http://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/rss/feedsJazz Leadership Project (JLP) is a leading-edge approach to leadership training, personal and team development through the principles and practices of jazz music.Sat, 02 May 2026 04:29:32 -0700http://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/post/elevating-leadership-through-collaborationhttp://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/post/elevating-leadership-through-collaboration LEADERSHIP COLLABORATION TAKEAWAYS How does true collaboration elevate leadership? Collective self-confidence develops individual strengths and capabilities Self-regulation controls emotions and impulses, increasing emotional intelligence Disciplined attention to listen to and learn from one another As a tool for self-reflection, articulating our thoughts allows critical feedback to affirm our strengths and weaknesses. The longstanding tradition of human towers (castells) dates back to the 17th century in towns across Spain. Built during local festivals, large groups spend months planning and practicing the most complex human constructions, up to ten stories. The practice is symbolic of togetherness, the elimination of class differences, and the idea of community. Typically, a young girl, seven to ten years old, ascends to the pinnacle to complete the tower. This undertaking is filled with emotions of excitement, fear, uncertainty, and a bond of oneness—truly a collaboration of epic proportions. COLLABORATION VS COORDINATION AND COOPERATION Although sometimes used interchangeably, collaboration is different from coordination or cooperation. Many businesses, particularly those with command-and-control hierarchies, manage work through coordination – usually compliance, with people performing based on their individual functions. With cooperation, sometimes through independent processes, individuals or groups agree to interactions and intersections that can make the shared activity easier to perform or the shared goal easier to reach.According to Collaboration Handbook authors Michael Winer and Karen Ray, collaboration is more complex—a process of well-defined relationships to achieve a desired goal. The process is participatory and allows for productive disagreement, which helps increase the level of engagement and the meaning of the group's work. Vincent Gardner (trombone), Bria Skonberg (trumpet), and Mark Eliot (vocals) in our jazz production at the Friar’s Club, 2012. COLLABORATIVE LEADERSHIP IN JAZZPlaying music is inherently social, central to culture, and therefore deeply human.A jazz band performance is a high level of collaboration and is based on what we call an ENSEMBLE MINDSET℠ – collective intelligence focused on values, purpose, and intention. Some of the key elements that support this collaborative creativity include flexibility and persistent idea generation, musical imagination, communication, and empathetic attunement. This yields an outcome that is greater than the sum of individual contributions, which is a definition of emergence.Collaboration generates high-level interaction and interdependence where band members respond to each other's creative output, while simultaneously generating their own – a feedback loop of improvisation. The blending of each player’s talent and skill forms a greater expanse of creativity and invigorates the experience of the performance. As members of the band encourage, support, and assess fellow members’ contributions, mutual ownership of the process is deepened. There is often a named leader of the band, but all members play a part as leaders in any given moment in the jazz model of collaborative and shared leadership.“It’s the group sound that’s important, even when you’re playing a solo. You not only have to know your own instrument, you must know the others and how to back them up at all times. That’s jazz.” -- Pianist Oscar PetersonVALUES TO ELEVATE LEADERSHIPSo, what are the values we gain from high-level collaboration? Transparency, there is no guessing about what is needed, why, by whom, or when Inclusivity, having respect for everyone’s contributions Adaptability to a range of outcomes Flexibility to give something up so all may gain Communal sensibility, as an ongoing, shared process Collective purpose towards the common goal Trust – listening with intention In his national bestseller Russell Rules, eleven-time NBA champion Bill Russell explains the difference between his ego and those of the team he was addressing:“My ego is not a personal ego, it’s a team ego. My ego demands—for myself—the success of my team. My personal achievement became my team achievement”.True collaboration creates a culture of continuous learning and opportunities for growth and development. As we look at the bigger picture, we can leverage different perspectives and expand problem-solving possibilities. Going beyond your comfort zone is all right because the safety net of your collaborators is there to support you. Collaboration allows us to ask what could be in the field of possibility.Thu, 12 Dec 2019 09:51:00 -0700http://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/post/capitalism-vs-free-enterprise-the-business-roundtable-on-corporate-purposehttp://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/post/capitalism-vs-free-enterprise-the-business-roundtable-on-corporate-purposeWhile chillaxin’ on the sunny morning of August 19, 2019, drinking my daily infusion of Café Bustelo coffee after light exercise and meditation, I leafed through the Wall Street Journal. Turning from page A5 to A6 I came across a two-page declaration on the “Purpose of A Corporation” by The Business Roundtable, a group comprised of the CEOs of 181 of the largest and most influential public corporations in the United States. JPMorgan’s head honcho Jamie Dimon is the Chairman of the Business Roundtable. I froze. After reading the opening “Our Commitment” section, I called Jewel. Immediately, I sensed that this declaration, expanding the stated purpose of the corporation to serving “all our stakeholders”—customers, employees, suppliers, communities as well as shareholders—from one in which shareholder value is primary, was a big deal. Huge. Click image for full statement and signatories I thought: It’s about time. Over the last decade, there have been several intersecting movements to expand the purpose and impact of corporations beyond quarterly profits. Corporate citizenship aka Corporate Social Responsibility is an example. Benefit corporations and the B Corporation certificate (which 3,000 firms have earned) reflect this direction, as do books such as Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business and Conscious Business: How to Build Value through Values. In a recent podcast, performance and leadership expert Alan Watkins pointed to books such as When the Money Runs Out and Caring Capitalism: