Sanity Break
Morning news: earthquake in Java, street fighting in East Timor, the continuing nightmare in Iraq but sometimes you need a break from it. Somtimes you need Jazz --
Of all the things our nation has contributed to the world (dictatorships, deathsquads, wars, broken economies . . .) Jazz is the thing we can be most proud of. Real jazz, (as opposed to the so-called "smooth" mucial pop) is our greatest cultural achievement and a product of our oppressed African-American community. It is unfortunately more popular in other countries than is is at home. Jazz is where it's at. It is our classical music. It is my muse. It clears the head and nourishes the soul.
posted by Jaded Prole @ 8:41 AM
3 Comments:
prole, you nailed it. I often say the same thing inre: one of the few brilliant exports from this country. I'm sure you've gathered from my poetry that Miles is my biggest artistic influence; his unwillingness to go back over old work, his desire to push onwards, his purity of intent with regard to the music, his devotion to the art of IMPROVISATION (which, really let's be clear, is the ability to THINK IN THE MOMENT and make CORRECT DECISIONS based on a lifetime of education, experimentation, etc., an ability to create with immediacy...), the air he left in the music, the space. the short sparse lines of my poetry are the direct descendants of Miles few perfectly chosen notes. he didn't always need a Coltrane like fury of notes cascading vertically, Miles played more horizontally, he left himself room to manuever. I like that.
good post, and I swear, music is one of the only things that still gives me hope in art, in humanity, in our ability to rise above our own sorry ass base natures and produce Great Works worthy of a species that invented JAZZ.
and let's never forget where it came from, a poor city that was intentionally left to die by a gov't full of despicable rich assholes who actively seek to eliminate artistic expression because they understand that it is the artists, the writers, the dissidents, the outlaws, the journalists, the shamen, the truthseekers, the strange freaks in small rooms hunched over typewriters or trumpets, blowing notes for the sake of the sound, making music in the dark midnight of our world, singing a hoarse song of desperation, the notes echoing thru the valleys where we wander lost who give us direction.
give us hope.
So What performed by Mclaughlin/Bireli. went digging after watching your post...
this is some good shit.
er, I mean "All Blues..."
sorry
Post a Comment
<< Home