally and spiritually through music. Teaching an important lesson in how to live and how to long for home while we remain exiles. The whole episode is scored from The Juju Exchange's release, The Eternal Boombox. Ryan McAnnally-Linz and I spoke with Julian during the summer of 2020. Enjoy today's episode friends, be well.
For the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center For Faith and Culture. For more information, visit faith.yale.edu.
Julian Reid: All the things that allow for us to have a gilded age of now, it's coming through in our music, the way we understand ourselves and our current theological moment comes through in our music. Um, and I guess the way it all ties together. So I'm saddened by that, because there's a kind of prophetic voice that the Church could have, around a Jacob Blake, around all the, all the ways that anti-blackness endures in this country and is really central to this country's thriving. There's a way the Church could have a critique, that we see in the spirituals, that we see in blues, that we see in gospel, that we see in jazz. But so often now it seems like we traded it in our birthright for a mess of pottage, creating music that's sugary, and while that can be comforting in a sense, it belies the reality of us being in some real deep trouble.
Evan Rosa: This is for the Life of the World, a podcast about seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity. I'm Evan Rosa, with the Yale Center For Faith and Culture. We're back in the blues, the sorrow, wailing, the partisan conventions, the remote education and violence and violence. The Police shot Jacob Blake seven times in front of his children and the ensuing violence in Kenosha left two more shot dead. The sorrow and violence and political rancor and sucker punches are disorienting. Many of us know we need words, but we lack them. Well, thank God we have music. Thank God we have jazz. This episode, we're talking about music, the theology of it, the history and musicology of blues, gospel, and jazz, and improvisation. And we're listening through the brilliance of Julian Reid. Jazz pianist and producer, writer, and performer, not to mention Yale and Emery educated. His group, The Juju Exchange, which you're listening to right now, is a Chicago based musical partnership, exploring creativity, justice, and the human experience through their hip hop and fused jazz. The new five song project is called, The Eternal Boombox. Jazz is America's only native genre, born out of the blues, born in the big easy, New Orleans. Born out of struggle, and sorrow, and black suffering, born of a let-down hope that emancipation would mean real freedom. This distinctly American music gives expression to the inexpressible. Groanings too deep to be uttered, but the freedom and dignity and respect owed to African-Americans, that is still waiting. It's still unactualized. So we're back in the Blues. That's a reminder of exile, of diminished chords, of longing, and sojourning. This is the music of strangers in their own land, wailing and woeing for a home that signifies freedom, agency, peace, and no fear. Now the fact is we talked to Julian for a long time, over two hours, but I'm going to have you jump right into Julian's thoughts on how music communicates what it does. How it presents meaning, and why music so often pushes us out of our comfort zones.
Julian Reid: Music is invisible and yet very much has tactile effects on. We can feel music tangibly, music literally vibrates our bodies, but you can't see it, you can't hold it. And even recordings, they're just facsimiles of what happened. This is different than painting or different than theater. There are many things about these other art forms, poetry included, that make the point of contact between the creater and the audience, it makes it very clear what's happening. Um, but in music, even if the band's playing in front of you, you can't see the thing that's really stirring them or stirring you.
Evan Rosa: That surrounds you even, you know.
Julian Reid: That surrounds you. I mean, literally, we have stereo systems, surround sound, and I think that this is a matter of faith, as much as our confessional creeds get us towards faith, that you're trying to understand something that you can't see, um, that you can kind of manipulate, you know, with various tweaks to your sound system, or even learning how to play an instrument is a form of manipulation of sound, sure. But we are doing all kinds of subterranean decision-making when we are deciding that something is music and not just sound. What makes this,
what makes that music? Well to many, they'd be like, that's not music. That's just a bunch of random dissonant sounds. This, is music. And they'll say, that's music, because the chords are structured and there're no notes that fall outside of the scale, in that case, whereas what I was playing before, which is something like, well, what key are we in? Are we in A flat, are we in D flat? Are we in E flat? You know, and people get really freaked out by that. And music is always pushing. I think another reason people are scared of music is because music is always at the vanguard of technology, and is always pushing technology forward. And then, sometimes people are trying to restrict it. Like my example, Zwingli, um, in Europe, during the Protestant reformation era, people may try to restrict it, but oftentimes artists in society are always trying to tinker with new technology and figure out how to use that. So the organ's place in American churches, for example, or the drum set, as another form of technology. Or pianos, or now, you know, all of the ambient noises that comes out of Hillsong and Elevation and Bethel and all those churches, are we allowed to use as technologies? And tomorrow is going to be something else that we have not any knowledge about yet. So I think because people are also ambivalent about technology and its place in worship, or it's placed in the Christian life. Um, you combine that with your passions, and you just have a whole cocktail of trouble.
