Por: Terrell Quillin

Bootleg Like jazz comes from a combination of Black History and Jazz history. Black Americans, AAs, experience in this country started as a diminished experience. We were 3/5ths of a human. Subjugated, denied education, denied having family denied and only given the scraps. Here comes jazz, in order to learn how to play music Black folks had to learn by ear, from watching other people perform and from knowledge passed down. Jazz is an art form built off of diminished chords and diminished opportunities. The musicians, you know, couldn’t legally learn to read or write due to slave codes. As a result, pretty much anything that Black folks wanted to learn they had to do it unconventionally, by candlelight, after working a long shift or when no one is around. Most jazz chords are diminished in some form so I thought to myself, jazz is really a bootleg art form. Whether it be finger placement or how someone learned to play it that way. The original Founders of jazz probably didn’t have any formal musical education or separate but equal musical education and many jazz musicians in general started out with a feeling. When jazz was gaining popularity it occurred during some of the most difficult days in the black community. So here you have the people who are considered ⅗ of a human in America, former slaves, no formal training inspiring, creating and distributing the most important art form to humanity: jazz. They were able to create something that people from foreign countries, diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and different tongues would come to love. That’s the African-American experience- which is an American experience. It’s a mixture of history and music, good times and bad times, the status quo and the underground, subjugation and determination. American culture and travel society and perspective. That’s bootLegLikeJazz.

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