"Music releases healing powers" - Rainer Kern talks about the 2024 festival motto

The early Romantic poet and philosopher Novalis once wrote: "Every illness is a musical problem - the cure is a musical resolution."

No art form is more directly and casually connected to our emotions than music. For good reason, it is used therapeutically as a way out of taciturnity and as an emotional amplifier. In an age in which dialog is increasingly understood as a sequence or even simultaneity of monologues, the way in which we come into contact with music can show us alternative patterns of action and thus ways out. In this way, music releases healing powers. Because by listening, we learn to talk to each other.

"Music is therefore of such great power and intensity because we reassure ourselves in it." 

Mr. Kern, this is the second time in a row that you have given Enjoy Jazz a motto, after 24 years without one. Why?

It would be easy to think that this is because our motto last year, "Trust", was so well received. But that's not the reason. It's more about transparency. We decided on a motto again because we wanted to share with our audience and our artists the guiding principle that was both an inspiration and an obligation for us, and for me in particular, during the curation process: Healing.

Why is this topic so important to you?

I really hope it's not just me. "Good Health and Well-being" is the third of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations, which were conceived as an essential basis for our global coexistence. Logically linked to other SDGs such as "Sustainable Cities and Communities", it also describes one of the most important tasks of art and culture. This cultural dimension of sustainability could become a real game changer in the future. Numerous studies attribute a special, even catalytic role to music and jazz in particular.

Can you give us an example of this?

How much time do you have? A study by the Medical School at Johns Hopkins University summarizes it as follows: Listening to jazz music can improve memory, mood and language skills. Jazz music can help people with attention deficit disorder or other cognitive impairments by increasing their ability to concentrate. And last but not least, it increases creativity. Among other things, it improves speech patterns, which enables the brain to work more efficiently. A study conducted by the University of Nevada also found that jazz music is a very good way to reduce stress because it lowers the heart rate, which has a beneficial effect on high blood pressure or other cardiovascular diseases. In general, jazz is able to help people think outside the box and develop new, innovative ideas. Jazz is therefore a veritable cognitive and creative boost.

Does this mean that you believe that healing is still possible in our increasingly multi-crisis world?

Yes, healing is possible. As long as we not only expect it, but make it possible. Proactively.

You have to explain that.

We all know the situation. Globally, we are not just in a phase, but in an era of omnipresent and all-encompassing overstretching, cracks and injuries. The conditions under which we live together are changing at breakneck speed. At the same time, we are faced with the experience not previously foreseen in our traditionally growth-oriented world view that the failures of the past and the undesirable developments of the present may no longer be fully curable. Some are in a state of shock, others are taking refuge in repression and ignorance. Everything is pushing to the margins. Among other things, this has given rise to what could be described as the greatest challenge to our democracy to date.

All in all, that sounds like a very pessimistic attitude.

If you think in terms of possible scenarios, you might get this impression. But as I said before, I believe that healing is possible. And because I believe this, I asked myself: what role can and should music and art play in social cohesion and personal development in an increasingly multi-crisis world?

That's a pretty big weight you want to put on the shoulders of music. Why do you think music can carry this weight?

Basically, the greatest asset of instrumental and especially improvised instrumental music is its lack of generalizable concretization. And where no concrete meaning is inscribed, it is comparatively easy to inscribe oneself with one's thoughts and feelings. Music is therefore of such great power and intensity because we can reassure ourselves in it and at the same time communicate ourselves to others. In listening as well as in playing. This simultaneity of participation and shareability are important foundations for the therapeutic effect of music. Because, and now I'm getting to the point, music releases healing powers.

This is an attitude that probably has a lot to do with spirituality and esotericism.

I think that's a cliché. In science, you have long since come across numerous sustainable advances through the targeted use of music - for example in pain therapy, in the stabilization of premature babies, in autism research or in the treatment of neurological, geriatric and psychiatric illnesses.

Are there concrete references to jazz?

