THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2020 N C7has taken free jazz from community centers
to Town Hall, traces this spirit to works like
Duke Ellington’s 1943 “Black, Brown and
Beige” to later suites by Max Roach and
Sonny Rollins, and the free jazz and loft jazz
movements of the 1960s and ’70s. Then
came the ’80s, when “everybody went to
sleep thinking that we had accomplished
something, but all we really got were the
leftovers,” Mr. Parker said in a Zoom inter-
view. Artists like Mr. Parker, of course, have
performed and recorded revolution-minded
“fire music” through the 1980s and up to the
present, and the last decade has seen a re-
surgence in political jazz music, especially
from the downtown, avant-garde and
Brooklyn scenes.
It’s certainly rare, though, to see a jazz
musician with a household name and a na-
tional platform like Mr. Batiste inviting
thousands into the streets. And the pianist
has the support of Mr. Colbert, who has
carved out time on his broadcast to discuss
his musical director’s activism.
“In the present darkness that constitutes
so much of the national conversation, Jon,
by his example and his spirit, gives me hope
I might do my job and maintain my own hu-
manity,” Mr. Colbert said in an email. “I be-
lieve long after no one knows who I am, the
name Jon Batiste will be spoken with admi-
ration. I’m grateful to know him.”
A genre-crossing virtuoso and crowd-
pleaser, Mr. Batiste is particularly suited for
a moment of protest in the streets: He’s
from New Orleans, where the city’s famed
Second Line marches have built a tradition
of “catharsis and release,” he said, in which
music lifts anguish or outrage toward a col-
lective joy. He grew up surrounded by musi-
cal relatives and draws special inspiration
from his grandfather, the president of a New
Orleans postal workers union, who
marched and organized for his workers.
“Jon is walking in that lineage, and not
just musically,” said Brian Blade, a drum-
mer and composer with his own strong New
Orleans connection. “It’s in the essence of
our feet on the ground, moving forward,
gathering a movement through example.”
A spirit of collective humanity has always
powered Mr. Batiste’s art. His “Late Show”
band, Stay Human, is a diverse ensemble
known for marching right into the crowd
during performances. The protests taketheir name from “We Are,” his new single, a
pop gospel showcase written and recorded
last year that features the marching band
from St. Augustine High School in New Or-
leans. He recorded “The Star Spangled
Banner,” with all that thunder, on the 2013
album “Social Music.”And at the marches
the music is indisputably social.
“It was such a powerful day,” the saxo-
phonist Grace Kelly, a frequent Batiste col-
laborator, said of Mr. Batiste’s June 6 march
from Union Square to Washington Square
Park, which organizers say drew 5,000 peo-
ple. “There were over 10 tubas, 30-plus
trumpets, and maybe 50 saxophones. It was
louder than we could speak. Louder than we
could sing.”
Mr. Batiste and his organizers are weigh-
ing the logistics of taking the “We Are” pro-
tests to cities across the United States in the
coming months, focusing on a practical
goal: voter registration and the exposure of
voter suppression.
“There are three candidates that we’re
dealing with,” Mr. Batiste said. “Donald
Trump, Joe Biden and the candidate of apa-
thy. Apathy’s insidious. It comes from hav-
ing a weight on our collective shoulders for
centuries that has made us feel that we
don’t matter, that we’re not seen and that
our vote doesn’t count.”
Like many of the city’s jazz players, Car-
oline Davis, a saxophonist and composer,
has protested at several Brooklyn and Man-
hattan rallies in recent weeks. “It’s inspir-
ing to be with people who are in this for the
long haul,” she said, after marching with Mr.
Batiste on June 6, the first time she’s gotten
to play music with colleagues in person
since March.
Ms. Davis co-teaches a course in jazz and
gender at the New School and feels a re-
sponsibility to honor jazz’s history of pro-
test. “I feel that, as Nina Simone said, it’s the
artist’s job to reference the time in which we
live,” she said.
Mr. Parker has dedicated his career to
nurturing that activist spirit. He has
marched dozens of times since 2016 with the
Artists for a Free World marching band, a
loose collective organized by Arts for Art,
the nonprofit organization that hosts the an-
nual Vision Festival and is currently
presenting Zoom concerts and salons.
“I’ve been talking for the last, oh, 40 years
or so about how every once in a while a win-dow opens up and things can happen,” Mr.
Parker, 68, said. “But we have to have num-
bers, we have to be persistent, and we have
to really lay it out in the consciousness of
people.”
Last week, on Bandcamp he released the
searing and mournful “Baldwin,” a track
from a coming 10-disc box set of new ma-
terial dedicated to “those who want to elimi-
nate hate, racism, sexism, greed and lies.”
He’s not alone in sharing fresh music
keyed to the cause: The drummer Johna-
than Blake and the vibes player Joel Ross
both released pre-Covid commissioned con-
certs from the Jazz Gallery on YouTube. The
sets, titled “My Life Matters” and “Being a
Young Black Man,” come with requests for
donations to Black Lives Matter and the
NAACP Legal Defense Fund. And the poet
Camae Ayewa shouts: “Enough! Enough!
