There was an underground jazz scene of sorts during the war in Berlin. One of the founders of the listening club known as the Berlin Hot Club was Francis Wolff, who later co-founded Blue Note Records in New York. This group would get together and listen to jazz records that had made their way to Germany. As Hans Bluthner, a member of the Berlin Hot Club and an important Jazz historian of this time, wrote, “I always said that had it not been for jazz, I would have died during the war. It gave me so much happiness and hope. It proved to me that I was not a German but a member of humanity.”
And despite the love some Nazis did have for the music, one musician who was part of the Berlin Hot Club stated, “I am absolutely sure there were no Nazis in the Berlin Hot Club. We always said that anybody who liked jazz could never be a Nazi.’”
This sort of sentiment reminds me of my friend, the legendary writer Nat Hentoff and his thoughts on jazz. To him, it was the perfect representation of what democracy at its best could be. Think about it: each band member gets a chance to be in the spotlight with his or her solo, but that solo will only sound good if the band plays well and helps that solo sound good. Then, after that soloist’s chance in the spotlight, the help the next soloist sound good! A beautiful sentiment, Nat said that, “The essence of freedom is jazz, it is constitutional democracy when it works, complete collective participation. And it swings.”
Or, as Wynton Marsalis put it, “Jazz music is the perfect metaphor for democracy. We improvise, which is our individual rights and freedoms; We swing, which means we are responsible to nurture the common good, with everyone in fine balance; And we play the blues, which means no matter how bad things get, we remain optimistic while still mindful of problems.”
Which makes the following feel contradictory and hard for me to fathom:
1. The Luftwaffe pilots who liked getting the order to bomb London because the closer they were to London the closer they were to jazz radio which they could listen while bombing.
2. The French resistance members who loved jazz and, as members of the resistance were fighting against the concept that some blood is better than others; however, some of these resistance members wouldn’t applaud for white musicians. As written about in the 1943 edition of Jazz Hot: “If in America prejudice exists, even when it comes to music, against the blacks, the contrary prejudice seems to exist in France. Americans do not seem to be aware that jazz owes everything to the blacks; here the situation is the reverse. This is ridiculous. The public falls in love with the first Negro who comes over and who can bang on the top of a box, while only admitting the value and talent of white musicians with great reluctance. Certain members of the Hot Club withhold applause for players like Hubert Rostaing, who can compete very well with blacks. Our musicians have made great progress. . . That same year, Asmussen reopened the great Danish jazz debate by taking a public Crow Jim stand: ‘Jazz is stagnating in this country because white people will never be able to master a music which blacks have in their blood when they are born.’”
It’s also hard for me to fathom stories like that of trumpeter Arthur Briggs, who was known as the “Louis Armstrong of France.” The African-American Briggs moved to Europe after becoming disillusioned with the the racism he felt in America (remember it wasn’t Hitler who snubbed Jesse Owens; FDR did.) After gaining Europe notoriety, in 1940 he was captured and sent to the Nazi prison camp St. Denis, where he was forced to lead their orchestra and perform at the pleasure of his captors.
As we passed the former sites of Auschwitz's gas chambers and entered the former site of the camp's crematorium, we all began to sing the haunting melody of “Ani Maamin." One of the most powerful moments over my entire life, the song was composed by Rabbi Shaul Yedidya Elazar on a cattle car heading to the Treblinka death camp, and was sung by many Jews on their way to gas chambers at various camps throughout World War II - including this one.
Even so, the song’s lyrics are hopeful and speak to the eternal hope and perseverance of the Jewish people. The song includes the following words, which were even scratched onto an Auschwitz wall: “I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining/I believe in love even when I don’t feel it/I believe in God even when He is silent.“
In my eternal exploration of defining Jewish music, I often say that while many people think sad songs in minor keys represent a Jewish sound, that can't be so because that same sound is the sound of many cultures. To me, I've long-felt that if there is an actual Jewish move in music, it’s not songs in minor keys; it’s songs in minor keys that end in major keys. Songs like "Summertime" or "Ose Shalom," songs that from sad to happy. From Oy to Joy. While "Ani Maamin" also goes from a minor key to a major key, the function of this sad song providing hope in the darkest of times is representative of Jewish Music as well. The music, like the message of the Jewish religion, and the message and feeling of jazz as well, is a hopeful one; it's life-affirming always - no matter how dark life might be. I'm reminded of what iconic jazz saxophonist Johnny Griffin once said, “Jazz is music made by and for people who have chosen to feel good in spite of conditions.”
As we finished singing the song, nearly all of us in tears, our tour guide explained that the camp now functions as both a memorial and a warning. Sadly, I’ve felt that warning a whole lot lately.
Here’s to never forgetting our past, to better days ahead, and to remaining hopeful throughout.