The Meaning and Measure of Social Value as indicative of this trend. Watkins mentioned a few additional representative anecdotes: In early 2018, the CEO of trillion-dollar investment giant BlackRock sent a letter to CEOs saying if you want our money, become more socially responsible. The retiring CEO of accounting giant Ernst & Young saying that soon “purpose audits” will be as important as financial audits. A Stunt or Political Ploy? But some consider the Business Roundtable’s declaration a PR stunt, a virtue-signal to preempt critiques of corporate malfeasance and incredibly high CEO pay (relative to the other workers in the corporation), or, even worse (to crony capitalists), a slippery slide to socialism. Banking reporter David Benoit penned a piece for the online edition of the Journal the very same day which ended with a quote by economist Milton Friedman. Friedman is often cited as the originator of the “maximize profits” ideology as the prime purpose of corporations. Benoit quotes Friedman, who claimed that “reformers” who wanted to use business not just for profits but for “desirable ‘social’ ends” were actually “preaching pure and unadulterated socialism.” With all due respect to Mr. Friedman, patron saint of anti-Keynesian libertarian economists, that statement strikes me as hyperbole. The Wall Street Journal editorial page derided The Roundtable’s declaration. In our estimation, their initial editorial response, “The ‘Stakeholder’ CEO,” missed the mark. They accused the CEOs of toadying to lefties and socialists aligned with Democratic Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, ending the editorial with: “Platitudes about stakeholders won’t stop President Warren from lining them up first for the gallows.” Fearmongering anyone? Collectivist ideologies have indeed led to mass exterminations and the intentional starving of populations, the Gulag of the Communist Soviet Union, the so-called “Cultural” Revolution in China. I’m a free market and free enterprise advocate; I’d rather live and work here, where I have more choices and freedom than in Communist or authoritarian regimes. But the idea that Warren (or even “social Democrat” Bernie Sanders) would be a totalitarian tyrant seems ridiculous on its face. Our system is stronger, more anti-fragile than that. Our surviving, thus far, the victor of the 2016 Presidential election proves that. The Free Market vs. Crony Capitalism But all is far from quiet on the western neoliberal capitalist front. Regarding executive compensation, the father of modern management Peter Drucker said in 1985 that there should be a 20:1 ratio between the chief executive and the average worker. The chasm is 300:1. The overall wealth gap is a colossal socio-economic and moral issue too. According to a 2018 Oxfam report, 82% of the growth in global wealth the previous year went to the top 1% ranked by riches. The revolution in AI wiping out whole job categories within a decade adds more uncertainty to the severing of our social fabric. You can see why futurist Duane Elgin has for decades been saying that by the 2020s we humans will experience a breakdown or a breakthrough. Seth Godin Furthermore, the free enterprise system has an enemy, according to the author, entrepreneur, and ruckus-maker Seth Godin. If you think the free enterprise system is synonymous with capitalism, think again. “The enemy of the free market,” Godin argued in a recent podcast, “might be capitalism.” In basic terms, the free enterprise system is like a large-scale, self-organizing, improvisational polyphony, with people buying what they need and want from sellers providing products and services at a profit to stay in business and grow. Godin continued riffing a ruckus, contending that though capitalism can “fuel the free market” it is better defined as “the idea that capital, money, can be used to get machinery to build systems to make things more productive, which leads to a ratchet called progress.” Three Defects of Capitalism One doesn’t have to be a neo-Marxist to honestly critique crony capitalism, whereby risk in a free market is superseded by the return on the relationship between business and government. Seth points to three major defects of capitalism: Monopolies and Oligopolies—where effectively people have no or very little choice and therefore pay more than if there were true competition. Facebook is a social network monopoly. Google is a monopoly for online advertising. (Seth turned us on to DuckDuckGo, a search engine that doesn’t track you. But does it compete against Google? Heck no. Most reading this post likely never heard of them.) Short-term thinking—of shareholders and even consumers, in which so few consider long-term effects and quality. Corruption—bad actors, cheats, crooks, criminals who buy or bully their way through the free market to corner the market with ruthless lack of scruples. Rapacious greed reigns supreme among oligarchs and kleptocrats. So, no, the announcement by the Business Roundtable of a broadened reach and wider intention, is not a panacea. Yet it’s a good enough step in the right direction, following decades of a narrow focus on shareholder value as the be-all and end-all. In some quarters, shareholder value supremacy is like a religion. Eating at Danny Meyer’s Table Danny Meyer The truism that big companies aren’t as nimble as smaller ones may explain why it took these captains of industry so long to come to a table already set by visionary entrepreneur Danny Meyer of the Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG). USHG owns the Jazz Standard club in New York City. In his modern-day business classic published in 2006, Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business, Meyer explains “the virtuous cycle of enlightened hospitality” that is “the single greatest contribution to the ongoing success of our company.” Meyer’s restaurant group prioritizes people in the following order, with no worries to their bottom line: Our employees Our Guests Our community Our suppliers Our investors Who knows? If the CEOs of the Business Roundtable enact their “all stakeholders” pledge as skillfully as has Meyer’s USHG, perhaps the free market might be strengthened over crony capitalism. We at the JAZZ LEADERSHIP PROJECT℠ believe that this new definition of the purpose of the corporation is a sign of cultural evolution to a higher octave of shared meaning and values for America and the world. We’ll periodically revisit this topic. This post is our opening statement, a maiden voyage into the debate over the future of business and leadership in the 21st century.Thu, 12 Dec 2019 09:04:00 -0700http://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/post/wynton-marsalis-interdependent-leadershiphttp://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/post/wynton-marsalis-interdependent-leadership Wynton Marsalis, since the early 