Jazz Parade for Democracy Interview with Bandleader John D'earth (11/17/2025)
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Dan Doernberg: This is Monday, November 17. I'm here with John D’earth, and he's had a little over two weeks to process the November 1 "Jazz Parade for Democracy" that he was instrumental in helping put together. You and I talked before the event. What was it like the day of the event? What was your experience of it? Was it what you expected? And how are you looking at it now with two weeks of distance?
[0:27] John: Yeah, great, well… it wasn't what I expected, because I didn't expect it to come off so incredibly well. It was just really, really fun to do. It was just a perfect day for a parade. It would remind me of these memories of football days, when the band would go out and march for the football teams. And I had, done my small part, which was to organize some instrumentalists to march and play some sad music on the way down, and some happy music on the way back, and I had gotten hold of about eight people who I knew were very strong, and I had met privately with a couple of them, but I didn't know if it was going to work with the drummers, because it was African drummers and street drummers. I didn't know if my guys were going to show up or they're going to get gigs and not come, and I didn't know if it was going to just be kind of ragtag, lame.
John D'earth leading the band in Act 1 dark mourning clothing (Photo by Rebecca George Photography, used with permission)
[1:20] And the other thing was, I got to use a piece of music that I had written years and years and years before, and never had known what to do with it. It was so morose. It was just the most dirgy thing you've ever heard. And this was perfect for it. So we did this dirgy march down the mall, and we also played Saint James Infirmary. And, you know, it just felt like being in a Bergman movie, Death with the scythe torturing a green lady. And also, I wasn't prepared for (a) how beautiful the theatrical part was. It was beautiful: the pallbearers, the black tombstones, and the idea of ripping the tags off the tombstones… this was all thought of by other people. (b) And the other great thing was the singing groups, Craig Green's Wonderground Singers and the women's chorus, they turned out to be incredible.
Wonderground Singers: https://nowcomment.com/documents/412736/twopane
Charlottesville Women’s Choir: https://nowcomment.com/documents/412745/twopane
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Wonderground Singers performing (Photo by Rebecca George Photography, used with permission) |
Charlottesville Women's Choir performing (Photo by Rebecca George Photography, used with permission) |
Dan: The Charlottesville Women's Choir, right?
John: Yeah.
[2:16] Dan: Yeah, it was… everything just went superbly. One of the things that surprised me I was talking to Isabel, the basically, the production coordinator/organizer
John: She sure was! The dispatcher!
Dan: Yeah. She told me that there was never a real rehearsal for the actors, and I know you never had a formal rehearsal, except 20 minutes before the parade started.
John: That's right.
Dan: Was that nerve wracking? Or is that kind of normal, a day in the life of a jazz musician?
John D'earth assembling his bandmembers pre-event (Photo by Rebecca George Photography, used with permission)
[2:45] John: Well, it's normal for the day in the life of a jazz musician, because we know where to go, and we know how to go 1-2-3, and play a tune together. We don't need to know each other. But I had no idea this was going to work. I was quite nervous about it, and I was afraid that it was going to come off as lame. And it didn't, it came off. I thought it was very powerful, and I felt so psyched. You know, when I went to some meetings, it sounded a bit disorganized and like, okay…, but it wasn't! They really cobbled together a terrific script. When everybody studied the script, we all found our places in it. We didn't have to think too much about this. It was beautifully orchestrated.
Dan: There were 100 community members, you know, musicians, actors, singers, you know, just a lot of different moving parts. And it really, it did come together. Have you ever done anything exactly like that? I mean, not a jazz parade for democracy, perhaps, but I mean… community just assembles at the last minute, see what happens.
[3:40] John: The closest I can come to this is an amazing memory I have. I have a dear friend, Kirk Newrock, who is a composer, but he has done interspecies music in his life and has been on the “Today Show… stuff with dogs singing with other singers or with instrumentals. He's been in Carnegie Hall with animals and musicians. And he got a gig putting a parade together at the Bronx Zoo, and we were to go march around the zoo and try to get a rise out of the different animals. And we did not until we got to the wolf pen, and it was an area behind a chain link fence. It was a forested area that goes back a few acres. And the handler said, You will never see these wolves, because they come out at five in the morning when I feed them, and five at night when I feed them, and that's it. And we started playing in front of that chain link fence, and they came out of the woods, and they stood in a “v” the leader came out in the middle, and they, I have a video of it…
Dan: Really? Oh, that sounds so cool.
