What's the point of being a musician?

Hi! It's me, Jonah, the baritone saxophonist. Remember?

Before I dive into an email I’ve thought a lot about, a quick note:

I’m playing in Chicago tomorrow, Milwaukee on Sunday, and 9 Europe shows in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Italy after that. Come see me! Seeing you at a show is really my favorite thing in the world. Everything is listed at the bottom. Take a look!

Ok here goes:

In moments when the pressure peaks and the constantly simmering conflicts become erupting crises, I often find myself asking the same question: what’s the point of being a musician? I ask myself this question because in crisis, my overwhelming urge is to think small and favor direct action. Music is not direct action, and during moments when I witness acute suffering, this reality fills me with doubts.

It is my opinion that we live in a world in which equality and justice do not exist. Although we use these words all the time, it is easy to forget that they describe things that we have, as of yet, refused to physically manifest for those who need them the most. Right now, equality & justice are purely hypothetical, and no matter how desperately we call out for them, they are not here for us to draw from in our moments of pain. In these moments, art is a reminder: we have everything we need to make something that has never existed before.

Art is alchemy. Music can take regret, guilt and rage, mix them together, and produce an explosive expression of pure elation. Matter transformed. Beyond this, when it comes to doing the work of creating art, there is no secret art machine in a highly advanced factory hidden underneath a mountain. Art is made using mundane tools that already exist and often have existed for centuries. This is powerful proof of our universal ability to create using just what’s in front of us. You don’t need to be special to make something special, any of us can do it any time.

I’m not trying to say that art or music can change the world. I believe change comes when brave and courageous people form alignments that move powerful people to shift the trajectory of civilization. But in moments when injustice feels inevitable, music and art are essential because they reminds us that any one of us can make real change, true rebirth, and spontaneous creation using just the tools we already have in front of us.

Speaking of music, here are all the tour dates I mentioned up top! Hope to see you at some:

More soon,

Jonah