Things have got to change! That is the cry being heard in the five boroughs of New York City, across the United States and, increasingly, in European cities too.

All sorts of people from all sorts of social classes are at the protests—because the realization has dawned that eventually everyone will be impacted by the self-serving machinations of the Wall Street greed merchants and their allies in the world's other financial centers.

It's great that jazz is becoming more of a component of the demonstrations. For too long, the music has been marginalized, even shunned, by political/social movements. One reason is that back during the cold war of the 1950s and 1960s, some painters, writers and musicians, knowingly or naively, allowed themselves to be funded directly or indirectly by the CIA. During the same period, the State Department bankrolled what were essentially propaganda tours by U.S. jazz bands in Africa, Asia and behind the Iron Curtain.

The money was good, but it was dirty money—and for activists with long memories, jazz remains tainted by those associations with the power structure.

Of course, AAJ readers know that this attitude comes from not understanding what jazz is really about, from failing to recognize its radical roots and its umbilical connection to the people. But, sadly, an awful lot of otherwise well informed political activists are mystified about real creative music, while they usually have all the time in the world for nakedly consumerist pop product.

The good news is that, with its support of 2011's international protest movement, jazz is becoming a part of what's happening again. I've been out to Occupy Wall Street many times and the reception from my fellow comrades/protestors has been solid.

Sometimes I play danceable jazz (great for long marches), sometimes I take it out a la saxophonists