An Evening with Benjamin Barson

Explore the radical roots of jazz and its ties to Black liberation movements during a thought-provoking evening with musicologist and composer Benjamin Barson.

On Tuesday, July 22, An Evening with Benjamin Barson takes place at Books & Books, where Barson will discuss his new book Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons (Wesleyan University Press). Drawing on historical research and musical analysis, the book traces how New Orleans musicians helped shape participatory models of grassroots democracy rooted in the Haitian Revolution and Black Reconstruction.

Brassroots Democracy recasts the origins of jazz by centering the voices and experiences of Black brass band musicians in the post-Emancipation South. Through what Barson terms a “music history from below,” the book explores how these artists were embedded in wider struggles for liberation—supporting general strikes, performing at Civil Rights rallies, and sustaining maroon ecologies of resistance. It connects 19th-century New Orleans to the broader Black Atlantic world, arguing that jazz evolved not just as an art form but as a vehicle for political transformation and collective world-making. The work bridges cultural history, musicology and political theory to illuminate the connections between sound, social movements and democratic practice.

Barson is an assistant professor of music at Bucknell University whose work explores jazz as an Afro-Atlantic art form tied to counter-plantation resistance and cultural activism. He earned his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh and was recently a Fulbright García-Robles postdoctoral fellow in Mexico. His interdisciplinary research spans topics from Chinese indenture-era musical cultures to the legacy of Haitian migrants in Louisiana’s early blues scene. A saxophonist and composer, Barson is also the recipient of the ASCAP Foundation’s 2018 Johnny Mandel Prize.

This free event includes a talk and book signing. Copies of Brassroots Democracy will be available for purchase.