I get these floaters. Not the optic kind, not the swimming kind. I get these thoughts that seem to stay afloat in my mind, like corks, and they will swish back and forth until they come together like beads of mercury to form a question. Never an answer or a conclusion, always a question. So here are my floaters.
I’ve been having a hard time with recording lately, getting a sound so truly crappy that I considered, again, just stopping my playing and selling my equipment. Back in St. Louis, years ago, Steve Kirby told me that the tape recorder doesn’t lie. And if you’ve ever met Steve Kirby, you believe whatever he says. Steve used to tape everything he played. He could do a CD with several hours of tuning up, and that’s it. Yeah Miles, your tune “Tune Up” just lacks the realism of Steve actually tuning up. Anyway, I no longer believe that that tape recorder doesn’t lie, although I believe that Steve believes that it doesn’t. My reasoning—big damn studios with lots of very expensive equipment and highly skilled engineers who spend hours trying to do what our ears do so naturally. So my little broken down cassette player—it’s a liar.
The next floater is big screen plasma TVs. We don’t own one, and have no plans to do so. But you can’t help but watch them when you go shopping and stroll by the section. You what I saw? I didn’t see More Action. I saw pores, skin pores. I saw the skin’s recording of the chicken pox and the teenage years, I saw who needed to shave as opposed to who was cultivating ‘that look’. And those hot chicks? Uh, not that hot. Too much information, I thought.
Another floater is the fact that I love old movies.
Combined with the floater that the jazz that sells the most was, by today’s standards, poorly recorded.
And then the question crystallized. I think that our minds do quite a bit of filtering. It doesn’t seem like it, but I think that our minds discard scads of information—because in real life, we don’t notice those details that I couldn’t help but notice on the plasma television. When you meet a person you don’t notice any of the little things that they are afraid you’re going to notice. You’re trying to know their soul, who they are and it really doesn’t matter about how impatient they were as teenagers, or what is now growing out of places where nothing grew before. You just don’t notice. And truthfully, I could give a rat’s ass how white your teeth are.
What this means for jazz is that state of the art, the art, isn’t state of the art. In other words, the music seemed better when it wasn’t recorded so well—it certainly sold more. I’m wondering, are we now providing too much information—digitally, regarding what is played, and how a group melds. Was the microphone in the middle of the living room working in tandem with the minds’ natural process? And like the new Pore TVs, are recent recordings working against the mind’s comfort zone, is it now a physiologically unpleasant experience to listen to a jazz recording, no matter how great the players are?
I’m just wondering.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
My First Short Topical Post. (With apologies to Glenn Reynolds)
Look who's back. Did some group in Toronto finally come to their senses? We shall see.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Psycho
Let’s follow up on the insights of Lew Prince, specifically on how, by paying meticulous attention to who came into his music store he defied the experts in St. Louis, and drove them out of business by creating, according to all who go there (me included), the best music store in the world. This of course wasn’t his main point—it wasn’t even his point at all to talk about his success. I was doing the interview, and in the middle of our typing on Google chat he calls me and asks me what the hell is going on, why am I asking about his business. So we get to talking jazz, as in the audience—defined as the thing that used to be a big part of the jazz culture but now barely exists—and he says, in perfect metaphorical form, that the problems of jazz are directly attributable to the jazz musicians’ lack of empathy with their audience, that is, the musician just wanted to get up their and blow and didn’t care a rat’s ass about what the listener might feel. The listener, acting as any normal human being who is being ignored, simply went elsewhere.
The musician, responding as any normal person would, rationalized the whole process and insisted that the music is actually Art, and it is beyond the limited artistic appreciation of the average American, further alienating the audience, further pushing the musician into playing for the sake of art (I’ll forgo all puns, you’re welcome), and giving energy to the death spiral in which jazz finds itself. I was rehearsing for a little demo this past week—bass, guitar, vibes. The bass player happened to remark how he just wants to stop playing when a horn player solos for 25 choruses—I just want to tell him, the bass player said, to call me when he’s done. I said the same thing--call me when you begin to actually play something. We were both talking about the hypothetical Monday Night Jam Session at any given night spot, and why you will never see us at said jam session. The point is, if even the rest of the band can’t stand it, how is the listener going to respond?—because that negativity is going to come across, and that is not why people listen to music.
So, here we are at the question of the day, when playing music, or if you must say it in the following way—when creating art, is the art compromised if you really consider the audience in this process? Will considering the audience force you to end up sounding like Kenny G or Chris Botti? Because I think even these two musicians will admit that no one actually listens to their music as much as many people have their music on while they are doing something else, such as making dinner. There’s no such thing as that catchy little tune by either that you can’t get out of your head—that pops into your thoughts as you are walking down the street.
So here’s where we are, with this question: Can you make great music and still connect with an audience? Because the jazz audience is shrinking and has been for decades—and the music hasn’t gotten any better than it was when it was the sound of our nation and the audience was something close to the number of every living American.
I have a modest proposal. I’d like to define point at which art and entertainment meet, and I suggest that if jazz musicians strive to hit that spot, there’s a chance for the rebirth of jazz.
Here it is. There was a recent study revolving around brain mapping. Of the many wonderful things science is mapping, the genome for instance, the quantum world, the grand landscape of spacetime comprising the cosmos, there are those that are busy mapping the brain. When you read something, or figure something, or math something, different parts of your brain ‘light up’, become active. Here's a bit from a recent article, summarizing a mapping experiment done while folks were watching movies:
To stimulate subjects' brain activity, the researchers showed them three motion picture clips: thirty minutes of Sergio Leone's "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"; an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents "Bang! You're Dead"; and an episode of Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm." To establish a baseline, subjects viewed a clip of unstructured reality: a 10-minute, unedited, one-shot video filmed during a concert in New York City's Washington Square Park.
The results showed that ISC of responses in subjects' neocortex--the portion of the brain responsible for perception and cognition--differed across the four movies:
• The Hitchcock episode evoked similar responses across all viewers in over 65 percent of the neocortex, indicating a high level of control on viewers' minds;
• High ISC was also extensive (45 percent) for "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly";
• Lower ISC was recorded for "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (18 percent) and for the Washington Square Park, or unstructured reality, clip (less than 5 percent)
"Our data suggest that achieving a tight control over viewers' brains during a movie requires, in most cases, intentional construction of the film's sequence through aesthetic means," the researchers wrote. "The fact that Hitchcock was able to orchestrate the responses of so many different brain regions, turning them on and off at the same time across all viewers, may provide neuroscientific evidence for his notoriously famous ability to master and manipulate viewers' minds. Hitchcock often liked to tell interviewers that for him 'creation is based on an exact science of audience reactions.'
Well, Hitchcock had no exact science other than his own observations, his close monitoring of his own feelings, and the knowledge of good story telling. And he knew what he liked. He didn’t like his first version of The Man Who Knew Too Much, but the Jimmy Stewart version was an unquestioned masterpiece. When the studio system collapsed the best he could do, afford really, was Frenzy, and by then he knew it was time to retire. And how many of us have practically memorized North by Northwest.
So I suggest that we try to play what we love rather than trying to please those who insist that we play all of the changes—since their brains don’t light up as brightly as normal folks, or that we play what we love instead of trying to sound like Miles or Trane. And if it turns out that the jazz player doesn’t really love jazz, fine. Because at those Monday Night Jam Sessions, I’m pretty sure the musicians don’t really love jazz, since the music is literally turning people off, especially the rhythm section. And what you want to do, brainwise, is turn people on.
The musician, responding as any normal person would, rationalized the whole process and insisted that the music is actually Art, and it is beyond the limited artistic appreciation of the average American, further alienating the audience, further pushing the musician into playing for the sake of art (I’ll forgo all puns, you’re welcome), and giving energy to the death spiral in which jazz finds itself. I was rehearsing for a little demo this past week—bass, guitar, vibes. The bass player happened to remark how he just wants to stop playing when a horn player solos for 25 choruses—I just want to tell him, the bass player said, to call me when he’s done. I said the same thing--call me when you begin to actually play something. We were both talking about the hypothetical Monday Night Jam Session at any given night spot, and why you will never see us at said jam session. The point is, if even the rest of the band can’t stand it, how is the listener going to respond?—because that negativity is going to come across, and that is not why people listen to music.
So, here we are at the question of the day, when playing music, or if you must say it in the following way—when creating art, is the art compromised if you really consider the audience in this process? Will considering the audience force you to end up sounding like Kenny G or Chris Botti? Because I think even these two musicians will admit that no one actually listens to their music as much as many people have their music on while they are doing something else, such as making dinner. There’s no such thing as that catchy little tune by either that you can’t get out of your head—that pops into your thoughts as you are walking down the street.
So here’s where we are, with this question: Can you make great music and still connect with an audience? Because the jazz audience is shrinking and has been for decades—and the music hasn’t gotten any better than it was when it was the sound of our nation and the audience was something close to the number of every living American.
I have a modest proposal. I’d like to define point at which art and entertainment meet, and I suggest that if jazz musicians strive to hit that spot, there’s a chance for the rebirth of jazz.
Here it is. There was a recent study revolving around brain mapping. Of the many wonderful things science is mapping, the genome for instance, the quantum world, the grand landscape of spacetime comprising the cosmos, there are those that are busy mapping the brain. When you read something, or figure something, or math something, different parts of your brain ‘light up’, become active. Here's a bit from a recent article, summarizing a mapping experiment done while folks were watching movies:
To stimulate subjects' brain activity, the researchers showed them three motion picture clips: thirty minutes of Sergio Leone's "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"; an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents "Bang! You're Dead"; and an episode of Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm." To establish a baseline, subjects viewed a clip of unstructured reality: a 10-minute, unedited, one-shot video filmed during a concert in New York City's Washington Square Park.
