Capturing Jazz, From America’s Black Flower

By: Lauren K. Clark

Entering into a scent of Black America’s perfumes lays a revival of one people’s story. . .Her-story, that is.

The art form of jazz music was birthed from the ‘Gardens of Black America’.

Hailing from New Orleans, it this magic of immersing into rhythms and beats, all stirred into an alluring cacophony.

It is Black American music.

Particularly, it is also a storybook on a peculiar people, who used their music to consistently re-invent themselves.

Venturing to the 2017 Cairo Jazz Festival, I couldn’t contain the joy and nourishment that I have always felt when my culture travels to foreign soils.

The final day of the festival, September 30, was an auspicious one, at that. For a daughter of Black America got to photograph herself—freezing herself, with others, in the melodies of Jazz music; in the richness of her beat. . . In her own time.

When Alice Walker wrote In Search Of Our Mother’s Gardens, she foretold stories of ‘Gardens’, and of this unspoken energy felt by our Black American foremothers in this creative energy. . .in the midst of their Gardens.

She spoke of the frustration of being stifled with a particular energy, which did not allow them to express the fullness of their womanhood and being.

And so, they painted this coloration into music in what would later become known as Jazz. And it has been carried on by their sons and daughters.

How enriching it was for one Black American maiden to feel the existence of
her culture being celebrated and performed by musicians from all over the world. And Egypt brought them all together.

From the Netherlands, Panama, and other soils, the presence of Black America, through quotes and imagery, and especially through the image of a maiden, was significant.

A physical, living, breathing Garden, whose music is copied in other lands. A familiarity. Recognition that one still exists, even in the midst of questioning auras.

Honoring the mothers and fathers, who created the legacy and memory of that culture is
without choice.

Seeing a quote from Thelonius Monk, and feeling the vibrations of the late Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald nourished my soul.

Because, after all, Jazz is music of the soul.

You don’t know Jazz, Blues, or the other popular forms of American music, if you don’t know, or have never heard, the whispers, of Black American soils. Cause baby. . .that’s where Jazz grew!

Snapping away for one last picture, it had to be stamped, and had to be stated.

She was here. Black America was here. Egypt was there. The world flew there.

Learning more about a peculiar Garden, from a unique people. . .called Jazz.