1980s the most acclaimed jazz artist of his generation, apprenticed with Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers after hitting the music scene as a double threat trumpeter of American jazz and European concert music. Marsalis has been traveling the world leading his own ensembles for nearly forty years, from small groups to the big band of Jazz at Lincoln Center, for which he serves as the Artistic and Managing Director.Our focus here is primarily his interdependent, collaborative approach as leader of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. But his significance to American culture—not only to jazz—is so important that in a separate post we’ll dive deep into Wynton as an exemplary model of cultural leadership crucial to address our troubling times.A Thumbnail Sketch of Jazz at Lincoln CenterI’ve witnessed the development of Jazz at Lincoln Center up close, from the late 1980s when it was a summer program at Lincoln Center—arguably the most significant performing arts organization in the United States. In the 1990s, through the efforts of Wynton, Stanley Crouch, and a powerful Board of Directors, jazz became an institutional constituent of Lincoln Center; in the new millennium Jazz at Lincoln Center built its own $100 million space at the Time Warner Center in Columbus Circle, a few hops and skips from Central Park. For more background on the development of the largest organization in the world devoted to jazz, I invite you to read my essay published in the academic journal Callaloo in 2002, “The Canonization of Jazz and Afro-American Literature.” My perspective is also informed by my work as a consultant at Jazz at Lincoln Center for 15+ years.Jazz at Lincoln Center: Foundation PrinciplesMarsalis, deeply influenced by the blues idiom worldview of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray, has a perspective on jazz as a continuum of development, the sweep of which encompasses American democratic values in sound. The blues idiom also deeply informs the perspective of this blog site and the Jazz Leadership Project. Wynton and his mentor and intellectual grandfather Albert Murray in conversation. Jazz at Lincoln Center, now 33 years old, is deeply dedicated to the proposition of jazz as an art of individual excellence and improvisation, of swing as a fundamental basis for communication with others based on mutual respect, and of the blues as representative of optimism in the face of adversity. When it was just an idea given birth by Alina Bloomgarden, Stanley Crouch, et al., Wynton was the face of a renewed emphasis on the grounding principles and practices of jazz, which he strongly believed had been obscured by some of the living legends of jazz venturing into Fusion music. In general, Fusion de-emphasized the blues and swing in favor of funk, rock, and R&B stylings.But before Wynton decided to take on the challenge of establishing jazz as an institutional presence at Lincoln Center he visited the “spyglass tree,” Murray’s book-lined Lenox Terrace apartment in Harlem. Murray, in his capacity as a Mentor for Wynton’s heroic adventure, gave him counsel and advice but didn’t “tell me what to do. He gave me clear information,” Wynton recalled in 2001. “We talked four or five hours about it. He laid it out for me, what the meaning of an institution is, what you can do, how. He put it in a context.”Murray laid out the intellectual foundation of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He explained to Wynton that as an institution, a jazz program at Lincoln Center should have four components: curatorial, archival, educational, and ceremonial. This context and conversation led to Wynton saying a Sacred YES the very next day, accepting the heroic Call to Adventure.Interdependent, Collaborative LeadershipIn a post last week, “Elevating Leadership Through Collaboration,” Jewel Kinch-Thomas made a nuanced vertical distinction among coordination, cooperation, and collaboration. A similar developmental perspective derives from Stephen Covey’s classic The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The upward growth pattern from Dependence to Independence is well-known to parents, who strive to nurture dependent children into self-reliant, independent young adults. The “coordinating” approach to management is command-and-control grounded in workers complying and following rules like dependents. Independence establishes boundaries and autonomy; the “cooperation” style of management has autonomous groups working together on projects, yet the autonomy can become separate silos of contention. The Independence phase is followed by a higher octave of development, Interdependence, whereby people and groups who have autonomy realize that to achieve anything great and worthwhile, they must independently depend on each other, as do the rhythm, saxophone, trombone and trumpet sections of a big band such as the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.As an instrumentalist, Wynton developed trumpet mastery not only through thousands of hours of practice by the time he recorded his first jazz and classical recordings in 1982 and 1983 respectively, but through the guidance of trumpet teachers John Longo, Norman Smith, George Jansen, and Bill Fielder as a teen. As a professional jazz trumpeter, he was supported and challenged by Roy Eldridge, Clark Terry, Harry “Sweets” Edison, and Dizzy Gillespie. Such guidance was crucial, as his mastery of jazz took longer to manifest than his mastery of the European concert tradition. Of course, the foundational example while growing up was his father Ellis Marsalis, a wonderful pianist and teacher who named his son after the pianist Wynton Kelly.Wynton’s approach to leadership of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra is informed by an interdependent ethos grounded in his own disciplined work ethic and talent plus his appreciation for the reality that as great as a person may be alone, he or she can become even greater by working in harmony with others. Behind the Scenes at JALC Behind the scenes, Marsalis enacts the principles of collaborative, interdependent leadership by example. For instance, he shares arranging duties and distributes authority among the JALC Orchestra members. Although deeply influenced by Ellington’s style of leadership, in which Ellington (and his partner Billy Strayhorn) did all of the arranging and orchestrating, Marsalis circulates decision-making widely across the network of talent in the band.As the fourth trumpet in the brass section, Wynton defers to the lead of the first trumpet chair. This is crucial to interdependent leadership, as leader-follower roles are fluid in the actual field of work and play. As with the murmuration of starling birds or schools of fish, followers and leaders flex and flow in the groove.Other band members serve as musical directors of JALCs