Greg Thomas: How Jazz Can Help Us Think About Race

Thinking Ahead with Carter Phipps

How do we think about race in America today? This question continues to be core to the evolution of our national experiment. And it has come even further to the forefront in recent years, as the progressive social justice movement in American politics has gained more and more prominence. In this episode of the podcast, I was thrilled to be able to explore this subject with Greg Thomas—musician, intellectual, Integralist, journalist, spiritual practitioner, and co-founder of the Jazz Leadership Project. Greg, like myself, is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Cultural Evolution, and we share a deep appreciation for the wisdom of integral philosophy and the perspectives it offers on issues of culture, evolution, and history. But what I enjoyed so much about this conversation were the unique and different perspectives Greg brought to bear on the subject, both from his personal experience and his impressive and eclectic scholarship. Greg is an expert in the intellectual currents that have arisen around the art of Jazz—a tradition that is far outside my wheelhouse—and in this conversation we explore some of that history, covering writers like Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray, and what Greg feels they can offer to the current conversation around race. Race has always been one of the most challenging and complex but also important topics for anyone trying to make sense of our national politics and where culture might be headed. I hope this episode may contribute, in some small way, to that conversation.