“What are we playing?” the pianist asked the drummer. 

“Jazz,” the drummer said.  

There’s an often repeated saying that Humboldt has more artists per capita than anywhere else in America. I don’t know if that’s true — or how it would be fact checked — but from what I saw, I wouldn’t be surprised. Every Sunday, Northtown Coffee — a small coffee shop five minutes away from campus — becomes the epicenter of jazz in Arcata. Dozens of people pack into the small room to drink and dance, listening to an ever-growing jazz combo. 

True Laboissonniere, a freshman mechanical engineering major, gave some insight as to why jazz is so different in Humboldt.  

“It has less people, but every person I’ve met about [jazz] is super passionate about the scene so that’s super cool, especially compared to other parts of California,” Laboissonniere said. “People here really take their passion to the next level but there aren’t as many people to do so”. 

Due to the improvisational nature of jazz, it’s a lot more community-based than some other genres. It’s a genre that requires a level of listening, especially for proper improvisation. Because it’s such a cooperative genre, and due to the smaller size of the scene up here, it becomes incredibly close-knit, which just leads to better playing.

Jazz began in New Orleans in the early 20th century as a mix of blues and folk music, which both evolved from songs sung by enslaved people. Jazz was a form of self expression for black musicians who were oftentimes unwelcome in other musical spaces. Jazz provided them an opportunity to make their voices heard and experiment musically. Part of that experimenting included spontaneous improvisation. The person credited with being the first to do so is cornet player and bandleader Buddy Bolden, but trumpet player Louis Armstrong was one of the first to put heavy emphasis on the improvising soloist, which would then become the standard in the genre. 

Jazz is freedom of expression in music. The most central pillar of jazz, the thing that truly sets it apart is the inherent sense of improvisation, and that’s appealing to a lot of folks. 

Dan Aldeg, a jazz professor at the university, elaborated on this. 

“I think there’s not just that sense of freedom of expression but that improvisation that’s inherent in jazz,” Aldeg said. “That sort of personality is more attracted to doing that in music and you might find that seeping into other people’s lives, in a more improvisational approach to living as well.” 

The first performance I saw in Humboldt was a man playing a 5 string bass on the street, next to the Arcata plaza. He had a jerry-rigged set up of two amps and one speaker stacked on top of miscellaneous boxes. His veins were so varicose from years of playing  that they almost burst out of his hand as he slapped the bass. It was improvised, it was jazz, it was incredible. This man was the epitome of what makes Humboldt jazz so special — the eccentric people who embody the free-spirited energy that makes jazz unique. 

For some people, jazz is more than just music. Marvin, an 80-year-old Humboldt State University alumnus with a big white beard, a fisherman’s hat and a euphonium, shared how jazz has impacted him.

“I was born in 1945 — When my mom was five months pregnant, she and my dad won a jitterbug contest,” he said over the loud live jazz. “It’s always been there.” 

Humboldt doesn’t have the smoky jazz bars of New York or San Francisco, or the vibrant New Orleans street bands with passionate buskers playing flamenco guitar. 

When asked about the individuality of jazz,saxophone player and Cal Poly Humboldt student Mathias Severn said, “Jazz is like so unique because of the improvisational aspect where you can just kind of pour your heart out into the music and let whatever comes out come out [it] works as jazz.”

Barley is a freshman journalism major, Photojournalist, and untraditional reporter, they like to cover interesting stories that center on social change, and human impact.