Love Wins for jazz artist Johannes Wallmann

Jazz has always been a uniquely American and slyly subversive art form.

From Dixieland to big band to bebop to free form, jazz has characterized the country s musical soul. It has pushed boundaries through its use of swing and blue notes, polyrhythms and improvisation, often providing artistic expression to marginalized segments of society.

Pianist Johannes Wallmann well understands jazz and its purposes, both musical and political. As the inaugural head of the jazz studies program at UW-Madison s Mead Witter School of Music, he is reintroducing the largely neglected art form to formal university study.

Wallmann, 43, in March released one of the most interesting and accomplished jazz albums to come out in recent years. Credit the disc s nouveau-electronic big band sound or its political messaging around same-sex marriage, but either way Love Wins has taken the uniquely American art form to the next step of its creative journey.

Jazz can and often does have a social consciousness, says Wallmann and in the case of his newest album, that awareness concerns same-sex marriage.

Fighting Wisconsin s marriage laws

In 2007, Wallmann married his longtime partner Keith Borden a yoga instructor who travels the world teaching would-be yoga teachers at a civil ceremony in Canada. The pair was happily married for five years when they arrived in Madison, only to discover their relationship did not at the time have legal standing in the state.

The lack of recognition of our relationship was undignified and an insult to our dignity as a couple, Wallmann says. It complicated our lives in all kinds of ways.

When Wallmann was approached in 2014 by the American Civil Liberties Union and asked to become a plaintiff in a suit the ACLU was mounting in support of same-sex marriage, he and Borden were happy to oblige.

My husband and I were one of eight couple co-plaintiffs in the suit, Wallmann says. The ACLU was seeking as many variations (of same-sex relationships) as it could find. In our case, we were already legally married and our relationship was not being recognized.

We were honored to be part of the suit, and we actually were surprised at how quickly things moved along, he adds.

Wallmann and Borden were unable to attend the 7th Circuit Court hearing in Chicago Aug. 26, 2014, where ACLU lawyers fairly demolished the laws in Wisconsin and Indiana prohibiting same-sex marriage. As a result, same-sex marriage became legal in Wisconsin. That decision was challenged, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled definitively in its favor.

Universal message about love, equality, dignity

In an unusual move, the 7th Circuit Court made audio recordings of the hearing available to plaintiffs and the public. The recordings gave Wallmann an idea.

I listened to the hearings on my way to a jazz session and felt a tremendous rhythm in the proceedings, Wallmann says. I thought this rhythm would work great as part of a piece of music, and who better than me, a composer, to make that happen?

Wallmann, who previously composed instrumental jazz, had been looking for a project to do with Rob Dz, a popular Madison spoken-word and hip-hop artist. Dz, who is straight, was immediately interested. To immerse himself in the project, he met with the other seven plaintiff couples to understand the challenges they faced under the state s same-sex marriage ban.

Rob helped me think this through and make it not only about the individual cases, but also about the universal themes it embodied, Wallmann says.

There is a universal message here about love, equality, dignity and longing, the composer adds. You don t have to be LGBT to relate to that.

The message permeates the CD s 10 cuts, with its most evident influence on the fifth song, The Seventh Circuit. Recorded testimony from the hearing is interspersed with the intense instrumental performance of Wallmann s ensemble.

The dialogue between defendants, plaintiffs and the judge appear not as lyrics as much as verbal counterpoint to the music. On one or two occasions, Dz s commentary can be heard embellishing some of the points.

Wallmann s new approach also allowed him to collaborate with a variety of artists and music, including a first-time limited use of synthesizers and electronic instruments. One was an EWI, or electronic wind instrument that enables the performer to cover eight octaves, more than corresponding acoustic instruments.

Wallmann performed the work at several album-release parties this spring, including a date at The Jazz Estate on Milwaukee s East Side.

The music I wanted to play

Like any journey, the route to Love Wins began with a single step in Wallmann s case involving a boom box. He was born in Germany but raised from age 10 in British Columbia, Canada. As a ninth-grader on Vancouver Island, the young pianist was waiting for a music lesson at a local college when he overheard a few college students with a boom box playing music the likes of which he had never before heard.

I said, What is that? and they replied, That s Miles Davis, man! Wallmann recalls. I knew then that that was the music I wanted to play.

The next day Wallmann asked his mother to take him to a local record store. He picked up copies of Davis recordings Milestones (1958) and Tutu (1986), two records that effectively bookend the jazz trumpeter s storied career selected largely because he liked the album covers, though.

To this day, he has no idea which Davis song he heard on the boom box that had captivated his soul. But he has since immersed himself in jazz and has never looked back.

Wallmann studied jazz piano and composition at Boston s Berklee College of Music, then earned his master s degree and Ph.D. in music studies at New York University. He taught at NYU and the New School between 1996 and 2007, then relocated to Oakland to lead the jazz studies program at the University of California East Bay.

In 2012, he moved to Madison and became the inaugural John and Carolyn Peterson Chair in Jazz Studies. His program currently supports 17 undergrads. He hopes to raise that number to 25 and someday introduce graduate-level studies.

Welcoming Wisconsin

Whether Love Wins makes significant waves or simply continues the subversive influences with which jazz has become associated remains to be seen. But as a political statement it is another bold step forward for the state s LGBT community. It s a community that both Wallmann and Borden have come to appreciate since their arrival.

Since I moved to Wisconsin, everyone in my life has been welcoming, accepting and just wonderful, Wallmann says. But being openly gay in Madison and working in an academic and artistic environment is different from other parts of the state.

"Rural places can be very welcoming, but it depends on the community," he adds. "I am sure mine is not everyone's experience."