We were all grinning under our masks as the band started to play. It was November, our first jam since the pandemic, and jazz was back.

I am on the board of the Jazz Society of Santa Cruz County, an organization of 72 paying members and 700-some interested event attendees. We had weathered the pandemic with pathetic attempts to jam over Zoom and informal gatherings outdoors at members’ houses.

The decision to have a live jam wasn’t made lightly. There is no better incubator for a virus than a room full of horn-blowing, singing, dancing people. And as a tiny nonprofit with a dedicated board of five amateurs, we debated what sort of risk we were able to shoulder.

When I consider the criticism of the decisions made at the county, state, and federal level and by corporations small and large, I think about the Jazz Society. If it’s so hard for us to decide what sorts of risks to take, how hard is it when your decision affects thousands or millions?

The decision looks easy, but…

Our county boasts fine weather and lots of space for outdoor music. Well over 80% of adults over 30 are vaccinated. When we announced that our event would require masks and proof of vaccination, we didn’t receive a single complaint. 

A closer look shows more nuance to the decision. Jazz is an art practiced mainly by people over 60, and we’re not the wealthiest or healthiest population. We also know each other. We are not strangers who happen to end up next to each other, like attendees at the music festivals that became superspreader events. If one of us dies, we mourn as a community. If one of us gets Covid, it usually means that a group of us have to rush to get tested.

We were prepared to start up our twice-monthly jam schedule for real in January. We had finally found a new location—at this point, none of the for-profit clubs we’d played in was able to take a charity case like us. (Jazz was voted the very least popular musical genre in the county in one local publication’s poll. Come on, folks, this is America’s classical music!)

And then Omicron

We considered the county’s hospitalization rate, the health of our house band, the reputation of our organization. We considered our nonprofit hosts, the cold weather that would keep us inside, the fact that we five were making decisions about the health of scores of others.

And we canceled.

Here’s what I take away from this

Pandemics are complicated. They are frustratingly slow-moving. They heighten our anxiety and divisions. We want to blame somebody, but there’s simply no one to blame. We’re all improvising.

I understand everyone’s frustration and anxiety—I share it. In fact, when my son’s university did a bait and switch to get students back to campus before they announced that classes were going remote, I was hopping mad. He could have stayed home and eaten good food rather than dining hall slop. Honestly, it wasn’t the decision that angered me, but the timing.

However, knowing how hard our board worked helps me appreciate the difficulty of the decision-makers’ jobs. They are doing their best, and they can’t please everyone. But when they go home at the end of a long, difficult day, they have to live with themselves. They have to know they made the most informed decision they could. And until others are willing to go out and get the education, skills, and experience that they have, they are the decision-makers we’ve got. We don’t have to agree with their decisions, but barring evidence of clear ineptitude, we’ll be a happier, more functional society if we support them so they can do their best.

Carry on!

Thankfully, our members—though disappointed—are largely behind us. We truly are doing our best in these difficult circumstances. And we promise this: Jazz is not dead. It may come dead last in a popularity poll, but we will come together again with grins under our masks. And someday we’ll remove the masks and get back to the smiles, the hugs, and the free exchange of breath that makes our music the deepest expression of our humanity.