The Healing History Of Jazz Music

When we think of jazz, we think of instruments — saxophones, pianos, trumpets, trombones, clarinets, bass, drums, and guitars — blending in unpredictable ways to craft listening journeys fit for late nights and early mornings. We think of peace, relaxation, maybe even distraction.

The genre’s proven its versatility with its presence on playlists for dinner parties, studying sessions, meditative breathwork, and other activities we’d dub comforting. It’s undeniable that music has healing properties, such as reducing stress, boosting creativity, and stimulating the brain, but a recent study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine revealed that improvisational music like jazz goes further, possessing the potential to reduce anxiety, and even pain. That intersection of music and wellness is now being explored in music therapy programs to assist patients with their physical, mental, and emotional condition.

“I feel like music as a whole is spiritual,” says Samantha Sancho, a music therapist at The Louis Armstrong Department of Music Therapy at Mount Sinai. “For example, when people are going through such difficult times those types of genre, especially gospel, may come up as people are dealing with their illness.” Mount Sinai serves patients from the neonatal intensive care unit, end-of-life palliative care, neurodivergent children and adults, and more across multiple locations throughout Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn. Currently, Sancho’s researching how music therapy can reduce the amount of Black women that are disproportionately affected by preterm birth in pregnancy. “I do think that an aspect of music therapy that we utilize is improvisation, and we see that in jazz a lot,” she explains.

Clearly, jazz produces a spectrum of emotions (and emotional benefits), so it’s only natural that its impact has expanded since its creation in the late 19th century. The artform is constantly evolving, resulting in several modern subgenres — think Japanese jazz fusion in popular video games like Mario Kart and notable jazz rap albums from A Tribe Called Quest, Digable Planets, and Kendrick Lamar. Dinner Party musicians Kamasi Washington, 9th Wonder, Robert Glasper, and Terrace Martin offer new contributions to the genre quite frequently, whether it’s a solo or group project. Even Juicy J, who just released his second jazz-influenced album Caught Up in The Illusion over the summer with bassist Endea Owens, said in an interview with DJ Bonics that jazz still doesn’t receive its proper acknowledgment.

But, thanks to promising artists like Destin Conrad, the genre won’t be forgotten — in fact, it’s being sustained by younger performers and listeners, many approaching it with wellness in mind. whIMSY, his new experimental jazz project, was prompted by Conrad’s time in his high school’s jazz choir and inspired by pioneers like Frank Sinatra, Vanisha Gould, Miles Davis, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Chet Baker. As his tour wraps up, he hopes listeners peruse jazz in a “more introspective way,” describing his interpretation of the genre as a meditative experience.

Unsurprisingly, the birthplace of jazz music is New Orleans, Louisiana, the culturally-rich and lively city that influenced other genres like zydeco and bounce. Derived from gospel, blues, and ragtime, jazz was a byproduct of enslaved people in the South. Lyrics provided a cathartic release of their painful trials and tribulations, while their hearts and souls rose through the instruments.

To Melanie Charles, the genre is our “ancestral right,” and the artist ensures that there’s safety, comfort, and visibility within the music. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Charles’ Haitian roots are as pronounced in her versatile musical style as her upbringing. “The roots of jazz are spirituals [and] the blues, it’s a shared thing, a secret thing, that we had to bring us comfort and community,” Charles said. “We were snatched away from our native land, and we’re in this space. It’s like, ‘What do we have? What can we hold on to? What can they not take away from us?’”

The mass relocation of Black Americans during The Great Migration brought jazz to the North, which transformed the Harlem Renaissance. The definition of wellness for musicians — in this case, Black musicians — has evolved over centuries, and that artistic expression was apparent in visual arts, dance, theater, and literature in the 1920s.

Sasha Doster, a PhD candidate at Columbia University studying historical musicology, describes this period of time as a “redefining of personhood.”

“These are people who still have the collective memory of what it means to be a bondaged people, and what they’re doing in the Harlem Renaissance is this is the first time that Black people have been able to define who they were, at least in the public eye.”

Doster’s research lies in Black classical music and intertwines the complexity of assimilation and respectability politics in genres like opera and ballet. While acknowledging writer, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston as a vanguard for preserving Southern history, Doster says “freedom is essential to the elements of jazz.”

“Everything from poetry to literature, music, and dance is how we redefine ourselves. And I think that’s so beautiful, because you’re finally giving Black people agency, and the way that they choose to do it is through the arts.” Harlem became a pinnacle of historical preservation and self-expression for Black people, which further explains Doster’s takeaway that jazz, blues, and gospel are communal—pointing to the church choir, jazz ensembles, and bands.

“That’s the beauty of Black music. From the very beginning, it was meant to bring people together until this day, it has not lost its foundational goal.”

Jordan Brown, who is currently receiving her doctorate in ethnomusicology at Harvard University, agrees that other Black genres wouldn’t exist without the foundation of jazz. Her dissertation focuses on Black alternative R&B and hip-hop, particularly its overlap as a refuge for Black queer communities in the United States.

In her words, the fusion of jazz, hip hop, R&B, funk, and rap created the template that artists like Thundercat, Arlo Parks, Flying Lotus, Willow, Frank Ocean, and Steve Lacy build on today. “A lot of these people that seemingly fall under this alternative umbrella tend to cite a lot of jazz musicians as their inspiration,” Brown says.

If music fosters an abundance of creativity and critical thinking, we should seek out more of its cognitive components. As John Coltrane said, “I think music is an instrument. It can create the initial thought patterns that can change the thinking of people.” Add more jazz to your life: spend a weeknight at a local piano bar, watch a documentary like Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, or sift through stations on NTS Radio to discover the genre’s global influence. Before you know it, jazz might enhance your well-being.