Evan Rosa: Those two examples you gave us Julian about quote, "a more, a more frightening form of music," and then a more, um, uh, traditionally beautiful, uh, form of music. And I just have to say, that's flip-flopped for me, you know, I don't hear, I'm frightened by the traditional piece that you've played. Uh, and maybe that's just, maybe it's about, maybe it's a generational thing. People say the music that you listened to in your teens and early twenties, that's the music that stays with you the rest of your life. So I don't know. Let's talk about what music communicates. Let's talk about how jazz communicates. Let's talk about how gospel and blues communicates, because that's, there's something going on there in the participation that is really deeply human, and not only religious, although we can use it, you know, it's very, very closely connected.
Julian Reid: I think all these art forms have taken that question to task, which is why they exist. And I appreciate you asking about those three in particular, in part, because I'm from Chicago, and part because I'm black, but really, in large part, because I'm from Chicago and all three of those have had such roots here in my city. So, all three, jazz, gospel, and blues, emerged in the late 19th and 20th centuries as means for black folk to communicate to each other, and at times to the world, beyond the black communities, that they're a part of, how they were feeling, what they wanted to aspire to, what they were lamenting, and the technologies present at those various times help them do. So, I think the blues, for instance, they emerged as a way to communicate largely within the black community only, um, the pain and frustration and disappointment felt in the black life post emancipation. There was a deep sorrow that swept over, um, black communities after there was all this hope built up in the spirituals and work songs and all these other genres of music emergent during the antebellum era. There was hope during that time, that emancipation from slavery, from chattel slavery that is, would bring in a new era, would usher in a new era, of freedom, of equality, of liberation, of mobility. All kinds of things. Well, this didn't happen. It still hasn't happened. And the blues emerged as a way to talk about the sorrows of life. That included that, but even just got, even to other things about, you know, my baby done left me, my dog died, it's another Monday when I'm barely getting paid, whatever the case was, they put these wails into their music. So that was one thing, or a few of the things, that the blues communicated, but by singing about it, as opposed to just talking about it, it put beauty to it. And I think the beauty of the music enabled people to have somewhat of a transcendent experience listening to this, even then dancing to the music. And gave people a way to contend with and manage their sorrow as opposed to just wallowing in it. And I think that's why the blues still exist today, and also probably why it has remained so simple and so straightforward. And even though other genres like jazz and gospel that are born from it, take the blues and take various musical elements, and they start adapting them. The blues, qua blues, is still fairly simple, and has endured, and I think will always remain so, because it was getting at this particular simple way of thinking about life, not simplistic, but a simple way of thinking about sorrows and even joys in life. Now, jazz and gospel, I think they emerged in the 20th century, in part to communicate something that the blues helped get going. Um, but they move in different ways. Gospel was taking elements of the blues and elements of the sorrow, but then flipping it such that now people were singing songs about God rejoicing, while still carrying within the tradition of gospel. Still carrying in the tradition the pain of the blues. And this is why the music of the 20th century that we know as gospel really is also called the gospel blues and gospel blues, which are, maybe you could argue as a subset of gospel writ large, but it's really the main way people think about it. The gospel blues was started, or really took off with this cat Thomas Dorsey. And Thomas Dorsey wanted to make sure folk could sing, and rejoice in the Lord. And so he was taking all of these blues forms that he was playing as a blues man, on the road as Georgia Tom, which is his stage name. He took that off the street, into the church, out of the clubs, into the pews, and now started using those same harmonies and melodies and putting new melodies to them, new words to them rather. And then we get gospel. And with jazz, jazz also comes out of blues, was kind of coming up as somewhat of a sister tradition to gospel. But jazz was interestingly trying to, I think, communicate something beyond just black communities, whereas blues and gospel were really communicating within the black community, um, largely focused just there.Jazz was also working in the cosmopolitan setting, and ended up being music of all kinds of folk, and really ended up being a middle-class music, as well, and Amiri Baraka talks about this in his great book, Blues People. So, jazz was communicating freedom of expression, of aspiration, of ambition, of joy, maybe even some frivolity in American life. And we can see this in the jazz age and even beyond. Um, and so I think that the different art forms, the getting at different elements of black life and getting at the same elements of black life and they're using different technologies to get there.
