Although there are some shining examples over the years, mostly on the instrumental side, rarely is the marriage of jazz to rock n’ roll a satisfying union. Like so many dynamic relationships, each flame needs a lot of oxygen to stay bright, and both usually suffocate. That is not the case with “Someday”, the latest single from Los Angeles-based producer/bass player/engineer/songwriter/and self-described mediocre singer Just Super. Dubbing the genre “emo jazz”, the composition combines elements of indie rock, R&B, and pop with a rhythmic and harmonic foundation steeped in jazz. Much like the collaboration between Louis Armstrong and Jimmie Rodgers back in the day, when the focus on the genre is thrown out the window, the music is left to speak for itself.
“Someday’ is an admission of my fluctuating inability to maintain happiness. I feel like my mental health is very cyclical; plateauing contentment →slow decline into a sneaky depression→ignoring low point→hopelessness→acknowledging depression→implementing self-care tools→elation with progress—plateauing contentment…It’s the “ignoring low point” that always makes me laugh a little, because dammit, this is the crux of the cycle. Someday addresses how comfortable I feel in the low points of my life and probably why “implementing self-care” takes me so long to get to, I tend to feel at home in my transitory misery. Growing up, like most people my age (especially the east coast seemingly) my parents didn’t have the mental health knowledge or vernacular that we’re so lucky to have now so for a long time my existence was oscillating between ignoring depression and hopelessness. Because of my time spent in that place there’s familiarity, there’s a coziness to the enveloping gloom, so much so that the world beyond it seems foreign and uninhabitable. Somedays I think I may be my best self when I’m at my worst, somedays I try to conceptualize a song I wrote so that others may relate to it,” says Just Super.
