As a musician and keyboardist I have been through a handful of permutations of live-play rigs. If and when you find yourself an employed working musician, the best way to ensure you stay that way is to have the best sound. "The musician with the best sound wins, hands down." In jazz music in particular sound, feeling, and interpretation become the holy trinity. To play jazz you must swing. To be listenable you must have a good sound. To be artistic you must synthesize years of jazz history, personal perspective, and creative wisdom. It is not called "America's True Art Form" for nothing, and it would be nice if the country began to recognize and understand that. There is nothing to be afraid of from the "Jigs." Black men and women, while susceptible to the same ills as everyone, don't carry the Voodoo curse. What they do offer is the struggle of the African-American throughout our history. Many would rather not listen to this story. We can bury out head in the sand and ignore the extreme brutality of slavery and Jim Crow through the years. It seems wise not to base our current reality solely on this scenario, but we should be cognizant of this history and more importantly understand what is possible in the human race. Our tendencies can be extreme, violent, and antagonist when our souls are not nurtured. Soul nurturing is something America has chosen to shift to another realm. At America's inception you can believe we were engaged at a physical and environmental level. "The Lost Colony" didn't survive. Pure survival was paramount for early American, and it was enough. As a nation we have become spoiled and complacent, and Covid 19 has spanked our ass. Most of the useful and wise information garnered by previous generations has been shelved in a naive and narcissistic campaign of self worship. This change in large has been promulgated by a small and evil faction actively who chose to exploit the youth of America. Economic trends suggested teens had the most salient income in Capitalist America, so a conscious decision was made to exploit our children. I would suggest Generation X and Z have been the most neglected generations in American history. American society on purpose deprived them of the appropriate tools to survive ensuring a docile, naive, and spending future populace. It is unconscionable. When I see the confusion, ignorance, and hatred of America's youth, only can it be attributed to our own American society. They are a product of what we have become. In short the Republican siege, the communist attack on America is responsible. Only during this extreme, violent, racist time has the nurturing of our youth been discarded. In the last two decades I have watched notable figures in American culture die off with no one to replace them. There is no one to fill these shoes, because the hard knocks school of success and Protestant work ethic have been abandoned for quick cheap fixes on iPhone apps. Literally we have brainwashed our youth, but it is not too late. If and when an individual decides not to be confused about their gender is when a transformation will take place. We will realize currently solidarity isn't the answer, because we have few concepts over which to unite. It is the new age of individualism, because we are on our own. Certainly two years of extraneous, misleading, sometimes erroneous information about a life-threatening disease is enough to heighten our personal awareness. We cannot reply upon Washington, the CDC, or Big Pharma, and without close scrutiny our state governments are nothing more than country clubs for the wealthy. Not much has changed in America over the centuries, but Republicans would have you believe it. The more things change, the more they stay the same. It was been a long time since pure lies as propaganda was commonplace. The Nazi party may be disguised as Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Madison Cawthorn, but we are onto them.