Islam Jazz
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The history of Jazz is often perceived as a loose single line narrative: Vocal and rythmic music of slaves —> Gospel —> Ragtime —> Jazz. But this narrative includes only a single outside influence, the European one, in the movement from Gospel to Ragtime. However, jazz as a music form is possibly one of the most complex, notably because it’s true evolution is much closer to a story of borrowing and experimenting with all genres.
What Jazz has represented however has been much clearer. By allowing outside influence to alter itself, and with its high level of musical freedom despite the rhytmic rigidity, jazz symbolizes tolerance and inclusion. This is made even clearer when we understand the history around the genre. In the case of Islamic influence, the same can be said, but with an added layer of social complexity.
We see the inclusion in the Ahmadi Islam, which is the source of much of the Islamic influence on jazz and is in the words of Moustafa Bouyami “is where blacks become Asians and Asians black under color of divine law”. What adds this extra layer of complexity, however, is the message that resonates in the political scene of mid 1900’s America when two oppressed groups in US society both participate in sending out the musical message that Jazz sends. In “The Spark”, Roots continues this symbolism in the genre that many perceive to be heir of jazz in the single line narrative I talked about, exemplifying the prolonged influence Black Islam has had on the predominately black music scene of the US.