This morning, Thelonious Monk revealed to me how we should really be thinking of Social Media. Forget the Social Media Guru. Social Media is pure American jazz, and its practitioners are Social Media jazz artists.
On most days, I listen to an audio book on my one hour (plus) commute from the western suburbs of Boston to my office in Newton, but this morning I just couldn’t locate my iPod. I ran to my CD collection and randomly grabbed Thelonious Monk’s, Misterioso, a live album from 1958. About three numbers into the album, it struck me. Social Media is live jazz compared to classical e-mail and direct marketing.
In jazz, you introduce a theme and your tightly knit network of colleagues back you up and then take turns exploring every aspect of the theme. They turn it around and pull it inside out. Sometimes you throw in a completely different yet recognizable melody to make sure people are paying attention, but play it in the context of the piece. Others echo (reTweet) the theme or travel down alternate harmonic paths.
The really cool thing about the live recording is that in the background, you hear the din of life. Conversations rumble below the music. Glasses and bottles clank raucously between notes. Occasionally someone in the crowd bursts out in laughter or exclamation. And yet, they are still tuned in to the music. They react to the solos or a particularly clever turn on a phrase or rhythm that leaves you breathless. And sometimes someone in the audience will call out with a whoop that perfectly fits the rhythm and key of the music.
It’s poetic, sometimes clever and sometimes messy. Sometimes, even the messy is poetic. Maybe it’s not the perfect metaphor, but it’s revealing how this uniquely American art form is so closely emulated by the Social Media phenomenon. Maybe it couldn’t have been developed anywhere else.
There – I’ve thrown down a melody. It’s all yours now.
Tags: jazz, Monk, social media