The results showed that ISC of responses in subjects' neocortex--the portion of the brain responsible for perception and cognition--differed across the four movies:
• The Hitchcock episode evoked similar responses across all viewers in over 65 percent of the neocortex, indicating a high level of control on viewers' minds;
• High ISC was also extensive (45 percent) for "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly";
• Lower ISC was recorded for "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (18 percent) and for the Washington Square Park, or unstructured reality, clip (less than 5 percent)
"Our data suggest that achieving a tight control over viewers' brains during a movie requires, in most cases, intentional construction of the film's sequence through aesthetic means," the researchers wrote. "The fact that Hitchcock was able to orchestrate the responses of so many different brain regions, turning them on and off at the same time across all viewers, may provide neuroscientific evidence for his notoriously famous ability to master and manipulate viewers' minds. Hitchcock often liked to tell interviewers that for him 'creation is based on an exact science of audience reactions.'
Well, Hitchcock had no exact science other than his own observations, his close monitoring of his own feelings, and the knowledge of good story telling. And he knew what he liked. He didn’t like his first version of The Man Who Knew Too Much, but the Jimmy Stewart version was an unquestioned masterpiece. When the studio system collapsed the best he could do, afford really, was Frenzy, and by then he knew it was time to retire. And how many of us have practically memorized North by Northwest.
So I suggest that we try to play what we love rather than trying to please those who insist that we play all of the changes—since their brains don’t light up as brightly as normal folks, or that we play what we love instead of trying to sound like Miles or Trane. And if it turns out that the jazz player doesn’t really love jazz, fine. Because at those Monday Night Jam Sessions, I’m pretty sure the musicians don’t really love jazz, since the music is literally turning people off, especially the rhythm section. And what you want to do, brainwise, is turn people on.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
An Interview with Lew Prince
As I started this blog I didn’t know that I would be so thematically tight. It started with a memoriam to Oscar Peterson, how Oscar Peterson was somehow able to bring a sheet of notes and chords to life, a piece of paper from dead into big giant life, rain forest life, super hero life, big and powerful life that would blow your soul clean out of your body for a split second. And then we explored what might be inside of Oscar that would allow him to do this—was he showing us something that all of us had within us, an igniter—that little squeaky thing that sparks a blow torch—could we all find that part inside of us that illuminates a room, another person, a family, or in Oscar’s case, the world. When Oscar died, much of jazz died the same day, musicians being like bees without their queen, or in Oscar, their King. All that was left was scattered musicians with no sense of center—of even their own center, buried under more and more music theory, folks willingly burying their own musical soul. That’s how this started.
Then I interviewed Carol Sloane, who spoke from the perspective of being within a sensitive and beautiful band looking at the members of that wonderful band. This was followed by an interview with Paul Bollenback, a member of that band, who spoke of life as a musician, from the perspective of a musician looking at the audience.
And now we have an interview with Lew Prince—a member of that audience looking at the band, looking at jazz itself. Lew is more than a man on the street, although he started as a man on the street—opening Vintage Vinyl, the street being the Delmar Loop in St. Louis. When he began, the street itself was in decay, the patrons of some of the businesses being the few students brave enough to step off of the nearby college campus—the insulated and protected college campus. Most of the stores had no business, the landlords of the buildings allowing them to stay because as bad as things were, a ghost town was worse. Lew, Tom, and Joe Edwards (owner of Blueberry Hill) understood that their businesses would only survive if the street, once vital, returned to life. It is now one of the ten most exciting streets in the US, according to many national magazines. Lew has experience in bringing things back from the dead.
I remember, so take out your salt grains, a time when Lew needed to expand and the landlord was only too happy to accommodate this need. Next to Vintage Vinyl there was a dusty shoe repair store, old, with cracked linoleum tile and a little old man of a proprietor who stood on the street all day and watched the few people walking past. In the summer he would wear short sleeved shirts, and the tattooed number on his arm was a neon sign to everyone. Lew’s logical expansion would be through this little man’s store. Lew did not take this route. So the expansion was a store one over, that is, you go in the first store, and if you wanted to see more of Vintage Vinyl you had to go outside, past the shoe repair, and into the next building. The little old man could stay as long as he wanted, this was Lew’s precondition—even though the man had no customers, but piles of old shoes. Lew saw that this man had business, and that this man was doing his business of repair—but that it didn’t require customers.
In modern culture experts have a sound, they speak in a certain way, and it usually involves saying nothing but saying it with elegance. Lew defies the language of experts, and it is my hope that we change our expectations of experts—from sounding good and saying nothing, all the way to saying something important any damn way it comes out. So, here is my interview with Lew Prince, done through, again, Google Chat.
me: First of all, aside from the record and cd collectors, you may not be world renown. However, among this group, you are indeed well known, and you might just know more about the public's taste in music than anyone out there. Don't be modest, just say this is a true statement.
Lew: Yeah...I'm a regular fuckin' god. In fact in India there's a statue of me with 8 arms each holding a different music delivery system...the best is the Edison cylinder in my 3rd left. It looks kinda phallic.
me: Well doesn't this lead to the next question, the appeal of your store or stores. How many do you have now?
Lew: Just one...I decided to give up the other store when I gave up polygamy.
me: Seriously,how many did you have at the highest point?
Lew: Never more than two...The thing to realize is that the mothership is a 7,500 square foot store that is devoted almost entirely to music. We generally stock 40-50,000 titles. In comparison your average mall store stocks 2,500 -5,000. Big boxes--like a really well stocked Best Buy might have 10,000; Walmart or Target have less than a mall store. Keeping more than one store really well stocked actually is harder than keeping several wives in diamonds and furs.
me: Let's talk about the history of the store, because I remember back before you opened. On the same street there was a least one used record store--this was before CDs, and one new record store, and both were predicting your imminent demise. What happened--take the story from there.
Lew: We started the business in a stand at the local farmer's market in Sept of 1979. It turned out that by Thanksgiving, even if we danced constantly to an endless loop of James Brown's Popcord we couldn't stay warm outdoors. So we rented a store front between the big local chain store--Streetside Records and one of the half dozen or so used record stores in town: Wuxtry. Wuxtry was part of a Chicago chain run by the idiot and coke addled son of the guys who ran owned Rose Records, the big local chain in Chicago. Neither took us very seriously. In fact, Tom ( my partner Tom Ray) and I had offered the All Used And Cut Out Record store idea to the owner of Streetside in exchange for guaranteed jobs running the store and they literally laughed at us.
me: And by the end of the first year...
Lew: We were swimmin' in cash. The first store was 400 square feet. So we only stocked records we liked; music we could defend in each genre. It turned into a meeting place for the musically literate or those that wanted to be musically literate. God, we thought we were the shit...The best part though was it became our jobs to listen to everything we could and have some idea of who that piece of music might make happy.
me: That certainly began my growth as a musician and jazz lover, leading directly to this blog. But what happened to the other stores?
Lew: Both chains decided they'd rather have lots of crappy stores instead of a couple of good ones. Mostly, in business the job of the highest level of management (in the case of Vintage Vinyl that would be me) is to predict the future and prepare your people and business to meet the future head on with a plan and a set of options in case the plan doesn't work. Both those chains expanded like crazy --Streetside at one point had 21 stores—when a combination of the arrival of CDs and the burgeoning of Punk/New Wave/ Alternative Rock came along and sales went crazy. We were offered lots of deals to do the same by bankers and venture capitalists. We talked about it and looked into it, but in the end, declined.
me: I remember you were asked by the other stores, used stores to buy them out--they went out of business, right? And what happened to Steetside?
Lew: Actually, Tom and I loved to show up at a dying store with cash, a step or two ahead of the their creditors and cream their inventory before the big record companies asked for their stuff back. We had a great time visiting the late, great Peaches chain. I helped the local Wuxtry partner, who was being screwed by his Chicago partners, extract his money and I ended up with their inventory. In Streetside's case they went through a bankruptcy, were sold a couple of times before their last 3 stores ended up as the property of the largest chain in America. Trans-world Distributing. Trans-world owns mall stores like FYE and Sam Goody's. They closed the store down the street from me, when the lease come up for renewal last December. At several points in the decline of Streetside they'd offer me the furniture in their stores for free, if I'd just pick it up before the landlord sued them to get it out. I don't think we've paid for a record/CD bin or piece of display furniture here since the late '80's. We went from 1,000 square feet in 1984 to 7,500 today without buying any fixtures. One of the secrets to our success is lots of high quality black paint, so we can make our dead competitors' furniture look like it belongs here.
me: That's where I was going with this. Allow this metaphor to go on for a moment--when the Orioles were a great dynasty they had a knack for picking up pitchers thought to be mediocre to poor and turning them into 20 game winners. Eventually, the rest of baseball had to adapt--because when the Orioles looked at a pitcher they saw something different than the other teams. And their success proved their point. So how is your approach to music and listeners different from the other stores?
Lew: The difference is we're all music lovers here. The other stores thought they were selling ‘product’. We’re selling music. Our job is to find the best stuff and match up customers to sounds they might not even know exist, that , based on their taste or sophistication level, we think they're gonna love.
me: You know the history of jazz, what do you see happening as record sales dropped, as there became a great disconnect between the music being produced to the public's perception and reception of the music?
