Line, Change

200614 | On the jazz problem, HiFiLo, and music as resistance.

Sister, I promise you I’m changing

You’ve had broken promises, I know

If you want to change it, you must break it

Rip it up and something new will grow

Hello from the ravine where children have stopped to look at two raccoon kits huddled on a fencepost. “They’re teenagers,” the youngest girl clarifies, “not babies.” The children become aware of my approach and instinctively continue along the path with quick steps and in silence.

Above: Screengrab from Dizzy Gillespie Quintet (1966). From left to right: James Moody, Chris White, Gillespie, Rudy Collins.

A summer storm. Before the downpour, a sudden gust tears two limbs from the old maple, hurling them into the neighbour’s backyard. The house trembles from the impact. City workers arrive within days to feed each piece into the woodchipper.

Change is gradual or it is sudden. It can be an act of violence or of joy. Stasis, on the other hand, can only ever be violent.

In elementary school our teachers would shepherd us to the gymnasium where they arranged us in two concentric circles according to sex. Today, they said, we would learn to line dance.