affirmation

sounds

So, this just came across my radar - and here's what I think - if this is how some fucking feeling gets back into music, then I'll take it. Right now, it's nice to hear, as I am totally submerging myself in what has come before:

Because, it's so very, very easy to forget that music can move you, can evoke passion, heartbreak, angst and joy. The pablum that is fed through the machine that sells things is dumbing us down. Music is passionate expression, it's emotion, it's performance, it's a way for people to tell a story. We need more of that. More stories from real people who feel real things. Less of the hurry-up and wait for what's gonna be cool. What's cool is what is real, what is created by people who can't do anything else but make that music. Right then. Right now.
Recently, listening to an interview with Dick Cavett, he talked about art and about its relationship to crazy (passion) and talent. There are a lot of people with plenty of talent out in the world trying to make money. Then, there are the people who are passionate, with a bit of ability, who rise above because their sheer joy and intensity bring a performance to a whole other level. And there are, of course, wonderful, skilled craftspeople who can woo you with their understanding of time, measure and the beauty of sound they create beautiful sounds of wonder. Then, there is that lightening bolt. Where talent and passion collide, and you see it transform into something else, an experience, a message even. Performance that makes you walk away feeling that people are good, that humans are gifted, that we all understand that innate need to communicate and feel. Best of all, I think, is if you walk away wanting to create something of your own to share.
You get that occasionally. I've been lucky a few times to find bands and performers that move me like that. Currently, Ms. O'Day is rocking my world much like John Coltrane did almost 15 years ago. As Juno and the Gits have so many times. She's classic, but also transcendental. The layers of beauty and the voice communicating with instruments and sound....it sounds almost trite to say, but it's about hearing all of it, about that moment. Jazz, baby, jazz. That idea that it's in the playing, the listening, it's a conversation players are having and you listen to it actively, passionately.
Not Kenny fucking G.
What I always loved, in my brief moment as a musician, was the performance (although, with that one, sterling lineup, sometimes practice would be pretty sweet too) - in the moment, when the song sounded right, when the energy was in sync, when we were all, literally, playing as one. That was what I loved most, it's what I crave in my life today. I find it, sometimes, when in a restaurant, during service in the higher end ones. When you are plating a complicated composed plate, with many elements, and you want it to be balanced, to look right, to taste, just right, and you set it up for the server and they whisk it away, and you hope that the person who experiences loves it and is as happy as you are in that moment of creating it.
Yeah. There are parallels all around. More to come.

down to the wire

In the home stretch with organizing and getting moved, lots of ideas floating around, looking to getting those down shortly, but for now, this.