Lew: Jazz started crapping out commercially when it graduated from entertainment to "Art". By the mid 1930's jazz was America's popular music. It was the music of youth, of ideas, of vitality. The range of the music was vast--from Louis Armstrong and the hot music of New Orleans to big dance bands like Benny Goodman. In this era Jazz musicians viewed themselves as being in the entertainment business. Jazz at this time performed the basic function of all popular music in all cultures. From the chants of Uruba tribesman to the music of Jennifer Lopez--it is music for mating rituals that begin with dancing.
me: Are you also saying that the 'art' that many musicians create isn't all that artistic?
Lew: No. It's not entertaining to most people and it's lost the element that made it entertaining. Look...most music works on one of three levels: physical, emotional or cerebral. Think: head , heart, genitals. The best pop music rarely works on more than one of those levels--usually it makes you dance or makes you cry. The best music works on all three. The magical quality of jazz is that it, more than any other form has the ability to work on all three simultaneously. That's amazing and it's what attracted me to the music. Then the second generation of be-boppers took a lot of the "hips on down" part of the music out for reasons that derived from their search for dignity as artists. That left
the cerebral and the emotional. By the '60's the Coltrane generation (decided that they weren't gonna reflect or connect with their audiences’ feelings or thoughts, but instead communicate their own...like I'm supposed to care what Archie Shepp thinks about the political situation in Alabama in 1964. ---that's what I mean by it became capital ‘A’, Art.
me: Is this trend continuing, and do you think the music will become extinct, or do you see hope for a revival, and if so, how should this come about?
Lew: Look this is a very complicated question and I'm gonna sound like an idiot, the way I'm simplifying it, but...Post bop music, where the band plays a head and then everybody solo's as if they were the only guy in the room, which is the vast majority of recorded jazz since 1970 or so HAS been dead for decades. What has saved jazz, insofar as it's been saved is great ensemble music; which is how jazz started out and which has always been the jazz that had traction with the general public. Wynton Marsallis understands this idea and it is the foundation of his success. The most vital jazz in America is played everyday in New Orleans where it is a living part of a local popular culture in the form of their local brass and mardi-gras bands. You can go to any kind of function from a wedding to a funeral and hear a hot local brass band made up of everyone from geezers to their grandkids and see people of the same age spread dancing to it. NO ENSEMBLE IN AMERICA PLAYS A BETTER COMBINATION FOR HEAD, HEART AND HIPS THAN THE DIRTY DOZEN BRASS BAND and that is the future of jazz...a future that is reflected in pop music in bands like Galactic, in the pop/jamband field to the re-emergence and discovery of forms like Klezmer, in the "folk" or "world music" genres. Lots of people who think of themselves as jazz musicians keep food on their tables playing in these kinds of bands. Most of the public has no idea ...hell most so called jazz lovers have no idea that these bands ARE the great jazz bands of our era.
me: Last question, so if you're a kid that somehow hears--anything recorded by Rudy Van Gelder, loves it, joins the jazz band at school, gets some praise, where is the next step to avoid going over the cliff? And where is the ledge of that cliff?
Lew: Get some friends together who like the same music and listen to it--find like minded players an play what feels good. Play what makes you wanna dance or cry or curl up in a fetal position. Play some girl's clothes off. Play until birds or coyotes start gathering at your door. Listen to the great ensembles—Armstrong’s hot 5'sand 7's, the Basie and Ellington bands, Sun Ra, the Ornette Coleman's bands, Miles’ and Monks’ bands, the great Coltrane quartet. Don't forget to dig into the pop music that moves you--hip hop culture is a fountain of rhythmic and lyrical innovation--and remember it's all branches of the same tree; the AMERICAN musical tree and there are no rules or boundaries for a musician who wants to connect with people.
me: my screen says that you are still typing, yes?
Lew: The ledge--you want to see the ledge--hmmm--Phil Woods once said that if music schools were for real they would ditch the classes and just hand everyone a band uniform, put them on a bus with no windows and drive them around campus for eight hours then have them set up their instuments on a band stand, sit there for a couple of minutes, then get back on the bus change into their street clothes and do it all again for about a couple of months...cause that's what being a PROFESSIONAL JAZZ MUSICIAN boils down to for a lot of people. If you can stay creative in that atmosphere or love it so much you are happy with your three hours between bus rides, then go for it. Otherwise feel lucky when you have people to play with and a place to play and get your satisfaction by getting off on your fellow musicians in whatever setting or context you get to do it.
me: Well thank you very much. It turns out there is a theme running through these interviews, from within the band, to the musician looking at the crowds, and now, the crowd itself. It's been enlightening to say the least, especially the connection, whether you intended to emphasize this, on growing your business and the feelings of your customers, to playing music and being cognizant of the feelings of the audience. Lots of wisdom there. Build the statue.
Lew: Build it out of cottage cheese...bye...love ya
me: Back atcha.
Then I interviewed Carol Sloane, who spoke from the perspective of being within a sensitive and beautiful band looking at the members of that wonderful band. This was followed by an interview with Paul Bollenback, a member of that band, who spoke of life as a musician, from the perspective of a musician looking at the audience.
And now we have an interview with Lew Prince—a member of that audience looking at the band, looking at jazz itself. Lew is more than a man on the street, although he started as a man on the street—opening Vintage Vinyl, the street being the Delmar Loop in St. Louis. When he began, the street itself was in decay, the patrons of some of the businesses being the few students brave enough to step off of the nearby college campus—the insulated and protected college campus. Most of the stores had no business, the landlords of the buildings allowing them to stay because as bad as things were, a ghost town was worse. Lew, Tom, and Joe Edwards (owner of Blueberry Hill) understood that their businesses would only survive if the street, once vital, returned to life. It is now one of the ten most exciting streets in the US, according to many national magazines. Lew has experience in bringing things back from the dead.
I remember, so take out your salt grains, a time when Lew needed to expand and the landlord was only too happy to accommodate this need. Next to Vintage Vinyl there was a dusty shoe repair store, old, with cracked linoleum tile and a little old man of a proprietor who stood on the street all day and watched the few people walking past. In the summer he would wear short sleeved shirts, and the tattooed number on his arm was a neon sign to everyone. Lew’s logical expansion would be through this little man’s store. Lew did not take this route. So the expansion was a store one over, that is, you go in the first store, and if you wanted to see more of Vintage Vinyl you had to go outside, past the shoe repair, and into the next building. The little old man could stay as long as he wanted, this was Lew’s precondition—even though the man had no customers, but piles of old shoes. Lew saw that this man had business, and that this man was doing his business of repair—but that it didn’t require customers.
In modern culture experts have a sound, they speak in a certain way, and it usually involves saying nothing but saying it with elegance. Lew defies the language of experts, and it is my hope that we change our expectations of experts—from sounding good and saying nothing, all the way to saying something important any damn way it comes out. So, here is my interview with Lew Prince, done through, again, Google Chat.
me: First of all, aside from the record and cd collectors, you may not be world renown. However, among this group, you are indeed well known, and you might just know more about the public's taste in music than anyone out there. Don't be modest, just say this is a true statement.
Lew: Yeah...I'm a regular fuckin' god. In fact in India there's a statue of me with 8 arms each holding a different music delivery system...the best is the Edison cylinder in my 3rd left. It looks kinda phallic.
me: Well doesn't this lead to the next question, the appeal of your store or stores. How many do you have now?
Lew: Just one...I decided to give up the other store when I gave up polygamy.
me: Seriously,how many did you have at the highest point?
Lew: Never more than two...The thing to realize is that the mothership is a 7,500 square foot store that is devoted almost entirely to music. We generally stock 40-50,000 titles. In comparison your average mall store stocks 2,500 -5,000. Big boxes--like a really well stocked Best Buy might have 10,000; Walmart or Target have less than a mall store. Keeping more than one store really well stocked actually is harder than keeping several wives in diamonds and furs.
me: Let's talk about the history of the store, because I remember back before you opened. On the same street there was a least one used record store--this was before CDs, and one new record store, and both were predicting your imminent demise. What happened--take the story from there.
Lew: We started the business in a stand at the local farmer's market in Sept of 1979. It turned out that by Thanksgiving, even if we danced constantly to an endless loop of James Brown's Popcord we couldn't stay warm outdoors. So we rented a store front between the big local chain store--Streetside Records and one of the half dozen or so used record stores in town: Wuxtry. Wuxtry was part of a Chicago chain run by the idiot and coke addled son of the guys who ran owned Rose Records, the big local chain in Chicago. Neither took us very seriously. In fact, Tom ( my partner Tom Ray) and I had offered the All Used And Cut Out Record store idea to the owner of Streetside in exchange for guaranteed jobs running the store and they literally laughed at us.
me: And by the end of the first year...
Lew: We were swimmin' in cash. The first store was 400 square feet. So we only stocked records we liked; music we could defend in each genre. It turned into a meeting place for the musically literate or those that wanted to be musically literate. God, we thought we were the shit...The best part though was it became our jobs to listen to everything we could and have some idea of who that piece of music might make happy.
me: That certainly began my growth as a musician and jazz lover, leading directly to this blog. But what happened to the other stores?