Evan Rosa: Would you be willing to play a little bit to kind of express that, some of that, what those communicate, and then like talk a little bit about like what's going on in the music itself?
Julian Reid: Oh, sure. Yeah. So here's a little, a little bit of blues.
So very simple, just really three chords. I had F7, B flat 7, and C7, and those are musical terms that we're going to be getting into the details of right now, but I'm just saying that to say that in that song or in that just made up progression, which is a very standard blues progression. I really was only moving between three chords. Now, that's kind of blues or a form of it in its most generic sense from the blues era. Can you talk about the sorrow in that? Oh yeah. So, so if we were playing a Haydn... now, that song is one of Haydn's concertos and, his concerto in D major, to continue that movement of that concerto, we would have seen that the music was very much focused on this chord, which in Western music, the major chord is seen as very stable, and is very much the same thing as what I was playing at the beginning of our segment. Just three notes, all from one key, very stable. Now, blues, you take, instead of your home being a very stable core, that's all notes from the same scale, the same cluster of notes. You now add a note that actually takes it outside of that stability. So instead of the blues song being, this...it is instead now adding this E flat, which is not in the key of F. And we're changing the form now. So here, actually are both sounds. Now this E-flat is not home. You would think that it would be taking you home. It should be taking you home in traditional classical music, that dominant chord, this chord, F7, would then take you to B flat. So then this would be home...
Evan Rosa: It's resolution.
Julian Reid: Exactly. So the song would dissolve here on B flat, but in the blues, it does not resolve, in the blues, it stays on this chord. And it's leading you home, but never takes you home.
Ryan McAnnally-Linz: So there's like a, there's kind of like an exilic existence, like baked into the music, where you do go to, you do go to B flat, but you go to B flat 7.
Julian Reid: Yes, exactly.
Ryan McAnnally-Linz: So that kind of frustrates your resolution or something like that.
Julian Reid: That's right. So the first chord is F7, okay. Okay. This is the beginning. I'm getting ready to go to B flat right? No, well I go to B flat, but not really. I go to... now B flat, that's setting me up to then go to E flat. But I don't go to E flat, I go back from B flat, to F. But it's again. It's not an F that's home. So we never ended up home. And a C7 really should be taking me to F major, but we don't get there. We get C7 and we get this B flat 7 chord again, then we get F7, in other words, the whole song is playing and frustrating this notion of going home. And I think that this is, and there's a lot of scholarship has been written on this, about how the blues was, even in music theory, to your point Ryan, yes, it was playing up the fact that we were foreigners in a strange land, just like the ancient Israelites in Babylon, that they may feel like they're at home. Jeremiah says, make your home here for the next 70 years. Pray for the welfare of your city, all of these things that are meant to be temporary measures before you went back to Israel. So while they're in Babylon, they're never home. And they live out this exilic existence, and kind of have home, learn the language, learn the religion, um, you know, learn how to navigate the courts of the emperor or the king, but they are not a part of that system. And this is very much how blacks have felt. Now we're having this conversation about excilic existence on this, uh, great day. Um, a couple of days after Jacob Blake has been paralyzed from being shot multiple times in his back by police, as he was getting into his car, you know, there's a lot of outrage and there's more looting and burning and everybody's pissed. Well, not everybody, but a lot of folk are pissed and angry, and I am those things, but when I play blues, be it, uh, be it, this... be it, um, gospel blues, um, which I can play right now, or be it jazz, all those forms of music for me help me signal to myself, and I think also to listeners, the fact that we are in an excilic existence, and the sense of home that we can create in any of these places in America, given what is so endemic to this country, means that we're not actually home. That we are still trying to get home, and we can point to it with chords like F7, that point to a B flat major 7 home, but we're not hitting this chord. And I think when we try to hit this chord, we're fooling ourselves, we're kidding ourselves. And then we see another Jacob Blake that reminds us that, oh, we're right here. So, that's something that, for me happens when I play music, is that it's, it is a means by which I can signal the dysfunction of society, the lack of home in society, by how I play, by what I play.
Ryan McAnnally-Linz: It's striking to me, you said, you said earlier something about bringing beauty to the sorrow. I think it's really important that the kind of, it's beautiful, but the kind of beauty you're talking about, isn't a beauty that justifies the sorrow, right?
