Interview with William Bares
William Bares is a jazz pianist and ethnomusicologist specializing in African American music and popular music of the African diaspora. He is currently working on a PhD at Harvard University. Bares has spent the past several years in Europe researching the intersection of jazz and national identity in Switzerland, Italy, Norway, and Germany. His PhD dissertation titled "Eternal Triangle: American Jazz in European Postmodern" focuses on the complex relationships between European, American, and African American identities in the evolving transatlantic jazz marketplace. He also performs frequently in New York and Europe, and has shared the stage with many of Berlin's most accomplished musicians. He also fronts his own band, "Billy the Kid and the Outlaws," whose latest album, "Essences," is due for release in the fall of 2008. He was a speaker at the Harvard Berlin Dialogues session on June 30, 2008, "Jazz in the Kulturnation."
Interview by Sabrina Dax
What is the topic of your doctoral research?
I’m writing about the way European, American, and African American identities have always been in play and are currently still in play. If Europeans align themselves with certain American identities, sometimes African Americans feel left out. Alternately, if Europe sees itself as hospitable to African Americans, Americans feel alienated. I include a contemporary geopolitical argument in my research. America is still involved in many world conflicts, whereas Europe imagines itself as the center of peace and prosperity for the world. These beliefs translate into the jazz realm as follows: When American musicians hear European musicians, they don’t understand their music, because it seems so peaceful, avant-garde, and unfamiliar. A similar experience happens when Americans come over to Europe; Europeans think American jazz music is too aggressive or too individualistic. These kinds of dialogues are happening right now.
I aim to take the middle ground between these dialogues. The question I attempt to answer is a question of international relations: How do these musicians converse with and understand each other? Many Europeans misunderstand American excellence. They don’t examine the way that African American excellence is different from American excellence. African American excellence in music is a way of demonstrating the importance of African culture, one-upping white America. Americans think European musicians are privileged to have a very strong amount of artistic support for their work, to the extent that it makes them complacent. There’s an element of truth to that argument, but I think the broader argument is that America could actually use a little bit of support for its musicians. Hurricane Katrina, for example, completely wiped out African American heritage in New Orleans, and nobody cared. There is a little bit of private support from places like the Lincoln Center, but the government should really get involved.
What kind of support do you envision?
I look critically at some of the funding bodies in Europe, because musicians in Europe often receive money when there is no audience for their music. There is a certain belief in America that the cream really does rise to the top, which you wouldn’t want to get rid of. You can’t support music without involving an audience, and you can’t support musicians without thinking about the demand for their music. I know that American musicians come over to Europe and are blown away by the support from the audience. African American musicians I speak to feel that African American audiences do not support jazz, because other music forms like hip-hop are far more popular. But with the proper funding, you could probably build an audience. In Europe, support starts with municipalities at the local level. In the US, jazz used to be a priority area, an export to the rest of the world as the ideal embodiment of American democracy. Support is different in every country, and I don’t think there’s one right way to support jazz music, but I think the very least you can do is to support music in your own country.
Do you think there is a strong correlation between politics and music?
Yes. There is a strong geopolitical argument in this field. Fifty years ago, the question of where you came from was not as important for jazz musicians. It started in the sixties, when musicians suddenly became Afro-centric or Euro-centric. Today it’s reached a fever pitch, and where you come from has become really important. What is it in the air, geopolitically, that makes this so important? I think the Cold War was one factor, since it created a very stable political configuration, which is now gone. Globalization plays a role as well. There is so much musical information available that unless you have a geographical story behind it, no one will go see you play. In Europe, there is a real interest in asserting a different identity from America. I am very excited about this topic because there are so many deeper cultural and geopolitical elements involved in jazz.
What role do you think jazz plays in constructing national identities?
When Dizzy Gillespie and a lot of musicians from the fifties said that jazz is an international music, they meant that jazz is an international music with African American sensibilities. It is a participatory music; anywhere where jazz is played in the world, people can get together and have a great time. The towering triumph of jazz today in the global era is that it has become a global musical lingua franca that everybody understands. But in fact it is a tower of babble, a lot of little micro languages that nobody actually understands. I think that’s a betrayal of what the musicians from the fifties where hoping for. Part of the problem is that musicians view jazz as art music rather than folk music. You pay attention to where folk music comes from. For instance, you wouldn’t try to say that you’re an American Flamenco player without understanding Flamenco. But a lot of European musicians say they are jazz musicians without exploring the roots of jazz music.
Do you think that jazz has the potential to promote intercultural dialogue?
Yes. In fact, I think that is the point of jazz. But it was always envisioned under the rubric of a particular African American sensibility, and there are a lot of moral lessons to be learned from African American music. It is interesting to hear the political rhetoric of Europe, which states that they have been more tolerant of African Americans over the years and that America is racially backward. But they have not owned up to their colonial past and don’t recognize that their prosperity rests on exploiting the rest of the world. If I sound anti-European, I didn’t always feel this way. When I first came here I was blown away by all the new and creative music, but recently I’ve begun to see that the emperor often has no clothes.
You mentioned that African American musicians feel that jazz does not get a lot of support from African American audiences. Do many musicians feel that jazz is an art form that is dying and that needs to be preserved?
I think so, but you can’t preserve it artificially. The music has been whitened in the United States, to the point that a lot of African Americans view it as inauthentic. Other African Americas see African American music not in terms of genre, but in terms of continuum, so they’ll mention Mahalia Jackson, Charlie Parker and Snoop Dog in one breath and understand that there’s no difference. I subscribe to the latter opinion.
What role do you think academic institutions play in supporting jazz?
One thing I love about America is that the jazz discourse is so well developed in academia. The discourse in Germany is not in dialogue with many African American or American discourses. I love the fact that African American departments are interested in jazz and literature departments are interested in jazz; there’s a real interdisciplinary dialogue. However, I don’t like that there’s not a whole lot of interaction between American and European perspectives on jazz because of the language barrier. Part of what I’m doing is trying to bridge that gap.
You lived in Berlin for a year on a CES research grant. What was your experience living in Berlin?
I interviewed musicians as part of my participant observation. As an ethnomusicologist, you’re supposed to immerse yourself in a different culture and learn how play music according to their rules. The rules are totally different in Berlin and it actually took me a while for me to be able to play with musicians here because they play so much wilder and more freely.
Do you think your academic research has enhanced your experience as a pianist?
Absolutely. Many white people in the United States still have a sense of entitlement, so being forced to interview African American musicians and look at their intellectual history gave me a completely different relationship to the music. I understand that there’s a ritual component to the music; it’s not just about the notes you play, but it’s about dialoguing with this history.
Which city or country is a big center for jazz?
Even though Berlin is being positioned as a center by commercial forces in play, it is more of a frontier, more like the old West where anything is possible. I really like that about this city. But the real center of music is probably Paris. It has the most history. London is another center, because it is a big world city and a postcolonial capital.
Norway is also a big center for jazz. Culturally speaking, each Norwegian county has priority, so musicians in Norway get a lot of funding to tour all over the country. There is also a holistic approach to music education in Norway; music students learn many kinds of music in addition to classical music.
What are you recommendations for jazz venues in Berlin?
Bflat near Rosenthaler Platz in Berlin.