Lew: Both chains decided they'd rather have lots of crappy stores instead of a couple of good ones. Mostly, in business the job of the highest level of management (in the case of Vintage Vinyl that would be me) is to predict the future and prepare your people and business to meet the future head on with a plan and a set of options in case the plan doesn't work. Both those chains expanded like crazy --Streetside at one point had 21 stores—when a combination of the arrival of CDs and the burgeoning of Punk/New Wave/ Alternative Rock came along and sales went crazy. We were offered lots of deals to do the same by bankers and venture capitalists. We talked about it and looked into it, but in the end, declined.
me: I remember you were asked by the other stores, used stores to buy them out--they went out of business, right? And what happened to Steetside?
Lew: Actually, Tom and I loved to show up at a dying store with cash, a step or two ahead of the their creditors and cream their inventory before the big record companies asked for their stuff back. We had a great time visiting the late, great Peaches chain. I helped the local Wuxtry partner, who was being screwed by his Chicago partners, extract his money and I ended up with their inventory. In Streetside's case they went through a bankruptcy, were sold a couple of times before their last 3 stores ended up as the property of the largest chain in America. Trans-world Distributing. Trans-world owns mall stores like FYE and Sam Goody's. They closed the store down the street from me, when the lease come up for renewal last December. At several points in the decline of Streetside they'd offer me the furniture in their stores for free, if I'd just pick it up before the landlord sued them to get it out. I don't think we've paid for a record/CD bin or piece of display furniture here since the late '80's. We went from 1,000 square feet in 1984 to 7,500 today without buying any fixtures. One of the secrets to our success is lots of high quality black paint, so we can make our dead competitors' furniture look like it belongs here.
me: That's where I was going with this. Allow this metaphor to go on for a moment--when the Orioles were a great dynasty they had a knack for picking up pitchers thought to be mediocre to poor and turning them into 20 game winners. Eventually, the rest of baseball had to adapt--because when the Orioles looked at a pitcher they saw something different than the other teams. And their success proved their point. So how is your approach to music and listeners different from the other stores?
Lew: The difference is we're all music lovers here. The other stores thought they were selling ‘product’. We’re selling music. Our job is to find the best stuff and match up customers to sounds they might not even know exist, that , based on their taste or sophistication level, we think they're gonna love.
me: You know the history of jazz, what do you see happening as record sales dropped, as there became a great disconnect between the music being produced to the public's perception and reception of the music?
Lew: Jazz started crapping out commercially when it graduated from entertainment to "Art". By the mid 1930's jazz was America's popular music. It was the music of youth, of ideas, of vitality. The range of the music was vast--from Louis Armstrong and the hot music of New Orleans to big dance bands like Benny Goodman. In this era Jazz musicians viewed themselves as being in the entertainment business. Jazz at this time performed the basic function of all popular music in all cultures. From the chants of Uruba tribesman to the music of Jennifer Lopez--it is music for mating rituals that begin with dancing.
me: Are you also saying that the 'art' that many musicians create isn't all that artistic?
Lew: No. It's not entertaining to most people and it's lost the element that made it entertaining. Look...most music works on one of three levels: physical, emotional or cerebral. Think: head , heart, genitals. The best pop music rarely works on more than one of those levels--usually it makes you dance or makes you cry. The best music works on all three. The magical quality of jazz is that it, more than any other form has the ability to work on all three simultaneously. That's amazing and it's what attracted me to the music. Then the second generation of be-boppers took a lot of the "hips on down" part of the music out for reasons that derived from their search for dignity as artists. That left
the cerebral and the emotional. By the '60's the Coltrane generation (decided that they weren't gonna reflect or connect with their audiences’ feelings or thoughts, but instead communicate their own...like I'm supposed to care what Archie Shepp thinks about the political situation in Alabama in 1964. ---that's what I mean by it became capital ‘A’, Art.
me: Is this trend continuing, and do you think the music will become extinct, or do you see hope for a revival, and if so, how should this come about?
Lew: Look this is a very complicated question and I'm gonna sound like an idiot, the way I'm simplifying it, but...Post bop music, where the band plays a head and then everybody solo's as if they were the only guy in the room, which is the vast majority of recorded jazz since 1970 or so HAS been dead for decades. What has saved jazz, insofar as it's been saved is great ensemble music; which is how jazz started out and which has always been the jazz that had traction with the general public. Wynton Marsallis understands this idea and it is the foundation of his success. The most vital jazz in America is played everyday in New Orleans where it is a living part of a local popular culture in the form of their local brass and mardi-gras bands. You can go to any kind of function from a wedding to a funeral and hear a hot local brass band made up of everyone from geezers to their grandkids and see people of the same age spread dancing to it. NO ENSEMBLE IN AMERICA PLAYS A BETTER COMBINATION FOR HEAD, HEART AND HIPS THAN THE DIRTY DOZEN BRASS BAND and that is the future of jazz...a future that is reflected in pop music in bands like Galactic, in the pop/jamband field to the re-emergence and discovery of forms like Klezmer, in the "folk" or "world music" genres. Lots of people who think of themselves as jazz musicians keep food on their tables playing in these kinds of bands. Most of the public has no idea ...hell most so called jazz lovers have no idea that these bands ARE the great jazz bands of our era.
me: Last question, so if you're a kid that somehow hears--anything recorded by Rudy Van Gelder, loves it, joins the jazz band at school, gets some praise, where is the next step to avoid going over the cliff? And where is the ledge of that cliff?
Lew: Get some friends together who like the same music and listen to it--find like minded players an play what feels good. Play what makes you wanna dance or cry or curl up in a fetal position. Play some girl's clothes off. Play until birds or coyotes start gathering at your door. Listen to the great ensembles—Armstrong’s hot 5'sand 7's, the Basie and Ellington bands, Sun Ra, the Ornette Coleman's bands, Miles’ and Monks’ bands, the great Coltrane quartet. Don't forget to dig into the pop music that moves you--hip hop culture is a fountain of rhythmic and lyrical innovation--and remember it's all branches of the same tree; the AMERICAN musical tree and there are no rules or boundaries for a musician who wants to connect with people.
me: my screen says that you are still typing, yes?
Lew: The ledge--you want to see the ledge--hmmm--Phil Woods once said that if music schools were for real they would ditch the classes and just hand everyone a band uniform, put them on a bus with no windows and drive them around campus for eight hours then have them set up their instuments on a band stand, sit there for a couple of minutes, then get back on the bus change into their street clothes and do it all again for about a couple of months...cause that's what being a PROFESSIONAL JAZZ MUSICIAN boils down to for a lot of people. If you can stay creative in that atmosphere or love it so much you are happy with your three hours between bus rides, then go for it. Otherwise feel lucky when you have people to play with and a place to play and get your satisfaction by getting off on your fellow musicians in whatever setting or context you get to do it.
me: Well thank you very much. It turns out there is a theme running through these interviews, from within the band, to the musician looking at the crowds, and now, the crowd itself. It's been enlightening to say the least, especially the connection, whether you intended to emphasize this, on growing your business and the feelings of your customers, to playing music and being cognizant of the feelings of the audience. Lots of wisdom there. Build the statue.
Lew: Build it out of cottage cheese...bye...love ya
me: Back atcha.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Paul Bollenback Interview--The Commentary
There are a couple of reasons to explore what Paul Bollenback said. One reason is that I’m going to believe him when he said in a roundabout way that he isn’t a natural talent, such as one singer I know whose middle name is Modesty. He compared himself to Joey DeFrancesco, who has perfect pitch and a perfect musical memory, and said that it just makes him work harder. Joey has natural ability, Paul has to work. And if you read the entire interview, that’s what Paul does and has always done, he has worked to become the masterful player that he is today. And he is still working.
When the rest of us put the guitar down after an hour to go have dinner, he was out there for two hours. Metaphor aside, I’m willing to bet that he has put in more practice hours than most professional musicians. And I’m also willing to bet that he believes we hackers can all reach the top of the mountain just like him, with the right practice regime and the right amount of time—which is why he’s writing his instruction book. And I’m going to believe him in that belief.
There was one surprising moment in the interview, when he said that his father’s Benny Goodman records didn’t do much for him, but Miles’ Bitches Brew and Coltrane really hooked him. He was into rock at the time, and if you think about it, who is really and truly rocking out—Eric Clapton or John Coltrane? Coltrane of course, without the electricity, just the stuff that turned on his soul. Yet this is an aside.
Paul’s career also hints at steady and hard work. Where Carol Sloane was out in front of paying customers at 14 years old—the path usually taken by the naturally gifted—Paul was with his friends in the garage, playing rock, providing an airtight alibi that they couldn’t possibly be the ones who T.P.’d the neighbor’s trees. But that’s the pathway of a hard worker. He studied, learned the guitar neck, learned some chords, eventually went to school—but not the big schools, the one’s who accept you if you are ready to be signed and recorded right away, he went to a school where he had to work hard and continue to struggle for the mastery of his instrument. And that’s what he did, probably putting in more hours of practice than everyone else in the music department.
In this way, he is every musician.
Now comes the twist, as he spoke of when the subject came up of Barney Kessel. Because in the process of climbing to the top, all of that education has to be unlearned. One has to forget the labels, the names of the chords and the scales until they are just sounds that correspond to the sounds in your heart, that you can reach and form just as that deep inner voice sings it. And he is still involved in the process of unlearning, as he said. The knowledge erodes very slowly, like a rock being polished by ocean waves, that is musical growth. And yet, the process of unlearning is so similar to learning, that you pick up the instrument, and your hands do what they’ve always done for as long as they’ve been holding the guitar—but slowly, secretly, the soul takes over and pushes the knowledge aside, it seeps into your fingers, and the unlearning begins to take place. It just feels exactly like it felt when you were learning. This is the key step, the invisible step.
