By admin
in Editorial
Sinclair Ang
Mood 4 Jazz (Steven Johnson)
To the question, “What is jazz”, Louis Armstrong’s answer was supposed to have been, “If you’ve got to ask, you’ll never know.” Fats Waller went even further by saying, “If you don’t know by now, do not mess with it”.
But this issue of the Substation magazine will mess it, though, not necessarily because we know what jazz is, but because I am free to make that choice. This messing around begins with this issue freeing itself from the usual suspects, resulting in a motley crew of contributors, consisting of an Assistant Professor at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory by day and jazz musician extraordinaire by night, an ex-award winning Swiss designer who dropped everything to become a life counsellor, and a visual artist who is keen on breaking boundaries between disciplines as well as in perceptions of identity. This freedom also means moving away from the usual topics, resulting in meditations, in one form or another, on jazz and freedom.
One of the hardest things to do to be true to the spirit of the title …