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Ornette Coleman - Joy of a Toy

The musical vehicle for lament was appealing, aside from the words, which only increased the appeal to the audience and, therefore, the reach of the message. White audiences started listening, and the messages began to reach people who might otherwise not pay attention. Commenting on the role of music in the South African battle against Apartheid, a struggle that mirrors the American experience in many ways.

Indeed, the music of protest can be, and has been, enormously powerful in changing public opinion, and consequently, improving the guarantees of rights, justice, and the rule of law for minority populations. For this reason, perhaps most emphatically, musical expression is protected as speech by the First Amendment.

Historically, it appears that the idea of suppressing blues music because of its message simply never came up. While there are some prosecutions targeting the speech of radical political movements, those cases usually focused on whether the speech incited violence. Blues music, as seen in the examples cited above, typically fell well short of that.

Not so in Nazi Germany, where powerful forces were at play to suppress certain types of degenerate music. We see it today in China, where Tibetan musicians are jailed for singing songs that lament the plight of the Tibetan people, and the oppression by the Chinese government in that land. Eastern bloc nations during the Cold War were similarly harsh with anyone who dared express dissent, through any medium. Little wonder that no significant musical genre was generated by Soviet oppression or emerged as the expression of the hardships and sorrows of those victimized.


Ornette Coleman - Joy of a Toy
  • Composed by: Ornette Coleman
  • Recorded on: May 22, 1959 and January 31, 1961
  • Genre: Free Jazz, Hard Bop

"Though now celebrated as a fearless innovator and a genius, Ornette Coleman was initially regarded by peers and critics as rebellious and disruptive. Coleman freed jazz from chord changes, fixed rhythms, and conventional harmony."

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