The Jazz & People’s Movement

Abstract

The multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk (1936-1978) was one of the most thrilling jazz performers of the Sixties and Seventies, wowing audiences with his lively blend of musical styles and his unique ability to play multiple saxophones at once. Still, one particularly exciting aspect of his life is unfamiliar to most, jazz fans included. In 1970, Kirk formed an activist group which he dubbed the Jazz and People’s Movement (JPM), with the purpose of lobbying television networks to broadcast more jazz and black musicians. And in order to ensure the networks took the call seriously, the JPM seized the television studios by storm – during the taping of major prime-time programs! The JPM was one among many self-help collectives working in New York and Chicago at the time, all seeking to mediate the material and cultural stresses facing musicians following jazz’s sharp decline in the 1960s. Kirk’s movement was unique, however, in identifying mainstream culture industries as a key site of struggle in the politics of production, documentation, and dissemination. And the JPM’s dynamic public disturbance tactics contrasted with the quieter, inward-looking programs of other collectives. Its aesthetic inclusivism also set it apart from most other jazz community groups which heavily favored avant-garde music. Under Kirk’s leadership, the JPM demonstrated that the mass production and consumption of art and culture had important political relevance and power for the liberation of black music specifically, and of black America more generally. Although the movement was short-lived and did not achieve many of its stated goals, it provides a visible intersection of music, race, and society, and is thus a highly valuable historical subject. This thesis explores the impact of Kirk’s political and aesthetic ideals on his conception of the JPM; the consistently interconnected material and cultural underpinnings of the movement’s agenda; the group’s protest actions, and the accompanying reactions in the music community and the press; the causes of the JPM’s dissolution; and the movement’s broader impact and legacy.