Roots In Motion is an organization devoted to creating opportunities for live jazz and a variety of other American and World musics.
Roots refers to the deep traditions that inform the music we present.
Motion refers to the continual development and innovation within music rooted in tradition.
Motion also refers to our organization’s mission to bring jazz and other roots oriented musics on the road, expanding potential locations where it is performed, and cultivating new audiences.
FEATURED ARTISTS
OUR VALUES, IN THE WORDS OF MASTERS…
"Jazz does not belong to one race or culture. It's a gift that America gave the world.”
-Ahmad Jamal
With origins in the early 20th century American South, today jazz is played world wide. It is an ever changing and adapting art form and has fused with world musics around the globe. It is international, intergenerational, and crosses boarders of race, ethnicity, gender, and class
"Jazz is such a powerful cultural statement that it's almost as if it's intertwined with society.”
-Tom Harrell
Jazz is often referred to as an individualist’s art form. Yet all the the great soloists of the music – from Armstrong to Coltrane – rose to their heights from within a deep tradition and a deep community. Jazz is rooted in a tradition of collective music that serves a social function. The church musicians that connected the preacher to the congregation. The marching band that fueled the parade. The dance band that kept dancers on the floor until all hours."Jazz is music made by and for people who have chosen to feel good in spite of conditions.”
-Johnny Griffin
Inextricably intertwined with the blues, jazz is a music that stares adversity straight in the eye, and triumphs over it. The culture from which jazz came suffered great hardship and indignity, and the music of that culture was both its medicine, and its weapon of defense. While jazz has undergone a great many changes during its evolution, the key characteristic always remains a vital rhythmic drive of an overwhelmingly positive and life affirming nature.
"Jazz has borrowed from other genres of music and also has lent itself to other genres of music.”
- Herbie Hancock
One need only take a deeper listen and a deeper look into American music of the 20th century music to discover common roots. Church Hymns, Spirituals, Blues, Parade Music. Country and Bluegrass, with its Celtic ancestry. All these musics informed Jazz as it evolved into America’s great art form - from its New Orleans orgins through the Swing Era, Big Bands, Bebop and beyond. And all the most important genres of American popular music flowed into and out of this evolution; R&B, Rock n Roll, Soul, Funk, Hip-Hop. All are branches of the same tree. All share common roots. While jazz may never be mainstream music, anyone who takes the time to listen will find themselves in a familiar place.