Somewhere inside of him, our everyman musician walked off of the top of the mountain, the mountain made of knowledge and theory, into the rarefied air of light clouds—and he stayed up there.
And that’s how to become a musician.
When the rest of us put the guitar down after an hour to go have dinner, he was out there for two hours. Metaphor aside, I’m willing to bet that he has put in more practice hours than most professional musicians. And I’m also willing to bet that he believes we hackers can all reach the top of the mountain just like him, with the right practice regime and the right amount of time—which is why he’s writing his instruction book. And I’m going to believe him in that belief.
There was one surprising moment in the interview, when he said that his father’s Benny Goodman records didn’t do much for him, but Miles’ Bitches Brew and Coltrane really hooked him. He was into rock at the time, and if you think about it, who is really and truly rocking out—Eric Clapton or John Coltrane? Coltrane of course, without the electricity, just the stuff that turned on his soul. Yet this is an aside.
Paul’s career also hints at steady and hard work. Where Carol Sloane was out in front of paying customers at 14 years old—the path usually taken by the naturally gifted—Paul was with his friends in the garage, playing rock, providing an airtight alibi that they couldn’t possibly be the ones who T.P.’d the neighbor’s trees. But that’s the pathway of a hard worker. He studied, learned the guitar neck, learned some chords, eventually went to school—but not the big schools, the one’s who accept you if you are ready to be signed and recorded right away, he went to a school where he had to work hard and continue to struggle for the mastery of his instrument. And that’s what he did, probably putting in more hours of practice than everyone else in the music department.
In this way, he is every musician.
Now comes the twist, as he spoke of when the subject came up of Barney Kessel. Because in the process of climbing to the top, all of that education has to be unlearned. One has to forget the labels, the names of the chords and the scales until they are just sounds that correspond to the sounds in your heart, that you can reach and form just as that deep inner voice sings it. And he is still involved in the process of unlearning, as he said. The knowledge erodes very slowly, like a rock being polished by ocean waves, that is musical growth. And yet, the process of unlearning is so similar to learning, that you pick up the instrument, and your hands do what they’ve always done for as long as they’ve been holding the guitar—but slowly, secretly, the soul takes over and pushes the knowledge aside, it seeps into your fingers, and the unlearning begins to take place. It just feels exactly like it felt when you were learning. This is the key step, the invisible step.
Somewhere inside of him, our everyman musician walked off of the top of the mountain, the mountain made of knowledge and theory, into the rarefied air of light clouds—and he stayed up there.
And that’s how to become a musician.
Monday, April 21, 2008
An Interview with Paul Bollenback
I'll let this video speak for itself, which contains more superlatives than I could write. He is playing It Could Happen to You, which I have been practicing ever since seeing this 2 months ago.
Now the interview. We did this through Gmail instant messaging, which is lovely because there is an immediate transcription of the conversation.
me: You are just about the most versatile guitarist I've heard. Blessing or curse or both?
Paul: Definitely a blessing....mostly. It becomes a curse as a leader if you are not careful to define what you are into at a particular moment in your career...so I won't put out a raga-based recording with pop grooves on it......and then play standards on the gigs around that time. As a leader, people listening to you have to know they will get some level of consistency in your performances, even if what you are working on changes over time....
me: I've noticed that reviewers or critics have a hard time labeling you, because that's what they like to do, label. Has that been a bit of an annoyance?
Paul: I've been very fortunate on the whole with writers, as the best ones really "get it".....that I'm not trying to copy the past, but that I'm still essentially a jazz improviser....or even take the word "jazz" out and leave "improviser". As in every aspect of our culture today, there are writers who don't do their homework, who don't want to have to actually really listen to the music with any degree of attention. Everybody has to deal with this, so at a certain point, while pats on the back are great, and let you know people are digging what you are doing, it's important not to loose sight of your role as a composer/player.....and to forge ahead, regardless. I've been told it might take a while for people to understand what I'm doing....and that's fine, because I'm going to keep doing it anyway!
me: You've done so much, and as I said, it's been so varied. Let me just summarize briefly, because I think it's puts you in a very unique position to see the jazz world. You've played with Joey D a lot, backed up Carol Sloane, played contemporary tunes, done your own composing, played with Houston Person--and traveled the world playing. If you were Dr. Jazz, how's the patient, how's jazz doing?
Paul: Wow...I wish I was that smart to know that! But in my world, there is a LOT of creative music going on, and musicians seem like they are open to trying different things, but with a real sensitivity to groove, vibe, creativity and making the music come across strongly. Also, folks are not afraid to cross-pollinate with other music, or to take older forms of jazz and look at them from new angles. So on the musician's end, I think it's a great time for creativity. Unfortunately, media control being what it is, a lot of this music is not heard by the general public, and jazz is defined in the mass media as being a replay of what happened in the 50's and 60's. Maybe not all of it, but a lot of it. That can mean it's more difficult to get gigs and record dates, and that can really stifle some of the players who might be having a hard time making ends meet.
me: What styles of jazz, since you play them all, seem to connect most with the public, and which parts of the country, and world are most enthusiastic about the music?
Paul: I just got back from a 3 week tour of Russia, a trio singer Chris McNulty and Russian pianist Andrei Kondakov. No bass or drums, doing original music from each of us, and some standards, but with my arrangements. On this tour, everybody plays some percussion, and Andrei also sings. The styles varied from modal vampy things in a straight 8th groove, to ballads, and really interactive duets....and the venues were all full. We were really happy that people enjoyed it so much, because it was a risk....new music, no rhythm section...But I think people everywhere enjoy a groove, a melody, and seeing the interactive magic of players communicating with each other on stage. It's like...."how did they do that?" for the audience. The best groups that I've played with, regardless of style, all had success with that. Best places to play....I love to play New York, because it's home....Most enthusiastic is definitely Europe, (including Russia!).
me: You mentioned that the media's preconceptions about jazz seem to be some type of blockage (just driving this Dr. metaphor into the ground here) between the musician and the public, could you elaborate on that just a bit more?
Paul: Sure. It seems that most major media outlets...television, radio, major internet retailers, major record labels, concert promoters, brick and mortar stores, newspapers, major concert venues and clubs, are either owned outright or affiliated with companies like Clear Channel, or Universal Entertainment, to name two. So....if you are not in with one of these gigantic multinational corporations it's going to be a lot more difficult to get on certain concert circuits, get recordings put out, get critics and reviewers to come to performances. Ever wonder how somebody with no talent and only the ability to entertain, or even just to look good onstage, becomes a huge star out of nowhere? This is how. I'm not complaining for myself...I've been very fortunate to have gotten some recognition without the benefit of a huge machine behind me. A lot of that has to do with the musicians around who have always been so supportive of each other. But the way that the "jazz business" seems to be going in the same direction of one-dimensional, media driven pop culture (ala American Idol), with only 2 or 3 giant companies pulling the strings is very disconcerting......whew....
me: Yeah, I was going to say you've dispelled any notion that quickness on the fretboard translates to the computer keyboard.:-)
Paul: just takes some thought! Deep questions!
me: Anyway, last question on the big picture of jazz, do you think it is consigned to a small niche, or can it recover and become a dominant part of peoples hearts—deep questions because I'm assuming you're really smart, and you are.
Paul: lol-I'm no historian, but jazz was only ever a huge 'Pop" music in the big band era.....so it's always been a "niche" music relative to other more mainstream things. But I have a lot of hope these days, because I see so many young people digging the music, at concerts and buying cd's. Jazz is so strong and deep that it will be here in some way shape or form long after you and I are gone. Of that I am sure. How's that for speedy...?:)
me: Much better, but I had the same smiley issue with Carol, she figured it out first. I think I got it by luck.
Paul: all this new computer based language..
me: Let's talk about you as a player, your development--because this video I'm embedding is fabulous on so many levels. When you were a kid, you started with open chords, cheap guitar, right?
Paul: Exactly..folk music on a nylon string when I was 7.
me: Then at some point, you wanted to be, who, Clapton or...?
Paul: the Beatles...then Carlos Santana
me: So Carlos gets you to explore the rest of the fretboard, and you began playing in rock bands?
Paul: Yup...then Led Zeppelin, Johnny Winter, the Allman Brothers, Jimi Hendrix, of course.....but all the time I'm listening to all the Motown stuff that was on the radio in the 60's and early 70's...so I know that went in there, too.
me: Did you have lessons, or were you wearing out the vinyl and driving your folks crazy?
Paul: I had a few lessons for the folk stuff, but then none until I was about 16, which was when I got interested in jazz. And yes I drove my folks, and my friends’ folks crazy, because by the time I was in junior high school, I was playing every weekend and a lot during the week with friends....just jams, really. But it was constant!
me: Do you have perfect pitch or relative pitch?
Paul: I've been working on my ears for a long time, so my relative pitch is ok. I wish I had perfect pitch. Every time I'm around Joey DeFrancesco (perfect pitch and an audiographic memory) I feel like I need to work 6 times harder on it:)
me: I'm going to ask about Joey later, his conception is about a generation or two older than he is, it seems, but that's for later. Did jazz hit you from your teacher, or did you discover it and bring it to your teacher?
