Kurt Vonnegut on jazz...

[DukeCity]

I recently picked up a new collection of Vonnegut's writings, Armageddon In Retrospect.

In it he gives a 2007 speech in Indianapolis covering a whole range of topics including:

"The most spiritually splendid American phenomenon of my lifetime is how African-American citizens have maintained their dignity and self-respect, despite their having been treated by white Americans... as though they were contemptible and loathsome, and even diseased...

And what gift of America to the rest of the world is actually most appreciated by the rest of the world? It is African-American jazz and its offshoots. What is my definition of jazz? "Safe sex of the highest order.""