During my interview with Dr. David Esleck, a professor of music at the University of Richmond, we spoke about how Jazz has evolved since its birth in the early 1900s. A main point we touched on was that, generally, Jazz changed from a popular style of music that was heard in nightclubs, on the radio, and in social settings as a form of music people could dance to and enjoy such as music we see today being played on mainstream platforms. Overtime, and especially after World War II, Jazz became more of a focus from a “high-class” perspective and the institutionalization of the genre began to really pick up.

When speaking with Dr. Esleck, we discussed how there is a certain appeal to some people when it comes to improvisation and the freedom to alter, ever-so-slightly, the composition of certain songs. When playing with him in the past, we have generally been given some sort of score as a “skeleton” for what we need to play, but end up being able to show ourselves as musicians through soloing and bringing out our personal musical character in the songs. Particularly he mentions how hits like “Take the A Train” and “Caravan” are increasingly being altered from their original version to exemplify the power of improvisation relative to how much it can change the character of a song, despite small alterations that can be made, such as morphing them into other subgenres such as Salsa and Rumba.

When talking about how Jazz is disseminated across society, his first thought was that of cinema. He mentioned that Jazz is now typically seen and made notable through the cinematic lens. When he stated this, I couldn’t really think of anything I had seen recently that exemplified this, but pondering on the reason I play Jazz and its variations now, I thought of the movie that inspired me – Whiplash.

Dr. David Esleck — University of Richmond

“But what I really believe, are some of us, were just born with something in our psyche, that playing music just makes endorphins flow, and we, just like a junkie, like it…there will always be people that just want to be in the arts and create and maybe they paint, maybe they write poetry, and maybe they play jazz like we do, it’s always going to be awesome.” – Dr. David Esleck, 2019