Julian Reid: Yep.
Ryan McAnnally-Linz: It builds the sorrow, it builds the wrongness of the sorrow at some level into the, into the beauty. So that it's, um, it's yeah, it's beautifying, but not justifying. That I think allows it to continue to, uh, to speak in a way that's not, that's not overly pacifying.
Julian Reid: Yeah.
Ryan McAnnally-Linz: It can kind of like, it can be a helpful part of the process, but it's constructive, not in the sense of palliation, of like just making it okay. But in the sense of a kind of yearning or pointing forward to something that's not yet.
Julian Reid: I completely agree. And you know, it's interesting that a lot of worship music, gospel included these days, very much sits at B flat. It sits, it sits with these major chords, with these major harmonies. It doesn't sit so much on this, ending songs on this. Now I'm just generalizing, of course. Of course you can still find a lot of music that does have various elements that are sitting with these blues harmonies, but a lot of the music that's selling today starts and often ends on the 1... This is the 1. If we're in the key of B flat major, then the F 7 chord, which I've been playing as the basis for the blues, this F 7 chord is then going to take you to B flat. So in other words, in a lot of modern music, you're getting that resolution. Now, what I was talking about the beginning of gospels, that you didn't get that resolution, that black folk with blues and jazz and gospel and the 20th century, late 19th century, they understood and had this sorrow really central to the music. And that came through in the, having this lack of true, true home where your home was one that was setting you up for another home, but not actually having it there. Now, fast forward to now, a lot of music does, in fact, have you ending on the 1, which would be taking us back to Haydn, and the height of European Imperialism. Because the music of Mozart, of Beethoven, of Haydn, these cats are writing while the Europeans were out conquering the world, and bringing 85% of the landmass under Great Britain. And you know, all the great wars of, uh, of the seventeen hundreds and eighteen hundreds that were leading to the colonization of the African continent and South America, and India, and all kinds of things that were happening really, you know, since the fourteen hundreds, this is where a lot of our music is coming from that we call classical. And so it's not disconnected, that sense of home that we get in a Mozart song, or a Haydn song... that's not disconnected then from these European conquests, where Europe was in this Renaissance, and they were having this explosion of culture, explosion of things like the museums and all the great basilicas and all the art. Yeah. All that was connected. And we have bifurcated that and separated out the music, such that it's just calming, from this sense of conquest. So this is connected to what I was saying about the modern U.S. moment, where you have all this music, kind of at the height, or maybe past the height, of the American empire that is centering us on the 1... Having us come back home, as if America, which is the superpower after World War II, America is this great home. And it saddens me, and it's challenging to me to see that so often, Christian music also is in that same vein, where a lot of the music is just centered on getting you back to this feel good 1. As opposed to contending with the fact that we are still pilgrims and in a foreign land, moving through this world, because we're going to this place that is not yet, but a lot of folk have set up home, and are like hey this is, you know, this is kind of comfy here, you know, hoarding all the resources of the world and having all the nukes in the world, you know, behind Russia and all the things that allow for us to have a gilded age of now, it's coming through in our music. The way we understand ourselves in our current theological moment comes through in our music. Um, and I guess as a way to tie this all together. So I'm saddened by that, because there's a kind of prophetic voice that the Church could have around a Jacob Blake, around all the, all the ways that anti-blackness endures in this country, and is really central to this country's thriving. There's a way that the Church could have a critique, that we see in the spirituals, that we see in blues, that we see in gospel that we see in jazz. But so often now it seems like we've traded in our birthright for a mess of pottage, and are, um, creating music that's landing on a 1 that's sugary, and while that can be comforting in a sense, it belies the reality of us being in some real deep trouble.
Ryan McAnnally-Linz: You're also in a band, The Juju Exchange, and, uh, you recently put out an album. And as I was listening to it, I found myself wondering, um, to what extent you feel like the sort of things you were just wrestling with there, find themselves in that music that you're making.