themed concerts, making decisions on the repertoire to be played as well as which colleagues will handle arranging duties. During the crucial days of rehearsal practice before a live concert, the arrangers of each song take the lead in determining tempo, phrasing, and solo order. Any band member can speak up and make suggestions during rehearsal, and often do. The Author Interviewing Wynton on Albert Murray’s deck for a jazz television show. Marsalis has set a tone of shared and distributed leadership and leaves space for the continued development of the already considerable talents of the JALC big band members. As great artists, each develops their own “each one, teach one” approach to leadership and teamwork also. Wynton co-leads the entire organization with executive director Greg Scholl, who runs the day-to-day staff of the largest jazz organization in the world. The band members also engage in educational workshops on the road and at home, with the Essentially Ellington high school band competition an annual highlight. As Wynton was schooled by trumpet teachers, his father Ellis, Albert Murray, and by jazz legends, the orchestra members, and JALC’s education department provide an incubator of play and healthy competition for secondary school students. Wynton exemplifies personal mastery of the jazz and classical music idioms—and cultural and social mastery via an Ellington-like rooted cosmopolitanism, and the practice of interdependent leadership. Here’s a short video that serves as a prelude to a coming post centering on Wynton’s cultural leadership. Sat, 07 Dec 2019 23:05:00 -0700http://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/post/betty-carter-leadership-through-challengehttp://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/post/betty-carter-leadership-through-challenge Betty “Bebop” Carter One of the most original scat and song stylists in jazz history, Betty Carter was encouraged by Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker to continue pursuing her passion—bebop jazz—in the mid-1940s. Her apprenticeship with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra from 1948-1950, as well as her tenure recording with Ray Charles in the early 1960s—upon Miles Davis’ recommendation—solidified her style, while grounding her reputation in the 1970s through her death in 1998 as a master leader and groomer of young talent. When Carter fell in love with the bebop style architected by Parker and Gillespie, the two vocalists who had followed Billie Holiday at the apex of female jazz singers were Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. Sarah, as Betty would recall in interviews, had the most beautiful voice. Ella was unfazed by the challenge of bebop and had already set the standard for scatting supremacy via her renditions of “How High the Moon” and “Lady Be Good.” Making her mark would require Betty to develop a unique sound and approach. She rose to the challenge. Having grown up in Detroit, a mecca for black American music after the early 20th-century Great Migration, she was surrounded by high standards of musical excellence. Although during her tenure with Hampton’s big band she didn’t fully appreciate the apprenticeship (she’d have preferred to perform with Dizzy’s big band), she honed her ability to improvise on tunes by scatting, singing syllables and phrasing accents and musical lines like a jazz instrumentalist taking a solo. Hampton’s wife Gladys, a keen businesswoman, gave Carter the nickname “Bebop Betty” when bop was the hot new style on the scene. By the time her fame grew through recording and touring with Charles in the early sixties, and via hits such as “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” she was among a select few who could be called a true jazz innovator. Indeed, Carmen McRae, another true jazz star of Carter’s generation, once remarked: "There's really only one jazz singer—only one: Betty Carter.” Nancy Wilson, who preferred to be called a song stylist, told me practically the same thing in an interview: Betty Carter was a vocalist with total dedication to jazz. Seeing her in concert was an adventure of dramatic intensity and sonic bliss. The swing, that resilient buoyancy of joy, of her groups was so supple that if you entered sick you’d leave healed. Extending the innovations of bebop in tempo, Betty would play numbers super slow to blazing fast. Her arrangements, in line with masters of that craft like Quincy Jones, Jimmy Heath, Slide Hampton, and Benny Golson, put fresh touches on standards and originals, which allowed audience members like me, whether live or on record, to hear those songs in a renewed way. Her sui generis phrasing, breathy, with legato swoops and staccato swerves, made her as much of a sound innovator as Miles Davis. With one note you could tell it was Miles; with one scat phrase or lyrical inflection, you knew it was Betty. Entrepreneur and Educator Betty’s uncompromising refusal to sing in styles other than jazz in the 1960s cramped her career yet crystallized her artistic integrity. Betty didn’t follow trends or the fashion of the moment. When major record labels no longer carried her, she had had enough of their stuff anyway. Betty didn’t cry willow weep for me in the face of challenge; she stepped up to the entrepreneurial plate in 1970 and swung for the fences with her own Bet-Car Records. Creating original content and owning her recording masters paid off when Verve Records released much of that material starting in the late 1980s. In the 1970s she began performing on college campuses and included jazz history in her concerts. By the late ‘70s she was a grandmaster guiding younger musicians in the ways of the music, carrying forth the idiom via apprenticeship while being energized by their youthful drive. Schooled By Betty Carter Just a few of the musicians who have come through the training grounds of the Betty Carter School are drummer Kenny Washington and pianists Mulgrew Miller, Cyrus Chestnut, and Benny Green. Vocalists today carry the flame of her influence too, with Cecile McLorin Salvant, Charenee Wade, and Jazzmeia Horn among their number. Furthermore, hundreds of promising students have been nurtured through the program she founded in 1993, Jazz Ahead, a workshop residency for jazz musicians and composers in their teens through 25. Jazz Ahead began in Brooklyn at 651 Arts and was brought to the Kennedy Center in D.C. through the invitation of Dr. Billy Taylor. Now the program is in the able hands of the Kennedy Center Jazz Artistic Director for Jazz, Jason Moran, who experienced the Jazz Ahead residency in 1998. Tough love is one way to describe the intensity of her practice sessions with budding artists. She’d tell them to bring it, to never hold back on stage or in life. “Do things to make people follow you,” she’d emphasize when making the point that