My biggest encounters with jazz music have always taken place in formal settings. They involved having to play pieces in stuffy rooms with a piano instructor or examiner. While I enjoyed playing those works, they felt like a watered-down version of jazz. I knew the genre had a lot of depth and power to it, but it came off as too complex, something beyond what I could understand.

For a lot of people in the NYU Abu Dhabi community, jazz is everything. It is the artist's entry point to the creative world, where they can express themselves and amplify their own voices. This passion came up while I was sitting with NYUAD alumna Vamika Sinha, Class of 2020. Sinha is a trained musician. She plays the flute and piano professionally and was a member of a jazz band in high school. In addition, she’s a writer and Editor-in-Chief of Postscript Magazine. Before sitting with her, she referred me to a personal piece she wrote in the style of a Jazz piece, about the music form, its history and how it manifests itself in her life.

Photo courtesy of Vamika Sinha

“Perhaps I like Louis Armstrong because he’s made poetry out of being invisible … And my own grasp of invisibility aids me to understand his music…,” she writes. Jazz was born in the 20th century out of the African American experience. Ted Gioia’s The History of Jazz clarifies how there are numerous predecessors that influenced the style. Most come from African musical heritage, notably the African drum beats and Carribean rhythms. This dates back to the early nineteenth century, when Black slaves would gather in Congo Square — now known as Louis Armstrong Park — to dance, play music and share their traditions. Similarly, Gioia explains the role of the work song —which is also closely linked to slavery, as workers would protest their oppression and exploitation. This act of liberation is itself the invention of jazz. Jazz is truly a music of the marginalized and the revolutionaries. It is a medium to assert one’s identity and reclaim one’s history.

Described as the “first original, sophisticated instrumental music in American history,” jazz was long rejected by white America. Farah Griffin, chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department at Columbia University, explains how in the early days, jazz was primarily played in the red light districts of New Orleans — subsequently, it was perceived as an immoral music form. It even received backlash in The New York Times writing, which used to publish anti-jazz articles. However, this did not stop the music form from growing and spreading both nationally and internationally.

It was a novel music form, mainly characterized by syncopation, a strong beat, unique tonalities and improvisation. Freedom lies at the core of jazz, both conceptually and technically. Improvisation is one of the ways that this freedom is manifested. In this way, jazz bends its own musical rules regularly. “They expect you to look outside of the sheet of paper, and … really think about how the song should sound. It gives more power to the musician,” expresses drummer Jake Chouljian, Class of 2022.

This freedom is balanced by the conversational nature of jazz. “I think you just have to be very conscious of the space … you have to think about the other musicians,” adds Chouljian.

Still from a video, courtesy of Jake Chouljian

Freedom, improvisation, collaboration — all these elements create a philosophy of jazz that goes beyond the music. It becomes something to live by. This sentiment resonates with Sinha, who often finds herself “thinking about the philosophies … of jazz and applying that to life. It all goes back to like, knowing the rules, and then messing with them … I like questioning things and pushing them forward”

Jazz is a medium through which novel and global music forms come to life. One example of this is in the work of ethnomusicologist and instructor of music at NYUAD, Ghazi Al-Mulaifi. His project Boom.Diwan is described as “a collaborative global jazz ensemble that is inspired by the cosmopolitan Kuwaiti pearl diving music of the Indian Ocean trade. With influences spanning Zanzibar to Calicut, improvisation, fluidity and dialogue are at the center of Boom.Diwan.” Al-Mulaifi explained how jazz is a really welcoming genre that paved the way for dialogue in Boom.Diwan.

Photo courtesy of Boom.Diwan’s Website

Ghazi Al-Mulaifi. Image courtesy of Boom.Diwan Website

When I asked Al-Mulaifi about the differences between Arabic music and jazz — the latter of which is often perceived as a Western music form, he expressed that there are more similarities than differences between the two. This is especially true considering the migratory nature of both Kuwaiti bahri music and jazz. “Jazz in the Arab world … wouldn't exist without jazz that came out of the United States, and jazz that came out of the United States migrated through parts of the Arab world as well, before it became what we call jazz today. So I think the more we understand historically about how populations moved, the more we realize that there are real connections.”

For Boom.Diwan, it is moments of “pure recognition” that highlight the power of jazz. “We don't have a common language … but through these rhythms, we recognize each other.”

Furthermore, Boom.Diwan engages with the revolutionary nature of jazz and its rule as a medium of protest by being a disruptive force to the heritage discourse often prevalent in traditional Arabic music. It is a discourse that wants to keep Kuwaiti bahri music canonized and unchanging, explains Al-Mulaifi. “We’re disrupting the static state that Kuwaiti bahri music has been kept in as an expression of heritage and national identity,” he states.

“[Jazz] disrupts the idea of genre … the idea of things not fitting with each other being in dialogue with each other … that's why we’re drawn to it,” concluded Al-Mulaifi.