Enough!” over the free-jazz squall of “Irre-
versible Live in Berlin” on a pair of blister-
ing live sets from the protest-minded quin-
tet Irreversible Entanglements.
“Music is a wake-up call,” Mr. Parker
said. “After the protest, you listen to it and it
helps keep you awake. Because the problem
is not to wake up — it’s not to go back to
sleep.”Mr. Batiste believes it’s his responsibility
to use his platform to keep the crowds
awake. That platform is also expanding. Mr.
Batiste’s fingers will power the music in
“Soul,” the first Pixar feature to center on a
black lead, slated for a Nov. 20 release. He
has maintained the kind of proudly unpre-
dictable career common to 21st-century
jazz musicians. In 2019 he released a pair of
in-the-tradition Verve albums recorded at
the Village Vanguard. Since then he’s de-
buted a funk-favoring band of all-women
collaborators on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts
and improvised on an independent release,
“Meditations,” with the guitarist Cory
Wong.
Despite his personal success, he remains
focused on the inequality he’s committed to
fighting. “Four hundred and one years of
people and their voices being completely
marginalized has led to systemic racism
and sexism that has been perpetuated even
in our triumphs,” he said. “The idea that we
can have triumphs and also perpetuate
toxic ideologies is a nuance that we have yet
to explore in the public dialogue. But now
there’s a chance for a real collective con-
sciousness shifting.”Jon Batiste
Is Taking It
To the Streets
Jon Batiste, above, has the
support of his “Late Night”
colleague Stephen Colbert, who
has discussed the recent
protests on his TV show. Right,
“Now there’s a chance for a real
collective consciousness
shifting,” says Mr. Batiste,
shown outside Barclays Center.
CONTINUED FROM PAGE C1PHOTOGRAPHS BY HIROKO MASUIKE/THE NEW YORK TIMES‘There are three
candidates that we’re
dealing with. Donald
Trump, Joe Biden and
the candidate of apathy.
Apathy’s insidious. It
comes from having a
weight on our collective
shoulders for centuries.’
JON BATISTE
The president and chief executive of the
Museum of Jewish Heritage imparted some
grim news to just over 50 of the institution’s
employees on Monday.
“Two weeks ago, I shared with you that
the museum was facing an existential crisis
caused by the coronavirus pandemic,” the
president, Jack Kliger, said during a Zoom
conference, according to a record of his re-
marks provided by the museum, in Lower
Manhattan. “By now, you know that this cri-
sis has forced us to make some very difficult
decisions in order to ensure the museum’s
survival.”
Apologizing for the news, Mr. Kliger went
on to inform the workers that 32 of them —
more than 40 percent of the staff — would be
laid off, according to the record from the
museum.
In addition, he said, some of those who re-
mained with the museum would have to
adapt to “new roles or reduced hours.”
The layoffs, changed job functions and
planned budget cuts of almost 40 percent
were first reported by The Forward. The
museum, which describes itself as “a living
memorial to the Holocaust,” was formedwith the aim of “educating diverse visitors
about Jewish life before, during and after
the Holocaust.”
An audio recording of the Zoom meeting
that was obtained by The New York Times
included questions from employees. One
asked: “What, if any pay cuts, were imple-
mented at the executive and senior man-
agement level?”
There were no pay reductions for execu-
tive and senior managers, Mr. Kliger
responded.
The layoffs came as an especially severe
blow at the museum given the accolades it
has received for its Auschwitz exhibition,
which went up in 2019 and drew more vis-
itors than ever before to the institution.
Mr. Kliger said in the Zoom call that “as
soon as we closed on March 15, we knew we
would face financial hardship and began
preparing for the possibility of layoffs,” ac-
cording to the museum’s record, but added
that the museum held off on layoffs as long
as it could and would extend health benefits
to those who were being laid off through
Sept. 30, which was as long as the budget
would allow.
The museum was not planning furtherstaff reductions, he told the employees.
Mr. Kliger said that the museum had tak-
en steps to shore up its finances, starting a
campaign to raise money and obtaining a
grant from the New York Community Trust
and a loan from the federal Paycheck Pro-
tection Program.
In a telephone interview on Tuesday, Mr.
Kliger said that those who were being laid
off included employees who worked in vis-
itor services and who were involved in
tours.
That was a reflection of the fact that even
when the museum reopens, he said, it will
not likely have as many visitors as it did be-
fore the pandemic, partly because of health
and safety guidelines and partly because it
plans to be open three days a week instead
of six.
That was steering something of a restruc-
turing within the museum, Mr. Kliger said,
adding that the institution was concentrat-
ing on virtual online exhibitions and devel-
oping digital programs that would help
teachers instruct students about the
Holocaust.
“The museum will still be the museum,”
he said. “If they can’t come to the museum,
the museum will come to them.”The Museum of Jewish Heritage Resorts to Wide Layoffs
The Museum of Jewish Heritage is dealing with “very difficult decisions.”
ANNIE TRITT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESOver 40 percent of staff members lose their jobs as the
museum struggles with finances in the pandemic.
By COLIN MOYNIHAN