St George's News

St George's student, Euan J interviews Ms Mika Shino, Executive Director of the UNESCO Jazz Day. St George's hosted an event last month to celebrate UNESCO Jazz Day, this sparked Euan's interest to find out more about UNESCO Jazz day and about Mika's views on Jazz in general.

1. I have been told by various people that they think jazz will struggle to continue to be popular with younger generations. Do you agree with this? If not, why do you think jazz has been and will continue to attract audiences?

            Jazz is, and has always been, in constant evolution. Throughout its history, the music has evolved, shifted, and changed in ways that have impacted not only its own DNA, but also the wider musical culture of communities. Today's hip-hop, soul and R+B music, as well as rock, is infused with jazz. Jazz is pervasive, expanding beyond its defined borders. Its popularity has also ebbed and flowed in different cultures and contexts. People have been proclaiming the death of jazz, classical music, poetry, ballet and other forms of art for a long time. But such views have not diminished the creative output of grifted artists all over the world who find meaning in jazz. Frank Zappa said 'Jazz is not dead. It just smells funny’.

I believe that we need jazz more than ever today - jazz has the ability to bring people together in a way that very few other art forms can. I also believe that initiatives like International Jazz Day have the power to raise the visibility of this incredible musical genre. One of the goals of the Day is to bring awareness of the innate values of jazz, such as unity, diversity, freedom of expression, and so much more, to people across the globe, particularly people who may not otherwise be exposed to Jazz Day, or even jazz in general. We work with individuals and organizations in every country in the world to organize local events in celebration of IJD, and this year alone we saw events in over 190 countries. I hope that through this Day, many more people will be exposed to the power and possibilities of jazz. 

2. For you personally, what was the significance of creating a 'UNESCO Jazz Day'?

            It has been an honor to be part of the team that created International Jazz Day with Herbie Hancock and Tom Carter. We were fortunate that the UNESCO Director-General and the UNESCO member states embraced our proposal and the UNESCO General Conference adopted it unanimously in 2011. Since then, the work of International Jazz Day has brought us to collaborate with amazing people - musicians, producers, organizers and educators - in New Orleans & New York, Istanbul, Osaka, Paris, Washington D.C, Havana, and St. Petersburg. I feel that the work behind the big IJD event is also another testament of people from different cultures coming together to put on a phenomenal international event despite cultural or linguistic differences. The part of International Jazz Day that is closest to my heart is the Global Outreach and the Education program, which consists of 1) coordinating events in 190+ countries, and 2) educational programing, primarily targeted to youth, in the day or days leading up to the final concert. Being an official UNESCO Day, making sure that we engage youth, teachers, artists and community leaders from all over the world to celebrate this day with us is extremely important. Moreover, the educational component of International Jazz Day is essential. We seek to integrate a variety of programming, including discussions, master classes, workshops, lectures, and more, with artists, music professionals, and others who can help to inform and motivate the next generation of jazz enthusiasts. 

3. You are the Senior Advisor to Herbie Hancock. Can you explain what the job entails and how your work with Mr. Hancock helps him to progress as a musician?

I have been working with Herbie since 2001, when he came to an event I organized at UNESCO called the World Philosophy Day. Since that event, we have been collaborating and working together on many projects - securing his nomination as UNESO Goodwill Ambassador, launching IJD, creating an interactive educational platform called ‘Math, Science and Music’, working on sustainable alternative energy and making study trips to India and Norway, as well as visiting multiple countries for the work for IJD. I work with him with respect to his philanthropic and humanitarian work. He is absolutely the most brilliant, kind, and gracious human being, and even after working with him all of these years, I still feel incredibly lucky, inspired and honored to know him and learn from him. We often spend hours brainstorming on different ideas, and his mind is always working on the next thing. He is a sponge, so open to new concepts from anyone - no matter who they are - meaning he does not judge - not an idea, not a person, and not a situation. I think that is one of the most important life lessons I have learned from him - out of many. My job is to help him carry out all of the amazing ideas he has in his mind.

4. Did you yourself commence your career as a musician, in jazz or not, or did you come to work within the field from another path? What attracted you to the music industry, and in particular jazz? Why did you not decide to work within another genre, or was the process to arrive in this field an evolution of events and chance?

I was a musician and a dancer before I began working at UNESCO. I actually had no previous working experience in an office before my first job at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris! I was composing music and worked as a dancer in music videos for MTV and for different artists when I was very young, and in the NY music scene, I met and worked with many people, including Thelonious Monk Jr. Thelonious and his entire family became very close friends. Though I met some amazing people through my time working in music, in general I was very dismayed by the level of discrimination and harassment you have to bear in the industry as a young woman. So I decided to leave the music business to focus on school, and then I decided to leave NY to pursue a graduate degree in philosophy in Paris. Thelonious was the last person to see me off at the airport in NY.