[4:43] John: Was the chilliest thing…, but that's the only thing I can think of that ever even closely reminded me of this. Although, you know, one summer right before college, I had three jobs: roofing, making salads in a French restaurant, and playing trumpet in La Banda Roma, which is a bunch of old guys from Rome who marched in the streets on saints days, which was every Saturday. Behind the effigies of saints, people would put money on the saint’s ribbons coming, and we would play. Hardest job I ever did; it was marching music from 10 in the morning till about four or five in the afternoon, an hour off for dinner, and then the band shell concert where we played Rigoletto, or really hard stuff, that was amazing.
Dan: Well, we'll have to see if we can organize something at a zoo, and maybe, redo the democracy parade for the animals…
John: I think some would say we already did with this last one. But anyway…
Dan: Yeah, well, good point.
John: Yeah, this world is a zoo at this point.
[5:36] Dan: [Ed.-- From your] Daily Progress interview: “The people I'm protesting against want me to be very unhappy and discouraged.”
John: Yes.
Dan: You've been to other Indivisible events besides this one (that you were an integral part [of]). Is it fair to say that the spirit is really pretty positive and pretty joyful?
John: Yeah.
Dan: What are the commonalities?
John D'earth motioning to band members while all are playing (Photo by Rebecca George Photography, used with permission)
[5:58] John: Let's be honest: music is a social art, and most of us do it because we love the social aspect of it, and we love the party. So very often when musicians get together, it's jubilant. But the feeling of these big rallies was very similar to that, to a jam session where everybody wants to be there, and everybody knows exactly why they're there, and everybody's trying to feel good, because that's the name of the game. Demoralize the population. Atomize everybody, separate everybody, and then you can move in and control things for your own benefit.
[6:33] Dan: Doing public, political stuff: if you had still been on faculty at UVA, would that have been a consideration in whether you participated or how you participated?
John: I don't think so. I mean, it's hypothetical because I had retired, but I don't think so. We have such a cohort of agreement at the school about the need to stand up to autocracy. We also have a bit of a feeling about standing up to just crass tastelessness. And we also have a, you know, an interest in standing up against meanness and cruelty.
[7:05] Dan: In your WVTF article [Ed. — interview], you were quoted, “So many things have been trashed that we hold dear.” As you were thinking about participating, as you were maybe playing music, were there any particular issues or topics that you feel very strongly about?
[7:21] John: Yeah, I mean, I feel very strongly about the way immigrants are being treated in this country, especially immigrants that have contributed to the country for 20 years, and now are getting tased or whatever they're getting… and getting sent to Venezuela, if they like, or somewhere. That kills me! And I think, “This great country can't figure out what to do with people who've been contributing?” They were even trying to argue about birthright citizenship. This country is great, why do we act in this extremely poor way? Anyway, that's one thing.
[7:53] The other thing is the homelessness in the country, it's unconscionable, and it's because the American Dream is basically a nightmare, unless you find your helium balloon that takes you up out of it. That could be employment, that could be the fact that you're a conventional person in a conventional family situation… What I really believe right now is that the turning point has already happened; the Apocalypse is here. Climate change, everything else: we're just not doing it, we're just talking about it. But nobody's really… 100 countries tried to sign on just now to not allowing certain pollution factor with cargo ships. Our country said, “If you vote for this, you will be paying 1,000% tariffs on everything.” I'm exaggerating… [Ed.–Trump is saying,] “Let's dismantle the whole thing.” Well, fine… So we are living in a time when the entire world is going to change. Many people will die as a result, and have died as a result, of climate change.
[8:47] Personally, I just think that everybody in the gilded White House right now…, they won't say it, but the idea that many people will die is actually a good idea, I think, to them: ”This will kill a lot of losers.” That's something I see happening, and I see the rest of us living in what I call a “carapace of normalcy”. It's like the beetle died, but left the shell. And we all think that this is normal, but it's not; we're not in normal times anymore, and more and more people will not be able to afford this place, and it'll only be good for the Elons [Ed.— Elon Musks] and those people.
Dan: Yeah, unless they leave us to go to Mars and have their own planet…
John: Wouldn't that be rapturous?
Dan: I think we should take up a collection: a one way ticket.
John D'earth in a yellow T-shirt marching and playing trumpet while a young trumpeter pauses playing in front of him (Photo by Rebecca George Photography, used with permission)
[9:37] Well, John, I know you have a tremendous number of things going on. We appreciate everything you did for the jazz parade, and talking with me again today… and please continue to be involved with Indivisible Charlottesville and everything else you're doing.
John: Tell me about that. If you see something that I could do that would help what you're doing, just call me immediately…. I want to see the music help. I'm not done yet, but I wrote a symphony piece, and it's got a movement called “Resistance”, and the last movement is called “Social Truth”, because of Trump's Truth Social. Yeah, but it's a blues, and that's the social truth. Black music in this country. That's the social truth. Black people built this country, culturally and physically, and until we admit it and address that, and appreciate that, we're going to have these problems with race in our country.
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