Paul: My dad was a big Benny Goodman fan, and he had all those records in the house, but I never really did anything but listen a few times just out of curiosity. He also loved Frank Sinatra and Nat Cole. But it was so foreign to me then....I just needed to hear that raging rock beat. But to make a long story short, a friend turned me onto Mahavishnu Orchestra, and that led to Miles Davis "Big Fun", which led to "Bitches Brew" which led to Return to Forever and 11th House, and THEN....(jeez this is going to be boring to read!) my dad's colleague gave me a "Best of John Coltrane" record with "Giant Steps", "Naima", "Cousin Mary", etc. I must have been 16 or 17 at the time and that did it for me! Hooked!
me: Wow. Didn't expect that. The direction, that is. I would have thought you heard some jazz guitarist that just knocked you over. So at this time were you teaching yourself, or did you still have a teacher?
Paul: After hacking my way around trying to play some kind of fusion/vamp things, I went to Berklee in Boston for their 6 week summer course. When I got back from there I could play better, but still was mystified by the jazz thing, so I found a guy in DC named Steve Gray who showed me a few things, got me into playing tunes out of the Real Book (big mistake...better to learn just from records..but I had no $$ for records, so..). After I graduated high school I kicked around DC for a year while attending American University, trying to find a direction. Then I went to University of Miami in Florida for two years, in their jazz studies program. I studied under Randall Dollahan, and learned exactly how little I knew. But I should say that both the junior high I went to in New York and the high school I finished at in DC had great music programs, and I learned all the music theory basics, played in a big band (badly), and had exposure to basic ear training before I went to college.
me: Okay. Here's the key--at what point in your playing did all of your formal training melt away? In other words, at what point were you just able to let loose and play and not think about it--because that's one of the beautiful things about that video of you, that the music seems to flow without thought, right from the heart.
Paul: I'm still working on that one!:) No, seriously, it's only in the last few years that I've felt like I've gotten a little closer to being able to flow, and express in a more complete way. Still a work in progress, but thanks!
me: Congratulations on the smiley. I understand the elation.
Paul: Hooray....?
me: Oh, here comes the modesty part. I knew I would run into it at some point. No, you've crossed a bridge that not many cross--it's definitely flowing. Especially those with formal training, it's hard to pry the brain off the fingers.
Paul: Thanks! I'm glad it comes across ("modest is my middle name--Carol Sloane")
me: Yes, I'm reminded of this every time I tell her that her music is exquisite. So, do you still feel the brain gripping your hand?
Paul: Naw...nothing left in the brain....:) But the key for me has been to be able to "hear" what the notes on the fretboard sound like, so getting the fingers to them is just a matter of mechanics....hopefully.
me: So you can find what you hear?
Paul: It's something I've been working on for many years. It eliminates the need to rationalize. I mean, I do use what I know of jazz clichés or stylistically based lines, and what I know of harmony and rhythm, but it's all dictated by the ear. So if I can hear it, and then know exactly where it is on the fretboard, then it makes life a lot easier.
me: I'm thinking of two things at once, I'm not sure if they're related. One is from a Barney Kessel video--the only one still in circulation, and I might have bought the last copy. He emphasized not naming chords, trying to keep the nouns and theory out for as long as possible--and I'm also wondering where you picked up this mastery of the fretboard. Just comment, I suppose.
Paul: It is definitely all about sound...not names. If you can hear it and play it but not name it, you are in better shape than naming everything but hearing nothing. Mastery.....? What mastery?
me: Oh please.
Paul: Well, you develop techniques for getting what you need out of the instrument. I should have some books coming out on these techniques sometime.....soon!
me: You know people can see it, the mastery. I'm going to embed the video.
Paul: Cool. The more the merrier
me: Which jazz guitarists--were there any jazz guitarists that just made your jaw perpetually drop?
Paul: Man....all of the greats. Lenny Breau is one who is less well known. Pat Martino and George Benson still kill me. John (how does he do that)McLaughlin. But the truth is that I try not to listen too much to guitar players, because all these guys sound so great that I want to be just like them. Which is silly, because I'm still working on my own voice. But I love listening to any good guitar player, and I always try to steal as much as I can without being obvious about it:)
me: That makes perfect sense. You have a sound that is unique, you've got your own voice, and that comes from walking a fine line between getting too close to another player and keeping your distance. I actually think that's the real barrier between the public and jazz, brain dominating hands, which hurts the musicians ability to find their own voice. So, to sum up this section--it just happened one day that the labels disappeared and you just were able to play what you heard. It was gradual?
Paul: Very gradual, and it still takes a lot of work. Music is sound, after all!
me: Last section, shouldn't be as long. Do you notice a different feel, even before the music starts when playing with fellows with an older conception, like Houston Person, or Joey, and younger more contemporary players? Remember, this is before the music begins.
Paul: Good question. I have so much respect for the older guys, it makes me feel honored to be with them, even just hanging out, because they've done so much. If I'm the older guy, then it feels like I can be the one with experience. But you know there is a great comraderie with most jazz players, regardless of age.
me: There may be no way to answer that, I mean you did, but there may be no way to ask that. I used to play with older guys in St. Louis, and there was a relaxed feel, either because of age or because of the classic swing that was just a part of who they were. It felt different when younger guys were playing.
Paul: Sure....I know what you mean...the voice of experience vs the wild energy of youth?
me: Could be, but you feel it too? I listened to a lot of your stuff yesterday, saved your record with Carol for last--I'm just blown away by the clarity of her harmonic concept, and I know she can't read, it's all natural. Do you find that as she sings, certain chords, shall we say, strongly suggest themselves, things you might not usually do?
Paul: Sure, and that's true in each situation. You have to treat as a thing of the moment and just find the right thing to say. Playing with Carol is much different than working with Chris McNulty, but the principle of finding the right thing is the same.
me: Okay, I just hear so much from her voice, but hey, I'm a fan.
Paul: Me too!
me: I guess we are at the point of guitars and strings and picks. What do you play--how are you set up?
Paul: Guild Starfire 4, .012 gauge round wound strings, Dunlop jazz 3 picks, and variety of amps, usually with tubes or a tube preamp in front.
me: So you don't lift your own equipment?
Paul: lol. Just one amp at a time.
me: The Guild is like a 335?
Paul: Yes, exactly
me: Well you make a great case for using that type of body. Are you planning a solo album, cd, whatever?
Paul: Yes. We own our own record label (not signing at the moment, sorry), Elefant Dreams (www.elefantdreams.com). I've put our Brightness of Being(2006)and Invocation (2007) and my next one will be a duo/trio recording with Andrei Kondakov and Chris McNulty. Then, maybe a solo guitar project, we'll see.
me: Do you think that nowadays it’s the wisest move for folks to have their own label?
Paul: Seems to be the growing trend.
me: One last question, unless your answer piques another one, is your book going to be written for the illiterate guitarist or for the literate, theoretically knowledgeable guitarist?
Paul: The illiterate one, of course. We all have to stick together...
me: Whew....
Paul: Amen.
me: Can't think of a better ending.
Paul: Thanks. I really appreciate your interest, man. It's guys like you who are keeping us working guys alive out there. Thanks! Gotta run--have a good one, too!
me: And thank you for spending the time, and I really hope your typing improves. I'm going to let GuitarPlayer know we've done this, and then Downbeat--and if they aren't interested I'll just polish it and post it. But they are editors and they don't like to respond to emails. I'll keep you posted.
Paul: Cool! Thanks and ciao!
me: chow
Paul: lol
Well you can see that there is quite a bit of material that we covered, and I'm going to do a parallel post after this, summarizing, highlighting all of the gems that Paul gave us. Of course, I could try to IM with him again, but that would entail letting him type, and...well, let's just not.
Now the interview. We did this through Gmail instant messaging, which is lovely because there is an immediate transcription of the conversation.
me: You are just about the most versatile guitarist I've heard. Blessing or curse or both?
Paul: Definitely a blessing....mostly. It becomes a curse as a leader if you are not careful to define what you are into at a particular moment in your career...so I won't put out a raga-based recording with pop grooves on it......and then play standards on the gigs around that time. As a leader, people listening to you have to know they will get some level of consistency in your performances, even if what you are working on changes over time....
me: I've noticed that reviewers or critics have a hard time labeling you, because that's what they like to do, label. Has that been a bit of an annoyance?
Paul: I've been very fortunate on the whole with writers, as the best ones really "get it".....that I'm not trying to copy the past, but that I'm still essentially a jazz improviser....or even take the word "jazz" out and leave "improviser". As in every aspect of our culture today, there are writers who don't do their homework, who don't want to have to actually really listen to the music with any degree of attention. Everybody has to deal with this, so at a certain point, while pats on the back are great, and let you know people are digging what you are doing, it's important not to loose sight of your role as a composer/player.....and to forge ahead, regardless. I've been told it might take a while for people to understand what I'm doing....and that's fine, because I'm going to keep doing it anyway!
me: You've done so much, and as I said, it's been so varied. Let me just summarize briefly, because I think it's puts you in a very unique position to see the jazz world. You've played with Joey D a lot, backed up Carol Sloane, played contemporary tunes, done your own composing, played with Houston Person--and traveled the world playing. If you were Dr. Jazz, how's the patient, how's jazz doing?
Paul: Wow...I wish I was that smart to know that! But in my world, there is a LOT of creative music going on, and musicians seem like they are open to trying different things, but with a real sensitivity to groove, vibe, creativity and making the music come across strongly. Also, folks are not afraid to cross-pollinate with other music, or to take older forms of jazz and look at them from new angles. So on the musician's end, I think it's a great time for creativity. Unfortunately, media control being what it is, a lot of this music is not heard by the general public, and jazz is defined in the mass media as being a replay of what happened in the 50's and 60's. Maybe not all of it, but a lot of it. That can mean it's more difficult to get gigs and record dates, and that can really stifle some of the players who might be having a hard time making ends meet.
me: What styles of jazz, since you play them all, seem to connect most with the public, and which parts of the country, and world are most enthusiastic about the music?