Julian Reid: Yeah. It's a great point. So the newest project that my group has put out is called The Eternal Boombox, it's an EP, it's on all platforms, encourage you to get it. And I thank you, Ryan and Evan for listening to it and giving space for it. I think that this project is very relevant to these times, and very relevant to this conversation, because the whole project is oriented around grief and we put it out as such because of all of the pandemics that we're living through, Covid, 1619, Covid 2019, and the like. This music is hopefully helping us deal with grief and each song corresponds to a stage of grief. The first song, "I can't see my eyes," it's kind of this statement about shock. I can't see my eyes and of course I can, but well, no, you can't see them on your own you have to have somebody else see them for you or a mirror. The second stage is avalanche, which is anger and just like a cascading sense of emotion inside of you, so two as an avalanche on the side of a mountain. And so we called it avalanche and it sounds angry, it sounded l ke it's cascading. If only things had been different, if only Trump hadn't been elected or only Trump were elected again or whatever it is, people are bargaining at that stage, grieving something that's been lost and this song is called Eternal Boombox, the title track. And then the fourth stage is the depression stage, and we called this song And So On, because depression can feel like it just goes on and on and on. The fifth stage is acceptance- slash- hope, and that song was called Glimmer. In our conversation, we've been talking about landing on the one, not landing on the one, one thing that's notable, at the end of the first song, is that you land on a dominant seven chord, you don't land on the one, it's just a la the blues. And so you have this beautiful melody. That's the melody, and then after that, it goes into this piano Cadenza, which is borrowing from the classical tradition, and that ends with this: Well, to end with that, is not to end home, it's to end this chord, really is setting up this chord. So this first song, sorry, the first chord of the song, the chord is D flat. So you would think then that this last chord, would set you up to go back home, would take you there, but it doesn't, it leaves you on this A flat.
Ryan McAnnally-Linz: Well then it jumps right in with the next track, with that avalanche, right, which is, it's this, you've gone from just the piano to this really intense onslaught that is not at all the resolution that that chord is setting you up for.
Julian Reid: Yeah, I love how, even after we put it together, it was just more that we didn't even realize we were doing that comes up as I just think on it, reflect on it. There's another element that I wanted to share here, and it wasn't about the harmony itself, but rather the texture that came from the sounds used. So on the third track, the bargaining stage, the if only, or what if stage, that song is called Eternal Boombox. The beginning has this melody that's very simple, straightforward. That's a melody. And you hear that a few times, or that's the beginning of the melody. You hear that a few times at the beginning and it goes on through the first little bit of the track, and then you go elsewhere, you snake through these various elements, and then you come back to it at the end of the song. But you hear it garbled, and this was to be getting at the fact that sometimes, like with our memory, we can have something that's very distinct at the beginning, but then by the end, it's distorted. And so this song was not only about bargaining, but it was also about Alzheimer's, and it was a way to address the fact that music can be a way to help people access age-old memories, even if their memory's otherwise failing them. And so, you know, these are elements that oftentimes we're singing about in church, but these are elements that bring us grief. And these are elements that can be very difficult to suffer through in human life, and yet music can be a balm for that. So I'm just excited to be able to infuse all of this into this project because we need to be able to grieve and music can help us grieve and our country's way too quick to move on to a sugary hope. But the hope that you get in Glimmer only comes after you move to these other stages.
Evan Rosa: The fact of what jazz is, and the fact that it's a sort of presence is trying to both acknowledge the sorrow of blues, and it's born out of that, and it kind of keeps it, keeps it with you, but it's also adding agency to it. So there's a new form of agency that is kind of expressed through the improvisation that jazz can be. That's a beautiful thing to communicate and kind of formulate as a concept and draw out of the listener. But it's also part of the performance itself and, why jazz? Like what can only jazz say about this, that other forms can't?