Years later, when I began working at UNESCO and when I had the autonomy to work on my own program to launch the UNESCO World Philosophy Day in 2001, Thelonious and I reconnected and concocted the crazy idea of bringing Herbie Hancock to UNESCO Paris for a philosophy event. The idea was to gather top thinkers and philosophers to UNESCO Headquarters to reflect on world problems and to attract people who many not always be interested in philosophy to these discussions by offering a free concert by Herbie Hancock preceded by a panel discussion with Herbie on the philosophy of music. And it worked. Thelonious brought Herbie to UNESCO in 2001 - with no contract, no insurance and no information other than me promising him that it would be a worthwhile venture - and World Philosophy Day was one the of the most successful events in UNESCO at that time. There were crowds outside of the UNESCO Paris Headquarters building that snaked around the city blocks. There had never been so much excitement and so many people scrambling to get into a philosophy conference - ever. Herbie came back every year for 3 years, and each year he brought a new musician with him - Wayne Shorter, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Diane Reeves. It was an amazing experience and we had fantastic discussions on the philosophy of music. It was during these years that I got to know Herbie well and we came up with the idea of him becoming a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. And seeing how Herbie was able to make World Philosophy Day a huge success, we knew that launching something like International Jazz Day would work. So music, art, philosophy, peace-building - they are all part of who I am. I left UNESCO in 2008 to pursue my own projects like working in Africa, producing music projects, as well as creating my own consulting firm, and life has brought me back to working with UNESCO again through IJD, this time as the Director of IJD Program and Outreach and as Senior Advisor of Herbie Hancock. Funny how life works sometimes.

5. How do you think jazz, which is often seen to be very natural (using acoustic instruments) will change with the ever-growing impact of technology in the music industry?

Herbie Hancock’s music is a perfect example of how jazz has continued to integrate new technology into its DNA. Herbie was not just the first jazz musician, but the first musician to include the most cutting-edge technology into his compositions and productions. Even technology emanating from ‘street-music’, like rap - Herbie was the first to use the scratching of vinyl records into a pop song which he won a Grammy for - ‘Rockit’. And the most vibrant and interesting artists today in jazz - Esperanza Spalding, Robert Glasper - all embrace technology. As in any art form, I think the kinds of jazz that will thrive will be the ones which are open to new elements and change. There is often a rift between those who promote jazz that seeks to preserve the past, and those, like Herbie, who search to create sounds in ways that are inclusive of what is current and new. The prior often judges all that is not like the past, thereby creating a type of elitism within jazz. I think this is self-defeating and negative. There is a risk that this kind of attitude will shut out not just creativity but also new audiences. Kids today can relate to someone like Robert Glasper because he experiments with different technology and sounds and he allows for an easier entry into jazz. Herbie often talks about the ‘Ethos of jazz’ being essential to the growth of jazz - to not judge, to accept others and be open to all possibilities that music - and life - has to offer. That is the only way for any art to thrive and outpace extinction. Jazz can’t be encapsulated for a museum. It is a lived music, in constant change and its essence is defined by improvisation. More than any genre, it is about living in the moment, or as Wayne Shorter says, ‘daring’ in the moment.

6. In your opinion, how much influence does jazz have on other musical genres?

Jazz, and blues, are at the foundation of modern music. Rock, pop, hip-hop, R+B, all emanate from jazz. Thelonious says that jazz is like the R+D department of music (Research and development). He is right. Jazz provides the freedom to explore, try out new sounds, test out next territories. Other genres often follow. 

7. In your opinion, what is/are the most important aspect(s) of music- in jazz or not- that younger generations should thrive to keep alive?

Just by playing music, listening to music, and appreciating music, young people plug into something universal, ancient and eternal. Music has always been part of human civilization and as long as we are living on the same planet together, it is the one language that we all understand and we can all sway to in the same way. I happen to work in the jazz world for several projects but I am a life-long fan of classical music, hip-hop, Latin and African music. Music is music. Like Quincy Jones says, there are only 12 notes. There has always only been 12 notes. From those 12 notes, we have the incredible wealth and diversity of music across the globe. And somehow, we can all connect through these 12 notes. Music is beautifully beyond boundaries, and ultimately indefinable and abstract. Music is ubiquitous so we rarely stop and think about just how profound it is. So many times in my travels, I would be stunned by its pervasive power. In Timbuktu, I would hear Puffy blasting from a dusty hairdresser salon. In Bali, I heard Shalimar at a nightclub with only local Indonesians dancing. In Beirut, I listened to Earth, Wind and Fire on a rooftop. So this is what connects us, despite distance, politics or religion. This kind of connectedness was powerfully evident during this past IJD in Saint Petersburg, where musicians, students, educators and politicians united despite the intense current political challenges and skepticism. It was a very emotional event, with several musicians and students moved to tears. The Russian musician Igor Butman said at one point ‘President Putin said that politicians are always burning bridges. It is up to you, the musicians, to keep rebuilding them’. That is worth trying to keep alive for the younger generations. It is actually our one strong hope for a real global community.