Paul: I just got back from a 3 week tour of Russia, a trio singer Chris McNulty and Russian pianist Andrei Kondakov. No bass or drums, doing original music from each of us, and some standards, but with my arrangements. On this tour, everybody plays some percussion, and Andrei also sings. The styles varied from modal vampy things in a straight 8th groove, to ballads, and really interactive duets....and the venues were all full. We were really happy that people enjoyed it so much, because it was a risk....new music, no rhythm section...But I think people everywhere enjoy a groove, a melody, and seeing the interactive magic of players communicating with each other on stage. It's like...."how did they do that?" for the audience. The best groups that I've played with, regardless of style, all had success with that. Best places to play....I love to play New York, because it's home....Most enthusiastic is definitely Europe, (including Russia!).
me: You mentioned that the media's preconceptions about jazz seem to be some type of blockage (just driving this Dr. metaphor into the ground here) between the musician and the public, could you elaborate on that just a bit more?
Paul: Sure. It seems that most major media outlets...television, radio, major internet retailers, major record labels, concert promoters, brick and mortar stores, newspapers, major concert venues and clubs, are either owned outright or affiliated with companies like Clear Channel, or Universal Entertainment, to name two. So....if you are not in with one of these gigantic multinational corporations it's going to be a lot more difficult to get on certain concert circuits, get recordings put out, get critics and reviewers to come to performances. Ever wonder how somebody with no talent and only the ability to entertain, or even just to look good onstage, becomes a huge star out of nowhere? This is how. I'm not complaining for myself...I've been very fortunate to have gotten some recognition without the benefit of a huge machine behind me. A lot of that has to do with the musicians around who have always been so supportive of each other. But the way that the "jazz business" seems to be going in the same direction of one-dimensional, media driven pop culture (ala American Idol), with only 2 or 3 giant companies pulling the strings is very disconcerting......whew....
me: Yeah, I was going to say you've dispelled any notion that quickness on the fretboard translates to the computer keyboard.:-)
Paul: just takes some thought! Deep questions!
me: Anyway, last question on the big picture of jazz, do you think it is consigned to a small niche, or can it recover and become a dominant part of peoples hearts—deep questions because I'm assuming you're really smart, and you are.
Paul: lol-I'm no historian, but jazz was only ever a huge 'Pop" music in the big band era.....so it's always been a "niche" music relative to other more mainstream things. But I have a lot of hope these days, because I see so many young people digging the music, at concerts and buying cd's. Jazz is so strong and deep that it will be here in some way shape or form long after you and I are gone. Of that I am sure. How's that for speedy...?:)
me: Much better, but I had the same smiley issue with Carol, she figured it out first. I think I got it by luck.
Paul: all this new computer based language..
me: Let's talk about you as a player, your development--because this video I'm embedding is fabulous on so many levels. When you were a kid, you started with open chords, cheap guitar, right?
Paul: Exactly..folk music on a nylon string when I was 7.
me: Then at some point, you wanted to be, who, Clapton or...?
Paul: the Beatles...then Carlos Santana
me: So Carlos gets you to explore the rest of the fretboard, and you began playing in rock bands?
Paul: Yup...then Led Zeppelin, Johnny Winter, the Allman Brothers, Jimi Hendrix, of course.....but all the time I'm listening to all the Motown stuff that was on the radio in the 60's and early 70's...so I know that went in there, too.
me: Did you have lessons, or were you wearing out the vinyl and driving your folks crazy?
Paul: I had a few lessons for the folk stuff, but then none until I was about 16, which was when I got interested in jazz. And yes I drove my folks, and my friends’ folks crazy, because by the time I was in junior high school, I was playing every weekend and a lot during the week with friends....just jams, really. But it was constant!
me: Do you have perfect pitch or relative pitch?
Paul: I've been working on my ears for a long time, so my relative pitch is ok. I wish I had perfect pitch. Every time I'm around Joey DeFrancesco (perfect pitch and an audiographic memory) I feel like I need to work 6 times harder on it:)
me: I'm going to ask about Joey later, his conception is about a generation or two older than he is, it seems, but that's for later. Did jazz hit you from your teacher, or did you discover it and bring it to your teacher?
Paul: My dad was a big Benny Goodman fan, and he had all those records in the house, but I never really did anything but listen a few times just out of curiosity. He also loved Frank Sinatra and Nat Cole. But it was so foreign to me then....I just needed to hear that raging rock beat. But to make a long story short, a friend turned me onto Mahavishnu Orchestra, and that led to Miles Davis "Big Fun", which led to "Bitches Brew" which led to Return to Forever and 11th House, and THEN....(jeez this is going to be boring to read!) my dad's colleague gave me a "Best of John Coltrane" record with "Giant Steps", "Naima", "Cousin Mary", etc. I must have been 16 or 17 at the time and that did it for me! Hooked!
me: Wow. Didn't expect that. The direction, that is. I would have thought you heard some jazz guitarist that just knocked you over. So at this time were you teaching yourself, or did you still have a teacher?
Paul: After hacking my way around trying to play some kind of fusion/vamp things, I went to Berklee in Boston for their 6 week summer course. When I got back from there I could play better, but still was mystified by the jazz thing, so I found a guy in DC named Steve Gray who showed me a few things, got me into playing tunes out of the Real Book (big mistake...better to learn just from records..but I had no $$ for records, so..). After I graduated high school I kicked around DC for a year while attending American University, trying to find a direction. Then I went to University of Miami in Florida for two years, in their jazz studies program. I studied under Randall Dollahan, and learned exactly how little I knew. But I should say that both the junior high I went to in New York and the high school I finished at in DC had great music programs, and I learned all the music theory basics, played in a big band (badly), and had exposure to basic ear training before I went to college.
me: Okay. Here's the key--at what point in your playing did all of your formal training melt away? In other words, at what point were you just able to let loose and play and not think about it--because that's one of the beautiful things about that video of you, that the music seems to flow without thought, right from the heart.
Paul: I'm still working on that one!:) No, seriously, it's only in the last few years that I've felt like I've gotten a little closer to being able to flow, and express in a more complete way. Still a work in progress, but thanks!
me: Congratulations on the smiley. I understand the elation.
Paul: Hooray....?
me: Oh, here comes the modesty part. I knew I would run into it at some point. No, you've crossed a bridge that not many cross--it's definitely flowing. Especially those with formal training, it's hard to pry the brain off the fingers.
Paul: Thanks! I'm glad it comes across ("modest is my middle name--Carol Sloane")
me: Yes, I'm reminded of this every time I tell her that her music is exquisite. So, do you still feel the brain gripping your hand?
Paul: Naw...nothing left in the brain....:) But the key for me has been to be able to "hear" what the notes on the fretboard sound like, so getting the fingers to them is just a matter of mechanics....hopefully.
me: So you can find what you hear?
Paul: It's something I've been working on for many years. It eliminates the need to rationalize. I mean, I do use what I know of jazz clichés or stylistically based lines, and what I know of harmony and rhythm, but it's all dictated by the ear. So if I can hear it, and then know exactly where it is on the fretboard, then it makes life a lot easier.
me: I'm thinking of two things at once, I'm not sure if they're related. One is from a Barney Kessel video--the only one still in circulation, and I might have bought the last copy. He emphasized not naming chords, trying to keep the nouns and theory out for as long as possible--and I'm also wondering where you picked up this mastery of the fretboard. Just comment, I suppose.
Paul: It is definitely all about sound...not names. If you can hear it and play it but not name it, you are in better shape than naming everything but hearing nothing. Mastery.....? What mastery?
me: Oh please.
Paul: Well, you develop techniques for getting what you need out of the instrument. I should have some books coming out on these techniques sometime.....soon!
me: You know people can see it, the mastery. I'm going to embed the video.
Paul: Cool. The more the merrier
me: Which jazz guitarists--were there any jazz guitarists that just made your jaw perpetually drop?
Paul: Man....all of the greats. Lenny Breau is one who is less well known. Pat Martino and George Benson still kill me. John (how does he do that)McLaughlin. But the truth is that I try not to listen too much to guitar players, because all these guys sound so great that I want to be just like them. Which is silly, because I'm still working on my own voice. But I love listening to any good guitar player, and I always try to steal as much as I can without being obvious about it:)
me: That makes perfect sense. You have a sound that is unique, you've got your own voice, and that comes from walking a fine line between getting too close to another player and keeping your distance. I actually think that's the real barrier between the public and jazz, brain dominating hands, which hurts the musicians ability to find their own voice. So, to sum up this section--it just happened one day that the labels disappeared and you just were able to play what you heard. It was gradual?
Paul: Very gradual, and it still takes a lot of work. Music is sound, after all!
me: Last section, shouldn't be as long. Do you notice a different feel, even before the music starts when playing with fellows with an older conception, like Houston Person, or Joey, and younger more contemporary players? Remember, this is before the music begins.
Paul: Good question. I have so much respect for the older guys, it makes me feel honored to be with them, even just hanging out, because they've done so much. If I'm the older guy, then it feels like I can be the one with experience. But you know there is a great comraderie with most jazz players, regardless of age.
me: There may be no way to answer that, I mean you did, but there may be no way to ask that. I used to play with older guys in St. Louis, and there was a relaxed feel, either because of age or because of the classic swing that was just a part of who they were. It felt different when younger guys were playing.