Julian Reid: I'm really passionate about that. Cause I think that's something that can only be communicated when you don't have words. Of course, I can say that Haydn, I can say that that makes you sound happy, but maybe not. I mean, maybe that's a song that's filled with melancholy for you and you know, that beautiful concerto, which I learned growing up goes all kinds of places, but it certainly starts off in a sense that can sound very happy or upbeat. That open-endedness of music that doesn't have words painting a meaning to the song, I also love the fact that improvised music, as opposed to music that's all planned out from the jump it can have a place in our ears, a place in our hearts, a place in this society, because there's a lot that can only be expressed in the moment that when we have freedom to do that, we can do and be surprised by. I love that ability to respond to the moment, not only to your own impulses, but then the impulses of others. And so in a group context, like in The Juju Exchange's context, we're able to respond to each other's impulses on stage and in the studio. So those are some reasons why I think jazz or just wordless, improvised music is really, really important. And we shouldn't lose it even with there being such emphasis and a premium placed on music with words. So in the last two songs of the record, And So On, and then Glimmer, in And So On, I was just playing over a loop. And then you hear me, you know, swirling away over it on keys. That was recorded in a church that had been sold and turned into a studio, but basically felt like an abandoned church, um, because the congregation couldn't afford to keep it. And so you have these huge vaulted ceilings, amazing sounds from the piano and all that. A sense of hope, but also the sense of feeling forlorn, of desolation. It was in the midst of that, that I, and the band, we wrote this song and we're working on that. And so I want you to hear just how the loop keeps going over and over and over on the same track and how the cello is playing underneath it in a way that is giving some anchoring. Kind of giving you some grounds for you to stand on, but it's also not giving you some great resolution. And then the song abruptly ends at the end. And I think some of this is helping paint a picture of how depression can feel. You know, you can just feel like you're in a cave and it just goes on and on and on of just feeling down, feeling worthless, feeling lesser than. And grief can bring that about. So these are elements that we wanted to, to paint brush strokes for, without having to say explicitly, "I am sad, aren't you sad too? We can be sad together." And then in the last song, Glimmer, with this moment of hope, and this comes from this beautiful baseline phrase that I then pair with my right hand. And so it's still got a minor feel, which many can read as sad, but it also has this beautiful opening into these major chords, which can be a sign of hope.
Evan Rosa: Yeah there's comfort in it. And I hear in the phrasing, you, you're moving back and forth between that tension and comfort.
Julian Reid: Yes. I love this break. Um, after, so when we get to the C major chord, you pause for a minute, then you go. So, yeah, so these are some elements of the music that I think are really important and have given it some meaning. And I'm just speaking from my perspective, um, the band is doing a whole bunch of stuff, talking about this through our subscription service that we have patrion.com, and you, you know, you're more than welcome to come join us there. And we talk more about this in more detail about what the record means, but I wanted to share that here because this also definitely opens on theological conversations for me about space and sound and how God can meet us in the midst of space, how God can meet us in the midst of creating wordless music, and that's just really exciting. So for instance, when you get to, and you just pause, what might God be saying to you in that moment? You know, these moments that happen in worship. When we pause before we go on to the next thing. Yeah. So those are moments that I love talking about in a directly theological way. And you know, the band has, we talk openly about faith, but it's not a Christian group. It's not expressly, um, theological. So I just enjoy having these moments to, to wax poetically on how my faith is showing up for me in the music and how it draws me closer to Jesus.
Ryan McAnnally-Linz: I think two things that I found myself thinking about listening to you talking about wordless music and improvisation, uh, on the one hand, maybe theology and Christian faith's biggest temptation is, um, is to feel like our task is to, uh, to capture or like perfectly articulate who God is, and what a life in response to God is, uh, it's this temptation to, to, to master through discourse. And having a, having a place for wordless music. I think for me, it's important to signify, uh, the ways that our being, like our own existence exceeds articulation and grasping. Um, and then how much more so the God who might meet us in that space that you were talking about. And then on the improvisation side of things, I don't know, one, one kind of trope in Christian, like popular Christian ethics is, uh, like God's got a plan and, and your job is, is to kind of live it out right? Um, like there's, there's a score, and the question is, are you playing the notes right? I think having in mind, the improvisational paradigm. With its responsiveness, with the ways that it can carry you to places that are unexpected, but, uh, retrospectively can be seen as, as making sense and right. It seems really important as a potential way to think through what it is we're trying to do. Uh, as we live in responsiveness, both to God and to the fellow creatures around us.
Julian Reid: Yeah, I love that. It requires humility. I can tell when I'm playing well, because I can, when I'm playing well with others, because I'm really listening to them, I'm not just waiting to speak, and this is both verbal, and also, of course, on the band stand, when I'm playing at my best, I'm really listening and augmenting the others as opposed to just being programmatic, because I know this chord fits here, and that chord fits there, and this the a science behind this part of the music. But the art is really coming from the dialogue that's back and forth. And then that way, when I get to solo, if I even solo, it's also then moving from that organic space of what needs to be said at that moment, as opposed to just trying to get the score right, is what you were saying, Ryan. So, I think the music can be really honest. When you listen to it ever more deeply because you can be listening for what's the real germ of unique intuition. And you can assess the extent to which the music is breeding, honest dialogue, I guess with the Creator herself, but then also what the other people she shares the stage with.
