I kind of want to get the music back on a road it hasn't been on

In the words of the modern jazz prophet Jason Moran, we are given a call both tender and thunderous: “I kind of want to get the music back on a road it hasn't been on for a while. I want to promote the arts as part of the American diet.” Though spoken in the voice of the present, these words echo the ageless yearning of every generation—to return art to its sacred place at the heart of human life. Moran’s dream is not merely of melody and rhythm, but of restoration: the reawakening of a people who have forgotten that music and art are nourishment, as vital to the soul as bread is to the body.

There was a time, in the ancient world, when the arts were revered as divine breath. The Greeks spoke of the Muses, daughters of memory, who inspired poets, musicians, and painters alike. Music was not background noise, but the heartbeat of the cosmos—a force that aligned man with the harmony of the stars. To lose this connection, as Moran laments, is to wander from the sacred road. He seeks to guide us back—not to the past, but to the timeless truth that the arts are food for the spirit, and that a nation starved of creativity grows dull, restless, and hollow.

The road music has not been on for a while, as Moran speaks, is the path of depth, of truth, of risk. Modern life has made of music a commodity, sold and consumed but rarely felt. Once, music was born from struggle and triumph—from the field songs of slaves, from the trembling strings of violins played in candlelit rooms, from the thunder of drums that called tribes to unity. It told the story of who we were and who we hoped to become. Moran, a son of jazz and innovation, wishes to return to that spirit—to lead us away from noise and novelty, back toward meaning and soul.

There is a story of Duke Ellington, who during the Great Depression played for audiences that had nothing to give but their attention. He said, “Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to no one.” In those bleak years, when hunger and despair filled the air, it was the arts that kept hope alive. Painters painted when there was no light, poets wrote when there was no bread, and musicians played when silence seemed safer. They understood, as Moran does, that art is sustenance—that even when the stomach is empty, the human spirit can still be fed by beauty.

When Moran speaks of making the arts part of the American diet, he is not merely speaking of education or policy. He is speaking of culture as nourishment, of rekindling a collective hunger for beauty, truth, and imagination. Just as we eat daily to sustain the body, so must we consume creativity to sustain the mind. The problem of the modern age is not that there is too little art, but that there is too little reverence for it. We have filled our days with noise but silenced our hearts to wonder.

The ancients would have understood Moran’s longing. They saw that art was not luxury—it was spiritual necessity. A civilization that neglects its artists forgets how to dream, and when a people cease to dream, they cease to grow. To make art part of our daily lives is to restore balance between the material and the divine. It is to remind ourselves that progress without poetry is machinery, and wealth without music is emptiness.

So let this be the lesson: nurture the artist within and around you. Feed upon the arts as you would upon wisdom—read, listen, watch, and create. Support the musicians, painters, and poets who bring color to the grayness of life. Let music be more than background; let it be prayer. Let art be more than decoration; let it be revelation. If you would build a strong nation, feed not only its mouths, but its souls.

For Jason Moran’s words are a prophecy for our time: that art is sustenance, not ornament; a road back to ourselves, waiting only to be walked again. The people who embrace music, poetry, and imagination do not merely survive—they flourish. Their hearts grow vast, their minds open wide, and their spirits dance with eternity. So let us return to that ancient road, and make again of life a song worth hearing.