Paul: Sure....I know what you mean...the voice of experience vs the wild energy of youth?
me: Could be, but you feel it too? I listened to a lot of your stuff yesterday, saved your record with Carol for last--I'm just blown away by the clarity of her harmonic concept, and I know she can't read, it's all natural. Do you find that as she sings, certain chords, shall we say, strongly suggest themselves, things you might not usually do?
Paul: Sure, and that's true in each situation. You have to treat as a thing of the moment and just find the right thing to say. Playing with Carol is much different than working with Chris McNulty, but the principle of finding the right thing is the same.
me: Okay, I just hear so much from her voice, but hey, I'm a fan.
Paul: Me too!
me: I guess we are at the point of guitars and strings and picks. What do you play--how are you set up?
Paul: Guild Starfire 4, .012 gauge round wound strings, Dunlop jazz 3 picks, and variety of amps, usually with tubes or a tube preamp in front.
me: So you don't lift your own equipment?
Paul: lol. Just one amp at a time.
me: The Guild is like a 335?
Paul: Yes, exactly
me: Well you make a great case for using that type of body. Are you planning a solo album, cd, whatever?
Paul: Yes. We own our own record label (not signing at the moment, sorry), Elefant Dreams (www.elefantdreams.com). I've put our Brightness of Being(2006)and Invocation (2007) and my next one will be a duo/trio recording with Andrei Kondakov and Chris McNulty. Then, maybe a solo guitar project, we'll see.
me: Do you think that nowadays it’s the wisest move for folks to have their own label?
Paul: Seems to be the growing trend.
me: One last question, unless your answer piques another one, is your book going to be written for the illiterate guitarist or for the literate, theoretically knowledgeable guitarist?
Paul: The illiterate one, of course. We all have to stick together...
me: Whew....
Paul: Amen.
me: Can't think of a better ending.
Paul: Thanks. I really appreciate your interest, man. It's guys like you who are keeping us working guys alive out there. Thanks! Gotta run--have a good one, too!
me: And thank you for spending the time, and I really hope your typing improves. I'm going to let GuitarPlayer know we've done this, and then Downbeat--and if they aren't interested I'll just polish it and post it. But they are editors and they don't like to respond to emails. I'll keep you posted.
Paul: Cool! Thanks and ciao!
me: chow
Paul: lol
Well you can see that there is quite a bit of material that we covered, and I'm going to do a parallel post after this, summarizing, highlighting all of the gems that Paul gave us. Of course, I could try to IM with him again, but that would entail letting him type, and...well, let's just not.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Musical String Theory
Science has this peculiar habit of not being quite as scientific as it would like to be. The main reason is that it is almost impossible to prove new theories because the instruments needed to get the hard data don’t yet exist. As I said in on another blog, the first person to invent a machine that measures ‘life force’, will win a Nobel Prize, even though every other culture in the world already recognizes this force as not only existing, but being a cornerstone of that culture. It took years before Einstein’s theory of curved space was proven. The latest theory on the table, pretty well accepted, seen in PBS specials, is String Theory, that the universe is made of these super duper extra special tiny strings. So tiny that one string has never been seen. So tiny that it is reasonable to assume no string ever will be seen. And yet, more like a detective story than a scientific investigation, the theory of strings just seems to fit the available facts. Most times that’s just the best we can do, toss out a theory to which the available facts stick for the time being.
The problem tackled by this blog, in many ways, shapes, and forms, is trying to figure out what happened to jazz. What happened to the most beautiful, inspired, elegant, moving, even life-saving music the world has seen—that it is now relegated to either an afterthought by people who know music, that those playing it can’t seem to reach the heights of their predecessors, that at present, it is, at the most, hip background music for various television commercials? And most importantly, how can it be saved, how can it be brought back to life?
Well, here’s a theory.
In western civilization we just don’t like to improvise. The western mind likes things to be ordered, formulaic, predictable, known, regulated, and rational. Western civilization has survived because of time periods, eras, of improvisation, but those only lasted for a short period of time. One of those periods was the Renaissance, covered over by the formula guys, the math guys, the orderly guys of the Enlightenment. Another one of those periods was when this Enlightenment world collapsed under the weight of its own discoveries, and a period began that we haven’t yet classified. We’re still close enough to it that no historian or sociologist could really get the old conceptual meat hooks into it.
Einstein was improvising, and then other physicists began discovering things that were supposed to be impossible, and then all of physics had to start improvising. This is when Louis Armstrong was born, and he also began taking music—that most ordered product of the western mind, and threw it into chaos, and it became more chaotic, until it crawled into the universities to become ordered and clean once again. I was just looking through a book last night on improving your skills at improvisation. Literally the guy was talking about formulas to use with certain chord progressions, and he wrote with no sense that he was mocking himself.
Jazz improvisation is walking down a dark alley, it is purposely making wrong turns—you the improviser are trying to do something that you haven’t done before. For every note you know, you’re looking for a note or phrase you don’t know. In other words, you’re looking to get into trouble, and then looking for a way out of that trouble. That one sentence is Charlie Parker’s life in a nutshell, it is Stan Getz, it is so many of the pioneers of jazz in one form or another. Or it was played by immigrants and the poor, those whose every day life was a form of improvisation. For Wes Montgomery, intense headaches would come as he discovered how to use octaves the way no one has since. But none of this can possibly be comfortable. And if there is one other thing marking this historical phase, it is that we certainly like our comfort.
For the early and great jazz musicians, it was nothing, soulfully, to walk over the edge of the cliff. They were pretty sure they would fly—but how can a human be certain of this? But they did fly. And we, the audience at the time, went along. That was the feeling of the music, that’s what the musicians were doing, that was the dominant new technology of the time, that was the name of the dance—the Lindy Hop. Jazz began to drop off when the fascination with flying dropped off, and that would be 1969.
Today, jazz players are concerned about making it through the changes, flying is not an operative concept. Comfort through the changes, that is the goal. The solo has become a quest for comfort, the opposite direction of their predecessors. It is learned in an orderly manner, with formulas, the western mind has once again taken control. It is the opposite of Horace Greeley’s frontier spirit, the call of Go West. Today, it isn’t even Go East, it’s Go to School.
And so, where is the life, where is the pulse of this great music? Is it now in Asia, another bud on their tree of knowledge—the tree of how to deal with life force, with chi, with prana, with nefesh? Because, this stuff within us, can only be dealt with on the improv. And who knows, maybe we can fly.
The problem tackled by this blog, in many ways, shapes, and forms, is trying to figure out what happened to jazz. What happened to the most beautiful, inspired, elegant, moving, even life-saving music the world has seen—that it is now relegated to either an afterthought by people who know music, that those playing it can’t seem to reach the heights of their predecessors, that at present, it is, at the most, hip background music for various television commercials? And most importantly, how can it be saved, how can it be brought back to life?
Well, here’s a theory.
In western civilization we just don’t like to improvise. The western mind likes things to be ordered, formulaic, predictable, known, regulated, and rational. Western civilization has survived because of time periods, eras, of improvisation, but those only lasted for a short period of time. One of those periods was the Renaissance, covered over by the formula guys, the math guys, the orderly guys of the Enlightenment. Another one of those periods was when this Enlightenment world collapsed under the weight of its own discoveries, and a period began that we haven’t yet classified. We’re still close enough to it that no historian or sociologist could really get the old conceptual meat hooks into it.
Einstein was improvising, and then other physicists began discovering things that were supposed to be impossible, and then all of physics had to start improvising. This is when Louis Armstrong was born, and he also began taking music—that most ordered product of the western mind, and threw it into chaos, and it became more chaotic, until it crawled into the universities to become ordered and clean once again. I was just looking through a book last night on improving your skills at improvisation. Literally the guy was talking about formulas to use with certain chord progressions, and he wrote with no sense that he was mocking himself.
Jazz improvisation is walking down a dark alley, it is purposely making wrong turns—you the improviser are trying to do something that you haven’t done before. For every note you know, you’re looking for a note or phrase you don’t know. In other words, you’re looking to get into trouble, and then looking for a way out of that trouble. That one sentence is Charlie Parker’s life in a nutshell, it is Stan Getz, it is so many of the pioneers of jazz in one form or another. Or it was played by immigrants and the poor, those whose every day life was a form of improvisation. For Wes Montgomery, intense headaches would come as he discovered how to use octaves the way no one has since. But none of this can possibly be comfortable. And if there is one other thing marking this historical phase, it is that we certainly like our comfort.
For the early and great jazz musicians, it was nothing, soulfully, to walk over the edge of the cliff. They were pretty sure they would fly—but how can a human be certain of this? But they did fly. And we, the audience at the time, went along. That was the feeling of the music, that’s what the musicians were doing, that was the dominant new technology of the time, that was the name of the dance—the Lindy Hop. Jazz began to drop off when the fascination with flying dropped off, and that would be 1969.
Today, jazz players are concerned about making it through the changes, flying is not an operative concept. Comfort through the changes, that is the goal. The solo has become a quest for comfort, the opposite direction of their predecessors. It is learned in an orderly manner, with formulas, the western mind has once again taken control. It is the opposite of Horace Greeley’s frontier spirit, the call of Go West. Today, it isn’t even Go East, it’s Go to School.
And so, where is the life, where is the pulse of this great music? Is it now in Asia, another bud on their tree of knowledge—the tree of how to deal with life force, with chi, with prana, with nefesh? Because, this stuff within us, can only be dealt with on the improv. And who knows, maybe we can fly.
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