Evan Rosa: To close out the interview, I asked Julian to reflect a little bit about this quote from Cornell West, in his book, Race Matters. "To be a jazz freedom fighter is to attempt to galvanize and energize world weary people into forms of organization with accountable leadership that promote critical exchange and broad reflection. The interplay of individuality and unity is not one of uniformity and unanimity imposed from above, but rather of conflict. Among diverse groupings that reach a dynamic consensus subject to questioning and criticism as with a soloist in a jazz quartet, quintet or band. Individuality is promoted in order to sustain and increase the creative tension with the group. A tension that yields higher levels of performance to achieve the aim of the collective project, this kind of critical and democratic sensibility flies in the face of any policing of borders and boundaries, of, quote, 'blackness,' 'maleness,' 'femaleness,' or 'whiteness.'
Julian Reid: Yeah. We've been talking a lot about how music can play with boundaries and people are disturbed by that in the Church. And this last sentence of this quote from Cornell West, gets at that. He ends by saying, "this kind of critical and democratic sensibility flies in the face of any policing of borders and boundaries of 'blackness,' 'maleness,' or 'femaleness' or 'whiteness.' And I love that because I think that music cultivates in me, and cultivates in my colleagues, a sensibility of having a sense of self and being connected to a greater whole. Musicians that are just out for themselves, sound like it. And it's not enjoyable for me to listen to them. Maybe for some, I mean, I'm not going to knock that, but for me, it's not enjoyable. Musicians who are out for the collective, that's deep, and powerful. What that requires, to be out for the collective, is to be free of this concern of policing the borders and boundaries. And I think that there's so much energy that this country places on borders... build a wall, of course. The borders of corporations, as well though, the borders of the press, all kinds of borders that this country's very, very, very invested in. Even if it says, you know, freedom of speech or marry who you want, or what have you. There're all kinds of borders, like this country will fight tooth and nail over, and has died on many a hill for, and this music, which has been seen as the quintessencial American music, or quintessential American classical music, jazz, this music is cultivating a sensibility that really challenges those borders. And I think some of the borders presented here are ones that we would very well take as sacrosanct, like the border of blackness, you know, and just who, and what does it mean to be black, and affirming it and celebrating it in its complexity. While also, so that's a good kind of border that I think is being challenged here, and that's good. A bad kind of border that's being challenged here is whiteness, which has incredibly porous boundaries and has incredible reach the whole world over. And even our sense of outer space is conditioned by how the white male subject sees himself. So it's ironic that blackness is being challenged in its borders as much as then whiteness, because we can look at whiteness being challenged as something that needs to happen, and it's really important and vital for the continuation of humanity. But then on the other hand, you could look at blackness and see that being challenged by the music and the sensibilities cultivated therein, and see that as also under a microscope is we constantly allow for more inclusion in society and try to figure out what's it mean to be black, um, in a society that's very much often oriented around our lack of being. I love this quote, and I think that, I really think with what it means to be an individual and be part of a unified group.
Evan Rosa: Ryan, any final thoughts?
Ryan McAnnally-Linz: No, I mean, I think we're, I think we're pretty ready to bring it home, uh, but not, not too settled a home, one of those dominant seven homes. And, uh, yeah, I just want to say thank you, Julian. It has as usual been a pleasure talking to you, and, uh, I look forward to doing it again sometime soon.
Julian Reid: Thank you so much, Evan and Ryan, this has been a real joy. Giving me a lot to think about.
Evan Rosa: Thank you for giving us your music. Thank you for giving us your thoughts.
Julian Reid: Absolutely.
Evan Rosa: Okay, that's a wrap. For the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center For Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School. This episode featured Julian Reed, pianist and keyboardist of The Juju Exchange. He studied philosophy at Yale University, and has a Master's of Divinity degree from Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Ryan McAnnally-Linz and I produce the show, and I did the editing and mixing. The music you're hearing on this episode is all from The Eternal Boombox, the latest project of The Juju Exchange. And you can listen to it all over the internet, but check the show notes and support the band by visiting their Patrion page and becoming a patron. Special thank you to Nico, Julian, and Everett, from The Juju Exchange for allowing us to use the music in this episode. For more information, visit us online at faith.yale.edu. New episodes drop every Saturday and you can subscribe through any podcast app. Thank you for listening, thank you for supporting us. If you haven't reviewed the show yet, make sure you do so over at the apple podcasts page on your phone or desktop, where you can review and rate our podcast. Or, if you already have, just tell a friend or two about The Juju Exchange and this episode. Well, thank you. We'll talk to you next week, friends.