Creativity Quote by Jimmy Rushing

Rushing is pointing at a secret handshake you can hear but not quite name: the way New Orleans musicians turn a basic blues into something humid, elastic, and communal. The killer move here is his admitted ignorance. He’s a major singer from the big-band world, not some wide-eyed tourist, yet he says, basically, I know it when I hear it, and I can’t label it. That humility is doing work. It elevates the New Orleans players by implying their difference isn’t just style or swagger; it lives in the DNA of the harmony, in a micro-choice that theory can’t fully capture in the moment.

The “chord” is almost certainly less a single chord than a whole habit: blue notes that bend into place, dominant colors with added tones, the gospel-inflected substitutions, the way a band leans on a voicing until it starts to feel like weather. Rushing’s ear hears a recurring fingerprint, something shared across players, which is why he adds, “and they all make it.” New Orleans isn’t an individual genius story here; it’s a local language with many fluent speakers.

In the early-to-mid 20th century, when jazz was professionalizing and swing was codifying what “tight” meant, this is a reminder that the most durable innovations often come from neighborhoods before they come from classrooms. Rushing is describing authenticity without romanticizing it: not “soul,” not “vibe,” but a concrete musical decision that carries history, migration, church, and dancehall all at once.