The Dionysian Dynamics of Jazz:
Freeing the Soul and Inhabiting the Body
Lecture by Gary Trosclair, DMA, LCSW
Mini-Concert by The Archetypal Jazz Quintet
Dionysos, the God of Wine, Ecstasy and Rebirth, is the also the Great Liberator. His energy frees the physically and spiritually imprisoned. His presence in the origins of jazz becomes apparent when we explore its central attributes: improvisation, swing, and the blues--the musical acknowledgement of suffering with hope.
The earliest stirrings of jazz began among an oppressed people searching for spiritual freedom in the midst of tyranny. Like Dionysos, jazz releases the soul to reconnect with instinct, the body and the exultant present. We’ll explore the archetypal underpinnings of this deep, sensuous music, and what it has to offer us.
After a 30-minute lecture by Dr. Trosclair, the Archetypal Jazz Quintet will perform a mini-concert featuring works by Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, Oscar Pettiford and Joe Zawinul. The Quintet is comprised of Gary Trosclair, Trumpet; John Szinger, Tenor Sax; Gary Bruce, Guitar; Jay Militscher, Bass; and Casey Haskins, Drums.
Gary Trosclair, a native of New Orleans, earned a doctorate in music and played the trumpet professionally before becoming a Jungian analyst. He practices in New York City and Westchester County, and serves on the faculty of the C.G. Jung Institute of New York and the C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology. He writes regularly for the Huffington Post and is the author of I’m Working on It in Therapy: How to Get the Most Out of Psychotherapy (Skyhorse 2015), which PsychCentral described as “A fascinating look at self-growth, and one that's useful whether or not you go to therapy.”
