When an image of the dark, mellow sounds of jazz sets in the mind, swirls of cigarette smoke snake past stage lights on an artist’s black suit. The artist sits, playing his hallowing memories in acoustic chords to the hidden whisperings of shadowy figures and the clink of cocktail glasses.

Doug Wamble, however, sits in his basement office lined with guitars and the low fluorescent glow of his computer as he pens lyrics with a guitar in hand and “Dawson’s Creek” on the TV.

Wamble jokes the WB entourage is more than enough inspiration because “seeing Katie Holmes will make anyone happy.”

Not everything in his life is backdropped by his bright outlook, though.

“I think recently, if there’s any angst that I have, it’s the problems that I feel are related to the state of my country,” Wamble says.

“I’m very disturbed by the hatred and the partisan divide that is the result of the past two presidential elections – it’s poisonous and both sides are complicit in it.”

His band, Bluestate, is an obvious signifier to Wamble’s political stance, who proclaims he is “a card-carrying Democrat.” He believes, however, his background – a Tennessee native who grew up in the Southern Baptist faith – could offer a more “balanced” viewpoint for Republicans who consider Democrats liberals.

“I’m not some liberal elite. I grew up in a low-income household in the Southern Baptist church – I’m still a person of faith and I still love my country,” he says.

“Some people don’t like it – I talk about some of the inspirations for my music and people would come up to me afterwards and say ‘It’s a shame you’re so against your country.’ Is it unpatriotic to say that men and women should only go to war for truthful causes?”

Wamble draws much of the personal element in his music from his disagreements with the country’s political direction, and more recently, the hurricane in New Orleans, hometown to many of his close friends and the epicenter of the jazz genre.

New advancements in Wamble’s life, however, drive him to reach out for more positive outlooks.

“It’s been a challenge to move away from [negative outlets] and I feel like when I was a lot younger I drew more on personal heartache and pain,” he says.

“Nowadays, it’s really interesting to see everything from the other side, which is that I am very happily married and have my first-born child. It is a really great, other source of inspiration.”

Although Wamble may not be one of the more highly recognized names in jazz music, he has nonetheless had opportunities to travel the world and experience numerous different, European backgrounds.

He has visited France, another epicenter of jazz, and says more Americans should travel overseas to gain perspective on other cultures – and to look at their own through the eyes of another country.

“I hold a lot of the views that I do because I have been able to meet people from around the world and share in their experience of humanity,” Wamble says.

“If I could irradicate poverty and hunger, the next thing that I would do is give everyone a plane ticket to somewhere overseas so they could hang out with someone who isn’t American.”

Back home, Wamble says his white, Southern upbringing wasn’t necessarily the origin of his love for jazz, but rather it was an outward expression of himself. By a self-described “trial by fire,” Wamble says he has learned to respect jazz and its roots as a cultural keynote, no matter where he may have come from.

“It is essential that anyone who plays jazz music needs to have a clear and respectful understanding that this music was a direct result of the black American experience,” he says.

“You can’t run away from that, you can’t ignore it because the music would not have been possible without the descendants of slaves.”

 

Who: Doug Wamble

Where: M-Shop

When: 8 p.m. Friday

Cost: $10 students, $12 public