Yes, of course. Many. Albert Ayler, one of the pioneers of free jazz, called an album released 55 years ago with material from his last studio session "Music Is The Healing Force Of The Universe". Another example is our "Artist in Residence 2024", Nduduzo Makhathini. The globally acclaimed South African is not only a pianist, he is also a trained healer. Parisian flautist Naissam Jalal, who is performing at Enjoy jazz this year, has titled her highly acclaimed current album "Healing Ritual" and explained: "My healing rituals deal with the three imperatives of a body in pain: stillness, trance and beauty." And with his current concept album "Spiritual Healing: Bwa Kayiman Freedom Suite", Canadian saxophonist Jowee Omicil, who will also be performing at the festival, recalls a conspiratorial gathering of freedom fighters of African descent, which is considered to be the initial stage of the Haitian revolution around 1800. Basically, I see healing as one of the central ideas within the social history of jazz, perhaps even as its actual point of intersection.

Then asked directly: Can music heal?

I would put it like this: Music itself does not heal. It does much more. It empowers healing. And it does so in many different ways and in different social contexts.

Can you give us an example of this?

A long-term study of elementary school in Berlin recently showed that schools with extended music lessons - i.e. learning an instrument or making music in ensembles - have a lower number of marginalized pupils compared to schools with only regular music lessons. This results in a sustainable strengthening of individual personality and skills as well as a securely anchored sense of community and shared responsibility for making it work. In our own Enjoy Jazz school big band, led and accompanied by three wonderful music teachers, we also observe precisely these social qualities in addition to the artistic ones.

Speaking of which, this year you have a special focus on "Young" in your program, albeit not specifically identified, but still recognizable.

Of course, we have always had offers for a young and very young audience at the festival. But this year we wanted to focus even more intensively on this important topic. Because we shouldn't forget one thing: Children and young people have been hit the hardest by the pandemic restrictions and their consequences. The risk of mental health problems has doubled, the pathological use of social media has increased by 44% and the use of computer games by as much as 52%. As a result of the pandemic, child endangerment due to neglect and psychological and physical violence has reached its highest level since the introduction of the relevant statistics. I think that's terrible. Despite all our efforts, there is still a lack of services for young people in our region.

And you want to change that?

We want to play our part in enabling young people to act more purposefully and independently. For us, it's not just about participation, but about empowerment. That's why we carried out a pilot project this year, the "Youth Challenge", which will be a permanent part of the festival program from 2025. We give young people the chance to get to know all the trades of event management with the aim of organizing and running a concert or party event independently: from booking, technology and finance or the search for cooperation partners to the actual event. If they have any questions, they can always fall back on a backup team from Enjoy Jazz. The commitment of the young people was incredible. In the end, the event was so well attended with over 1,000 visitors that box office sales had to be discontinued. And that was their success, not ours. We were simply there for them and trusted them.

The question remains as to whether all music is automatically "healing music"?

That is a very good question and one that I, at least, cannot answer clearly. Probably not. The art form is too diverse for that. This certainly applies more to the genres of jazz, classical music and art rock, for example, than to parts of contemporary pop music, insofar as it reflects social moods.

What do you mean by that?

In spring, the journal "Scientific Reports" published a study in which over 12,000 song lyrics from the last 40 years were examined. Among other things, the study looked at which feelings are expressed in which way and with which linguistic means. The results are hardly surprising: over time, the lyrics have become less complex, are increasingly repetitive within the individual lyrics and are now much more self-centered. Negative emotions such as anger, disgust and sadness have replaced the positive and joyful. The most important point of reference is the isolationist "I" and not the unifying "we". Accordingly, the words "I" and "my" can be found much more frequently in texts today than in the past. In summary, the study therefore rightly speaks of song lyrics as a "mirror of society". The only problem is: in times of crisis, mirroring is not enough and at worst even has an unintentionally affirming effect. This has led to a loss of social significance for popular music, at least in moral terms and with the exception of certain types of rap.

But it still sells quite well.

Yes, the desire to consume music will always be there. And that's a good thing. But have you noticed that the current socio-political movements are the first for which there is no soundtrack, at least so far? That's one of the reasons why the topic of "healing" fascinates me so much. It's being rediscovered in music and understood as a cross-genre opportunity to not only inscribe music with a lasting positive narrative in a new way, but also to make it part of the most important overall social movement I can imagine: being human.

"The theme of "healing" is being rediscovered in music and understood as a cross-genre opportunity not only to inscribe music with a lasting positive narrative in a new way, but also to make it part of the most important overall social movement I can imagine: being human."

To the concert program.