I personally do not believe in politics, hatred, or anger in my

Host: The night was restless with voices — a city’s tired heartbeat echoing through brick walls and narrow alleys. Somewhere above, the moonlight tangled with the smoke of rooftop chimneys, and in the half-lit basement bar below, a piano waited, patient, its keys catching the dim glow of a single flickering bulb.

Jack sat at the bar, a glass of bourbon in his hand, the amber liquid trembling faintly with the rhythm of the bass. His eyes, cold and restless, watched Jeeny across the room as she leaned against the old upright piano, her fingers resting gently on the keys, coaxing a faint, melancholic melody into life.

The air smelled of smoke, sweat, and something older — the kind of nostalgia that sticks to the walls of jazz clubs long after the music dies.

Host: The night had begun with silence, but as always, words came — drawn from something deeper than the music, from the tension between faith and fatigue, between sound and silence.

Jack: “You really believe that line, don’t you?”

Jeeny looked up, her dark eyes reflecting both light and weariness.

Jeeny: “Horace Silver’s words? ‘I personally do not believe in politics, hatred, or anger in my musical composition’? Yes. Completely. Music should rise above all that. It should heal.”

Jack scoffed, swirling his drink.

Jack: “Heal? You think music can ignore politics, hatred, or anger when the world bleeds through every note? That’s not healing — that’s denial.”

Host: The drummer hit a soft brush roll behind them, a rhythm like a whisper. Jeeny smiled faintly, and her fingers pressed a low A — a note so soft it felt like a sigh.

Jeeny: “It’s not denial, Jack. It’s choice. Silver chose to build peace when the world was at war. To write joy in a time of rage — that’s an act of rebellion too.”

Jack: “Rebellion? No, Jeeny, rebellion sounds like Coltrane’s Alabama — that’s the sound of protest. That’s truth. Silver’s kind of serenity — it’s beautiful, but it’s naïve.”

Host: The light flickered above them. A waitress passed by, setting down an ashtray that smelled of a hundred nights and the same argument.

Jeeny: “Naïve? You think joy is naïve? Try holding onto joy after the world has broken you — that’s harder than anger. Silver wasn’t blind, Jack. He just refused to let bitterness score his chords.”

Jack: “Maybe. But music isn’t just about comfort. Sometimes it needs to bite, to provoke, to bleed. Otherwise, it’s background noise. Rage has rhythm too, Jeeny.”

Jeeny: “And yet rage ends where it begins — in destruction. Silver understood that. He saw that real music transcends all that noise. It speaks to what’s eternal in us, not what’s temporary.”

Host: Her voice had grown stronger, cutting through the air like a note that refuses to resolve. The band paused, listening. Even the saxophonist leaned forward slightly, as though catching a sermon in her tone.

Jack: “But what’s eternal, really? You say music should rise above hatred, but that hatred built some of the greatest works we’ve ever known. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring — born of chaos. Nina Simone’s Mississippi Goddam — anger turned into art. Without that fire, there’s no truth.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Without that fire, there’s no pain — but pain alone isn’t truth. Truth needs light, too. Nina’s anger was holy because she sought justice. But Silver’s calm was just as sacred — he sought peace. The world needs both.”

Host: The piano sat between them like a third presence — ancient, breathing, holding both philosophies in its wood. Jack finished his drink, eyes locked on the keys, as if searching for an argument between black and white.

Jack: “So you think peace can move people the way pain can?”

Jeeny: “I know it can. Because peace is what we long for after pain. You can rage all you want — but when the song ends, everyone just wants silence to mean something again.”

Host: Her hands fell across the keys, letting loose a melody — slow, thoughtful, almost fragile. Each note lingered, hung, dissolved into smoke. Jack listened, unwillingly at first, then helplessly.

Jack: “You always play like that — like you’re forgiving the world.”

Jeeny: “Maybe someone has to.”

Host: The room held still, the small audience quiet. The bartender leaned against the counter, drying a glass that didn’t need drying, just listening. The melody rose and fell, a slow current through the noise of the city.

Jack: “But if artists stop showing the pain, how will the world remember?”

Jeeny: “By the sound of healing. You can’t remember pain forever, Jack — it devours you. Silver wanted to remind us that joy is also part of the truth. That even in oppression, laughter is resistance.”

Host: Jack’s eyes softened, the sharpness fading from his voice.

Jack: “You really think music can fix hatred?”

Jeeny: “Not fix it. But it can keep it from poisoning everything. It can make people breathe again.”

Jack: “You sound like a preacher.”

Jeeny: “Maybe I’m just tired of noise pretending to be courage.”

Host: The band picked up the thread of her melody — the bass walking softly beneath her chords, the drums whispering a heartbeat, the trumpet sighing a muted echo. It was a sound without anger, without edges — and yet it carried the full weight of every sorrow they had known.

Jack: “You know,” he said finally, “maybe peace can be its own protest. Not a silence — but a refusal.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Horace Silver knew that. In a time when everyone shouted, he played something that whispered: ‘We can still be kind.’ That’s not avoidance. That’s faith.”

Host: Outside, the rain began again — gentle, rhythmic, like brushed cymbals against glass. The city softened beneath it, as though soothed by its own music.

Jack looked at Jeeny, something unspoken rising behind his usual cynicism.

Jack: “Maybe I’ve been listening to the wrong kind of songs.”

Jeeny smiled, her eyes catching the faint glow of the stage lights.

Jeeny: “Or maybe you just haven’t listened deeply enough.”

Host: The music swelled, low and luminous. Jack took a deep breath, and for once, said nothing. His silence wasn’t defeat — it was understanding.

The final note hung in the air, long after her fingers left the keys. It shimmered there — pure, fragile, untethered by hate. Then, quietly, it fell.

Jeeny looked at him, and whispered:

Jeeny: “There. That’s what peace sounds like.”

Host: The crowd didn’t clap. They didn’t need to. The silence that followed was applause enough. Outside, the streetlights flickered in rhythm with the fading rain.

In that dim, forgotten corner of the city, Jack and Jeeny sat in the hush of a song that had chosen mercy over rage — and in its stillness, they both understood: sometimes the truest revolution is simply to play without anger.