originality, spontaneity, and individuality were how you make your mark on the music. “What’s your thing? Jazz demands that you become an individual,” a lesson she learned when starting and developing her career. Carter would leave room for her young charges to grow while constantly challenging them to stretch beyond their comfort zones. Engaging in call-and-response “trading fours” to the improvisational lines of the ensemble pianist or sax player, Carter consistently demonstrated antagonistic cooperation at its best. This exciting interplay is evident in this short YouTube clip of one of her most famous songs, “Tight.” Betty would also explain musical concepts in sensual ways, making her points even more memorable. She would tell the men to take their time when playing a ballad, as they should when romancing a woman. Don’t rush. Start soft. Pace yourself. “You have eight bars to climax, just like sex,” she once said in a short documentary, “New All the Time.” Once, after a lackluster performance by a young saxophonist on a ballad, Carter reportedly said to him at the next rehearsal that “If you knew how to make love to a woman, you’d know how to play a ballad!” How’s that for challenging leadership? Sun, 01 Dec 2019 12:53:00 -0700http://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/post/poetic-wisdom-a-gift-for-leaders-1http://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/post/poetic-wisdom-a-gift-for-leaders-1What does poetry have to do with leadership? A whole lot. Opening our minds and hearts to new views and vistas is one gift of poetry. To imagine a better future, to glimpse infinite possibility, to infuse blues with hope, poetry and a poetic sensibility are essential. Facts, figures, and metrics of quantification will take us only so far. Poetry provides a vision without which the people perish. Poetry helps us see the world and our lives in fresh ways on wings of image and theme, metaphor and message. David Whyte One of our favorite contemporary poets, David Whyte, wonderfully integrates leadership and organizational work with and through his poetic sensibility. Jewel and I give thanks, deep within Insights reverberate crossroads of inner life and outer expression David Whyte channels this quality, this keen discernment when reciting his writing. We resonate with the way he repeats a line or a whole poem varying pace and inflection just so like jazz yet again, a melodic line or improvisational riff conversational nature nuance landing in heart of mind and body anew Playful work such as Whyte’s evoke fireside tale-telling times, maintaining interest and attention so intention blooms like sunrise at dawn. Read and then listen deeply, deeply listen to one of Whyte’s poems: “Everything Is Waiting For You.” We chose it because of the poem’s symmetry with our focus on the necessary solo reflection and inner work required for the challenge of leadership today while reminding us that we’re never truly alone. EVERYTHING IS WAITING FOR YOU Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone. As if life were a progressive and cunning crime with no witness to the tiny hidden transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely, even you, at times, have felt the grand array; the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding out your solo voice. You must note the way the soap dish enables you, or the window latch grants you courage. Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity. The stairs are your mentor of things to come, the doors have always been there to frighten you and invite you, and the tiny speaker in the phone is your dream-ladder to divinity. Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation. The kettle is singing even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots have left their arrogant aloofness and seen the good in you at last. All the birds and creatures of the world are unutterabl themselves. Everything is waiting for you. —David Whyte from Everything is Waiting for You ©2003 Many Rivers Press David Whyte-Everything is Waiting For You Rumi Here’s an example by another perennial favorite, the 13th-century poet and mystic Rumi. His poem “The Guest House” paints a perspective on everyday life that reminds us of the wisdom of the blues as poetry. The Guest House This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice. meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whatever comes. because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. —Jalal al-Din Rumi In this season of giving thanks, such poetry is a gift that keeps on giving, so ruminate. (Sorry, just couldn’t resist that Rumi-riff.) Considering the unexpected visitor, welcoming the unwelcome events in our lives is an angle of vision that as leaders we’d be wise to adopt, to better adapt to the inevitability of syncopation. If we frame “negatives” with equanimity, knowing that a “crowd of sorrows” may clear the way for “some new delight,” a momentary space of possibility opens, like the sayings “this too shall pass” and “don’t sweat the small stuff.” Yet Rumi swings the wisdom to a higher altitude than cliché by suggesting that we greet the “dark thought, the shame, the malice” at the door laughing, come on in, sit down, as in Billie Holiday’s “Good Morning Heartache.” The comic aspect of the tragi-comic blues dynamic opens a doorway to a Buddha-like smile of understanding and compassion, making the burdens, the heaviness, of the human condition a bit lighter. Be grateful for whatever comes. We do hope you’ll enjoy this video version and rendition of “The Guest House”: Rumi Poem (English) - The Guest House Thu, 28 Nov 2019 23:41:00 -0700http://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/post/serious-play-for-leadershttp://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/post/serious-play-for-leadersPlay-Full Leadership Takeaways: Adopting an attitude of play encourages expansive thinking Social skills and collaboration are enhanced through play Play represents freedom and self-direction Group Play Have you ever seen great jazz musicians look like they weren’t having fun while they’re playing? Did any band members look stressed? Probably not. Playing with others brings the power of support, collaboration, conversation, challenge, and constructive critique. The exchange and flow are energizing, fresh, and inspiring. The invitation to play stimulates humans to share responsibility for what is being created. In Free Play, author Stephen Nachmanovitch relates how astonishing it is when two musicians come together for the first time, begin playing, and “demonstrate wholeness, structure, and clear communication.” He further notes that initially there may be no agreed-upon structure, but once the play has begun, there is structure because they “open each other’s minds like an infinite series of Chinese boxes.” “The beauty of playing together is meeting in