Latin Jazz is a Peacebuilding Practice

Saw the great percussionist Sammy Figueroa down here in South Beach last week. This was a Latin jazz performance, but really it was a rhythm performance, when you get right down to it. Sammy was joined by another percussionist on timbales, plus a guy on vibes (which, being mallet-based is a percussive instrument), a guy on keyboards (another instrument that is struck), and an electric bassist. They achieved periods of intensive polyrhythmic improvisation that were both astoundingly complex and exceedingly joyful. When I considered what it meant to get several hundred people fully together on a wavelength like this, I realized that music making of this sort is a peacebuilding practice par excellence. It's easy to get people together with music that is simplistic or jingoistic, but to get people together in a way that is cognitively, bodily, and spiritually evolved, well, that, my friends, is something. It shows that complex social organization is possible in a way that is at once highly energetic and completely nonviolent. That's a neat trick. That's the goal.