Month: April 2018

And here’s what I wrote, lightly edited.  Forgive me if my reference points are sophomoric.

Here’s a good intro (tracks 1-6; this looks like some special edition thing with bonus tracks): https://open.spotify.com/album/7EOQggjtK8JCqeRz9IG33e

“Moanin’ ” is a classic jam.

Mingus was a bassist, and what I love about him is he combined boppy proggy Coltrane-type stuff in his horn lines, Ellington-style compositional ambition, and yet stayed rooted in blues and gospel and doing substances and ripping the hell out of some tunes. He’s so strong in both the head and the heart. I can think to Mingus, or just enjoy the wailing.

Mingus and Erroll Garner are my jazz favs. Erroll is brilliant, but mostly gives me the feeling of Nat King Cole singing carols while being appropriate year-round and absent any religious/nostalgic/whatever baggage. He just captures the feeling. I could have a whiskey, listen to Erroll, and get misty about how time is passing and the past is irrecoverable and I’d try to be Buddhist and accept impermanence but he’d be reminding me about love lost and simultaneously reminding me that this moment is ok and it’s good to be listening right now.

https://open.spotify.com/album/0EnTJ3I9hXDkNdIdm0TRce You are in for a treat

<3 -h

With luck, the next post will be after I finish h&s bass.

Cory wrote this to me, and suggested it would be OK if I posted it here. It’s eminently worth mentioning that since receiving the below, he also said he’s been listening to a bunch of Monk, which I endorse.

I will try to turn him on to Mingus, I promise.

For me, 2017 was the year of jazz. I’m embracing my participation in this near-universal cliché. The jazz phase is inevitable for so many of us, like the Led Zeppelin phase, or the trying-real-hard-to-care-about-Leonard-Cohen phase. I knew almost nothing about jazz before I dove in, which has made it even more pronounced. I’m glad I waited until 35 to do all this, because if I’d have done it in my 20s, I’d have been insufferable. No one wants to hear anyone else talk about jazz. I know that from being on the other end of the conversation many times.

So far, my favorite record is “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis. It’s the kind of record where, when you hear it for the first time, you feel like you’re the only person to know it. It feels like a secret. It’s moody, it’s dark, it’s heartbreaking. Of course, everyone’s already in the loop except me. Howie’s got a cat named after him. But I’d rather be a little late to the party than sleep through the whole thing, I guess, especially when there are trumpets!

Favorite group/artist: David Brubeck Quartet. They do everything that I really love about jazz. It’s mostly beautiful, often jarring, atmospheric, and experimental without being up inside their own butts. If I’m feeling sentimental, Vince Guaraldi Trio is also great. It’s amazing to me that his music was used for children’s programming (“Peanuts”), even though it’s clearly made specifically for heroin addicts to have something to listen to.

– Cory

A few pedal repairs, listening to a bunch of Doomtree records, Sleep show tonight…

Somehow I still feel like I’m getting nowhere.  <shrug emoji> <grimace emoji>

What’s your musical weekend been like?