the One.” - Stephen Nachmanovitch Vocalist Gregory Porter, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Lewis Nash playing at the Riverside Theatre’s Gala I produced in 2011. “Play is training for the unexpected” – Marc Bekoff, biologist In my recent creativity post, I noted that one way to move into a creative mindset is to be play-filled—to have an attitude of exploration. The newness of play can generate flow, spark the imagination, and bring a surge of energy in the moment. When you approach something playfully, you learn better. Play provides an opportunity to experiment, to expand our curiosity, and to deepen our interest in the task at hand. We often take work and life so seriously. This interferes with our ability to look or move beyond the confines of our usual routine and approach. What would it look or feel like if you added a playful twist to a daily routine? Play is the Brain’s Favorite Way of Working Play activates brain signaling systems, including the neurotransmitter norepinephrine which is involved in eliciting attention and facilitating action and learning. Play also improves brain plasticity, so that change becomes possible when this chemical is elevated. Negative stress induces cortisol, which triggers the “fight, flight or freeze” response. The conditions of play—the generation of signals that enhance learning without an accompanying stress response—allow the brain to explore possibilities and to learn from them. “Life must be lived as play” – Paraphrase of Plato Consider the value of play as a catalyst to: Expand your flexibility in thinking and problem solving. Energize you, renewing your natural sense of optimism and openness to new possibilities. Better tolerate routines and emotions such as boredom or frustration. Provide a sense of expansiveness and Promote mastery. To be present, without defensive walls; accepting others as they are. Enable cooperative socialization and nourish trust, empathy, caring, and sharing. Stimulate creativity - imagination, inventiveness, and dreams – which help us think up new solutions to problems. Let your work become your play. Let play become central to your work. Wed, 27 Nov 2019 09:37:00 -0700http://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/post/the-gift-of-jazz-louis-armstronghttp://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/post/the-gift-of-jazz-louis-armstrong Louis Armstrong Recently, I mentioned to a colleague that though Sarah Vaughan was my favorite female jazz singer I thought that Ella Fitzgerald was the greatest. He then asked me: Who is the greatest male jazz singer? My answer: Louis Armstrong. I’d even argue that Louis Armstrong is the greatest jazz singer ever, male or female. Armstrong—beloved as “Pops”—wasn’t the first jazz musician; Buddy Bolden has that honor. But there are no extant recordings of Bolden. Here’s the bottom-line: Louis Armstrong was the major stylistic influence on American music—instrumental or vocal—in the 20s and 30s, when American music became a fine art via jazz. My mentor Albert Murray thought that the United States registered its strongest impact on aesthetic procedure through Louis Armstrong’s definitive influence on jazz.Billie Holiday is considered by most who study jazz to be the first great female jazz songstress. Her major influence: Armstrong. Armstrong embodied and exemplified the rhythmic force of jazz, swing. His swing was so compelling, so entrancing, so alluring that big band sections modeled their style after him. He was of course a master of the blues, with its (according to Ralph Ellison) tragi-comic sensibility. Pops originated scatting, which Ella extended and elaborated like no other. But the innovation began with Pops. He rendered New Orleans culture, with its French, Spanish, and African influences. He drank in the opera influences of his birthplace too. “When Armstrong used to say, “They all know I’m there in the cause of happiness,” nobody seems ever to have been inclined to insist otherwise. Because nothing was ever more obvious than the fact that he had come to town not to complain about the presence of the blues but to blow them away and hold them at bay—always with more subtlety and elegance than power, as overwhelmingly powerful as all of those astonishing high C’s always were. ” — Albert Murray Here are several examples: For the sake of contrast give a listen to Hoagy Carmichael's own version of "Stardust" from, reportedly, sometime in the 1950s. Then check out this magnificent version by Armstrong from the early '30s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIE6U6Lrtrc. Perhaps the best word to describe how radical his approach to singing the lyrics to “Stardust” is, as Wynton Marsalis once declared: avant garde. Add his trumpet playing and the word that arises is transcendent. Then check out the album Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson, with earphones to drink in every nuance. And then listen to Pops with Ella. Once these examples are given a close listen, you’ll know why I rest my case. In this season of giving, let appreciate the gift bequeathed by the paterfamilias of the jazz idiom, Louis Armstrong. Mon, 25 Nov 2019 09:44:00 -0700http://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/post/selflessness-as-a-leadership-goalhttp://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/post/selflessness-as-a-leadership-goalSELFLESSNESS LEADERSHIP TAKEAWAYS: Modeling selflessness builds trust and improves rapport Stepping outside the sphere of “you” will help you understand others better Allowing challenges to your perspective can help discover the best answer or solution NO EGO ON-STAGE Vincent Gardner and his band at one of our shows at Alvin & Friends in New Rochelle, Westchester. When the members of a jazz band walk out on stage, their objective is to make the best music they can together. The mindset of a jazz band is to leave their egos off-stage and focus on what’s needed to deliver outstanding performance. Band members support and challenge each other to bring out their best. Yes, each member has a responsibility to fulfill their function on their instrument, but personal agendas are put aside. This is the collective understanding on the path to co-creation. Such selflessness is fundamental to the high-performance of the band and embodied in the very essence of how they connect and flow together. Vulnerability in these moments is a strength that engenders trust and freedom, which allows them to express the richness of their artistry to the audience’s delight. The success of the group ensures the success of the individual. “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” –Mahatma Gandhi THE SELFLESS LEADER Why is selflessness a good quality for an effective leader? Selflessness, acting with less concern for yourself alone than for the success of the joint activity, is stepping away from