Jazz and social justice 

Good afternoon! Thank you for coming today to share with us this celebration of Jazz, and of Social Justice.

First, I would like to ask :

As you know, jazz was born in the 1890's in New Orleans, and first I would like to mention that there is a deep connection between the city of Hamburg and the city of New Orleans.

In "The Independent" newspaper of Sunday July 8, that is last week, I read about a book called Destined to Witness , Growing up Black in Nazi Germany by Hans Massaquoi. The German title of this book is  Neger, Neger, Schorsteinfeger! and it is a big hit now in Germany. Has anybody read that book?

This is a photograph of Hans Massaquoi and his mother in Hamburg, where he was born and raised. On the right is his father, who went back to Liberia in 1930. Hans was able to survive through Nazi Germany to tell his tale, and went to the United States in 1950, where he had to experience another kind of racism, American racism this time. He fought along with Martin Luther King Jr. in the Civil Rights movement, became the managing editor of Ebony, the leading African-American periodical in the U.S. He is now 75 and lives a comfortable life in New Orleans. His whole life can be summarized in one sentence: from HAMBURG to NEW ORLEANS. I could not resist talking about this since I feel this event about Jazz and Social Justice here today could be entitled from NEW ORLEANS to HAMBURG!

Now let me share with you why I feel there is a deep connection between Happy Day."

When I was about 10 years old, as I was practicing some classical scales on the piano, I heard an absolutely

The song was called "Oh Happy Day", and it was composed by Edwin Hawkins in 1968. I can remember clearly the great admiration I felt for the people whose photograph was on the jacket, and I looked intently at their shining eyes and their smiles. It is only after that I noticed they were blacks.

The important point here is that I had heard and started loving their music before I saw their skin color, and that is why I fundamentally believe that human beings can create wonderful music, regardless of skin color, cultural background, gender or whatever, and  that by extension we, the people, are all equally precious and all have the same right to a  fulfilling and enjoyable life.

As a child, I asked myself the following question: "Since people can produce such beautiful art,  why can't they produce a beautiful society too?" Thirty years later I am still asking myself the same question.

This is why I established the Transcend Art and Peace  (TAP Network) last year, in order to explore the relationships between art and peace with various artists and colleagues from around the world. If you are interested, the address of our web site is on the hand out you received. I would like to invite you to take a look at it when you have some time, and to send some feedback if  you want to.

Back to that song that made such an impact on me,gospel is not jazz, but it is related. I can say that

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