TPPM Watts: (30) Whatever it is that jazz musicians feel

[Paul Nightingale]

"Others remember it in terms of music: through much of the rioting
seemed to run, they say, a remarkable empathy, or whatever it is that
jazz musicians feel on certain nights: everybody knowing what to do and
when to do it without needing a word or a signal ..."

This passage continues the history-from-below "mythmaking". Given the
reference to "jazz musicians", and also my earlier suggestion that
Becker's Outsiders should be seen as contextual to the Watts essay's
concerns ...

In the chapters devoted to dance musicians (ie jazz musicians who are
forced to take commercial, seen as demeaning, work) Becker juxtaposes
musicians and squares (or non-musicians, ie punters): the latter are
ridiculed (because they lack the artistry of musicians) but also feared
because they have the power to impose "commercial pressure[s]"
(Outsiders, 90). Ridicule and fear are, therefore, inseparable: begging
the only question, when is ridicule dominant, and when fear?

In the Watts essay, then, the "remarkable empathy" of "jazz musicians"
signifies self-expression; it is the antithesis of conformity (as
demanded, eg, by "poverty warriors" who might be seen as squares). Here,
such "empathy" is a bond, and should be differentiated from the kind of
empathy that allows the NY-tourist to share, temporarily, the lot of the
ghetto kid confronted by racist cops.

There has been much discussion of empathy, at the very least implicit in
the frequent appearance of "you"; yet the one appearance of the word
itself is in connection with the co-ordinated activity of musicians, and
by extension with the co-ordinated (or 'choreographed') activity of
rioters. Ultimately, in the Watts essay, there is no place for
empathy-as-tourism.