the ego and giving focus to others around you. We can often get caught thinking about ourselves, constantly. To move into a selfless space, we need to be more concerned with the needs and wishes of others than with our own. In national bestseller Stealing Fire, Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal that a benefit of selflessness is an ability to silence our inner critic. As such, we can step away from the repetitive stories of our identity and discover a better version of ourselves. It’s not just about the individual. It’s about the exceptional service, end-product, or experience that will be delivered to clients, customers or audience. In “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t,” Simon Sinek shares a long-standing practice of the U.S. Marines: when the unit has a meal together during field training, and in certain combat environments, the most senior leaders eat last. Leaders eating last is a physical expression of servant leadership. It is also common for Marine leaders to serve food to the entire unit. “The true price of leadership is the willingness to place the needs of others above your own. Great leaders truly care about those they are privileged to lead and understand that the true cost of the leadership privilege comes at the expense of self-interest.” – Simon Sinek A leader practicing selflessness will: Respect each individual’s skill Unlock the full potential of people around them, creating opportunities for them to achieve their goals. Be a giving person, without expecting anything in return. A true leader recognizes the importance of people to their overall success. A leader who models selflessness inspires trust and confidence because people believe that they will be supported and protected. This level of care encourages people to emulate the same behavior, leading to a reciprocity of loyalty and gratitude.Wed, 20 Nov 2019 12:44:00 -0700http://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/post/improvisation-science-and-spiritual-growthhttp://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/post/improvisation-science-and-spiritual-growthCan improvisation be a path for spiritual growth? Caesar DiMauro, improvising Learn the Patterns, Then Improvise In the late 70s and 1980s, I took saxophone lessons with a local legend on Staten Island, Caesar DiMauro. I loved Caesar’s cackling laugh, and his laid-back manner, which mirrored his behind-the-beat jazz style derived from Lester Young. In addition to playing jazz sax on alto, soprano, and tenor, he played orchestral and chamber music on oboe and alto. I’ll always remember the time Caesar played Darius Milhaud’s Scaramouche – Op. 165 at the Jewish Community Center. I sat next to another student of Caesar’s, Jon Gordon, who went on to become an excellent jazz saxophonist. After playing Milhaud’s composition for saxophone flawlessly, Caesar proceeded to swang his butt off performing jazz. We marveled at the depth of his musicianship. At his shed on the South Shore of Staten Island, Caesar once told me: “Greg, in jazz first you learn all your scales, your chord progressions, the blues in every key, the standards. You learn various patterns and solos from your favorite musicians. But when you get on stage, you throw all of that away and just play.” The Science of Improvisation What’s fascinating about the conversations about jazz and improvisation is that it’s almost frightening how well connected are the concepts of improvisation, the notion of these individual parts playing off each other: what you get is an emergent phenomenon that comes from the way they interact. These are cutting edge problems in contemporary evolutionary genetics . . . Brandon Ogbunu, Evolutionary Biologist As quiet as it’s kept, scholars in a wide range of fields have studied how improvisation relates to all from literature and dance, visual art and music, comedy, architecture, nature, and conversations we have every day. The two-volume Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, edited by Columbia Professor of Music (and MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellow) George Lewis and Cornell music professor Benjamin Piekut, clearly demonstrate that improvisation is ubiquitous. But I was still curious: would top scientists relate improvisation to life and the universe? My answers came from evolutionary biologist Brandon Ogbunu and theoretical physicist Stephon Alexander, both science professors at Brown University. Alexander is a saxophonist and the author of the path-breaking book, The Jazz of Physics. I asked these gentlemen to make presentations for a class I led in spring 2019 at Jazz at Lincoln Center, “The Art and Science of Improvisation.”OMG. It reminded me of Johnny Griffin and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis throwin’ down while toasting the town. They dropped so much science that it was like Charlie Parker’s “Donna Lee” morphing into John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” with touches of Ornette Coleman and Muhal Richard Abrams added for good measure.Brandon’s short talk was titled Evolution: Improvisation and Innovation. Takeaway quote: “I think jazz music and biological evolution are two of the greatest improvisational and creative forces in the universe—in terms of what they’re able to do.” Stephon’s slightly longer presentation was as daunting: Improvisation and the Quantum Universe. Takeaway quote: “The Universe improvised us.” All the above leads us now to answer our opening question, which relates improvisation and spirituality. Sonny Rollins Sonny Rollins In 2010 I had the honor of interviewing grandmaster tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins.My daughter Kaya was almost 15. We were in our living room in New Rochelle, NY. I had Sonny on speakerphone so she could share in the experience. Sonny dropped wisdom and knowledge as fluidly as his mighty solo on “Without A Song” from The Bridge. But then he began swinging at an even higher octave: “Greg, I’m striving to get to a place not where I play the horn, but where the horn plays me.” Whoa. I looked at Kaya. Her eyelids rose, her mouth opened in shock. I was astonished too. It’s taken from then ’til now for me to unpack Sonny’s Zen- or Sufi-like statement. He didn’t mean an inanimate object, a woodwind musical instrument, becoming sentient. No. Rather, I think it’s about attunement, being totally in tune with one’s chosen instrument of expression. What Sonny was reaching for goes past the conscious mind to the unconscious flow that connects with Source. That state of consciousness is you being an instrument through which Source plays. Now let’s dance with the wisdom of a spiritual master: Michael Beckwith Rev. Michael BeckwithIn Michael Beckwith’s 40 Day Mind Fast Soul Feast there’s a section titled “Spiritual Loyalty.” He writes: “To grow up spiritually means to take personal responsibility for your growth and development. You drop follow-ship for leadership by Spirit. While you learn from your various teachers, you don’t make them your gods. . . Only you can do the inner work required for you to wake up.”My sax teacher recommended learning the solos of the greats of yesteryear but when you get up on the stage of life, just play you, with your voice and sound. Sonny Rollins, a jazz master since the 1950s, was known for his spiritual quests to India and Japan. He strived to be self-less so Spirit would flow through his horn.Beckwith agrees with the wisdom of my sax teacher and combines it with Sonny’s higher octave:“Remember, spiritual paths are merely the maps [the chord changes, the melodies, the rhythmic patterns], the road guides to awakening, the finger pointing to the moon. Once you’ve arrived, throw away the maps.”And just play.Mon, 18 Nov 2019 12:47:00 -0700http://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/post/mary-lou-williams-nurturing-leadershiphttp://www.jazzleadershipproject.com/blog/post/mary-lou-williams-nurturing-leadershipNurturing Leadership Takeaways The Nurturing Leadership style is similar to the approach in leadership literature called “Servant Leadership” Interpersonal relationships are crucial for professional development Influencing and mentoring other leaders can change the course of history The great Mary Lou Williams is exemplary of Duke Ellington’s “beyond category” appellation because she performed, composed and arranged in all styles of jazz, on the piano as a solo artist, in small ensembles, and Swing Era big bands. Ellington, who like Williams created sacred works in the latter part of his career, called her “perpetually contemporary.” Mary Lou’s impact on the jazz idiom, we contend, is through her Nurturing Leadership. As a composer and arranger, her work ranged from styling similar to the sound of the first great jazz composer, Jelly Roll Morton, and sought-after arrangements in the big band Swing style for Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Tommy Dorsey, to songs aligned with 1940s bebop, and later works based on astrology (“The Zodiac Suite”) and her strong Christian faith, such as “Black Christ of the Andes,” a choral mass tribute to canonized saint Martin de Porres, a Peruvian brother of the Dominican Order. Williams’ talent was so huge that in a vastly male-dominated field of jazz, where women more commonly performed as singers rather than as instrumentalists, she was the featured soloist and pianist in one of the top big bands in the land back in the 1930s, the Andy Kirk Orchestra. Tragedy and Triumph Mary Lou’s path to Nurturing Leadership, however, was far from easy. Her home environment in Pittsburgh during the 1910s was difficult, dysfunctional. Mary Lou was a prodigy, so, fortunately, music was her refuge and escape. Yet as a black American female artist who refused to compromise to the dictates of popular entertainment, and the roles determined by absurd, idiotic racial and gender social codes, her career was fraught with disappointment and trauma. Her contributions to the forward progress of the music were cut short by an emotional breakdown in the early 1950s. Yet a decade before Mary Lou’s momentary departure from the music scene into a permanent devotion to Catholicism, she created a generous space, a container to foster the growth and development of younger musicians who transformed the jazz idiom. Mary Lou’s Impact on Bebop As a musical genius, Mary Lou not only stayed on top of the artistic direction of the music—she also anticipated the new. While serving as the lead arranger for the Andy Kirk big band from the early 30s to early 40s, in the Kansas City blues-swing-stomp style, Mary Lou discovered chords Kirk felt was “against the rules” of music writing. For her excellent documentary on Williams, producer and director Carol Bash quotes Mary Lou’s response: “I said, ‘But I hear a sixth in this chord, I’m going to do it.” Turns out that the minor sixth chord would play a key role in the major style that followed the Swing Era: Bebop. Mary Lou’s influence on the bebop jazz style, a small ensemble rhythmic, harmonic and melodic paradigm shift from the big band era, was profound. Starting in 1943—two years before the revolutionary “Ko Ko” recording by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie was released—Williams began hosting gatherings in her Hamilton Terrace apartment in Harlem, after finishing her Café Society gig downtown in Greenwich Village. At Mary Lou’s home: Hank Jones (playing piano), Dizzy Gillespie, Tadd Dameron, Mary Lou, and Jack Teagarden (far left, looking over the keyboard). The two other persons are unknown. Artistic peers such as Lena Horne and Billy Strayhorn were regulars, as were younger generation lights who pioneered bebop: Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Tadd Dameron, Dizzy Gillespie, and Art Blakey, who Mary Lou brought to New York from Pittsburgh. Mary Lou was like a godmother to Powell, and very close with Monk, whose song “Rhythm-a-ning” was inspired by a Charlie Christian tune (“Meet Dr. Christian,” based on “I Got Rhythm” chord changes), the first eight measures of which was “lifted verbatim from a horn riff Mary Lou Williams wrote for an arrangement of ‘Walking and Swinging,’ first recorded by the Andy Kirk Orchestra,” writes Robin D.G. Kelley in his phenomenal biography of Monk. Mary Lou Williams shaped the development of Bebop, shaped its harmonic ideas and was involved in some of the most intense intellectual debates in her apartment about what direction this music ought to go. Robin D. G. Kelley, historian and author, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of An American Original Through her nurturing care, deep listening, and heartfelt openness to the new, Williams helped to midwife the birth of a whole new style in jazz. In the 1950s she launched the Bel Canto Foundation to help addicted musicians return to performing. In the 1960s, with the friendship, care, and management of Father Peter O’Brien, she began touring again and even launched the Pittsburgh Jazz Festival. She remained a fierce educational advocate of the music for the remainder of her life. Such nurturing leadership moves the emotional texture of the idiom forward, and her imprint as an American cultural hero remains on artists such as the late, great pianist, educator, and bandleader Geri Allen and piano virtuoso Helen Sung. But don’t get it twisted: Mary Lou was herself a virtuoso of jazz piano, clearly seen and heard in the following clip. This stunning 3-minute tour-de-force from 1978, just three years before her spirit shuffled off its mortal coil, is proof of insight by Columbia University scholar Farah Jasmine Griffin: “Music, for Mary Lou, is really a documentation of the triumph over the trauma.”Mon, 18 Nov 2019 09:51:00 -0700