Murphy's Law

I.

Take a guy:

Let’s say he’s about my age, old enough to own his own condo and pay almost all his bills sometimes, who is young enough to be unmarried but old enough to understand he is not getting any younger. Add a dose of fresh alienation—not enough to be unhealthy, of course, but enough to enable him to function in a world full of imbecility, indifference and all those happily-ever-afters awaiting him on the other side of his flat screen TV. Take this guy and give him just enough stability so that he has no excuses, but plenty of alibis. Maybe he’s estranged from too many old friends, or aggrieved about his absent parents, or perhaps he is just emerging from the wreckage of a ruined relationship or, probably, he is utterly average in every regard, except for the uncomfortable fact that, unlike almost everyone else he knows, he is aware of it.

I am not alone. I have a best friend, who happens to be a dog. He is really good for me, reminding me to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom and generally making sure that I get out a few times a day. He walks me whenever he gets the chance. Our favorite time is after work, when we reenter the building and the walls and halls come alive, warm with the savory smells of home-made meals (you can never smell fast food, although that scent lingers in the elevator, as if ashamed to be associated with the honesty, the effort and industry of these prepared productions).

No one sits down to dinner anymore, but all around me, people are sitting down, eating meat loaf, or some sort of roast that has simmered on low heat all afternoon. Maybe there is even a pie prepared for dessert. Maybe, inside someone’s kitchen, it’s still the 1950’s.

And I remind myself that someday, if my cards play me right, I will enjoy a real meal around a table, and experience all that I’ve been missing during these efficient years of isolation. I will clear the table and clean the dishes, I will sit on the couch and take a crack at the crossword, or catch a made-for-TV movie, or go run errands or consult a book of baby names for the offspring on the way, and eventually I will work on improving my bad habits and attempt to overlook my wife’s inadequacies (the quirks that were so endearing in those early days). I will, at last, learn to communicate openly and as an adult. Mostly, I will not be alone.

II.

There is a man who sits near the pumps at the gas station I drive by each day. The man is very obviously from somewhere else and has about him the certain look—the meek, awestruck eyes, the apprehensive gestures that indict him as someone who speaks little if any English—a stranger.

He remains respectfully distant from the customers—who incessantly fill their tanks, like bees returning to the nest before heeding the urgency of their instinctual obligations—but near enough to the action to remain in plain view. He sells flowers. Actually, he doesn’t seem to sell anything, he pretty much sits there, on an upturned milk crate, often from early morning until well in the evening, after the rest of the weary warriors have commuted past him, home from work and their worries of the wicked world. He silently, stoically, plies his wares, content to play his part in the charade: he is not accomplishing much, he is begging, and the milk crate and collection of fading flowers at his feet communicate his inexpressible anguish. Please help me, his unscrubbed face, his unlaced sneakers, his oversized slacks, his filthy, fidgeting fingers—everything but his voice—all ask, saying what he cannot, and will not, say for himself.

III.

Hard to get over lonely people.

This is from a song, although those aren’t the real words; those are the words you heard—which sounded and seemed real enough—until your adult ears eventually understood that you had actually been making a great song even better. In your mind anyway.

Ah, look at all the lonely people, you sing, to yourself.

Midnight is the cruelest hour, causing saints to sin and sinners to sing, shrieking when, besotted with spirits and spirits spiraling, impaired and incoherent, they realize they are lost with no safe way home.

The bar beckons. Bars, if they are good for nothing else, are good for that: bars beckon. Watering holes for weary warriors who want what they got and get nothing they ask for (they could pray but they know better). Swinging down accustomed streets, a humid mist sweats under the streetlights and clings to the faces of these silent, suffering souls. Someone wades through the haze of colorless ties and colorful perfumes. Familiar sights and sounds: laughter, screams, secrets and seductions, spilling out of mouths that come to places like this, killing themselves slowly in order to live.

So what happens? What doesn’t happen. The same old story: You don’t go looking for trouble, but trouble has no qualms finding you. And it finds you, as always. Trouble is so reliable that way. You work toward being a lover and not a fighter. The only problem is, it is usually the loving that leads to the fighting.

Not working, but there is a lot of work to do. You go above and beyond the call of duty. And the harder you work, the more you seem to pay. Only in America could you do so little and get paid so much, then work so hard and pay so much. Someone makes the rules, and it’s not you.

All the lonely people, where do they all come from?

All the lonely people, where do they all belong?

Alone again, or: driving home with the devil riding shotgun. There’s nowhere good this can go and everybody knows that driving blind with deafened senses is dumb. Shifting and stuttering but smart enough not to pray (you know better). Avoiding eye contact, the street refuses to speak—it will not willingly partner this perpetration in progress. Overhead, the fully dressed, deep green oak trees on either side lean down low, eager to eavesdrop. Here’s what they hear:

Please help me.

IV.

I’m listening to the old woman again.

This is another part of my daily routine: every time I enter the building after walking my dog, or if I’m stopping to get the mail, or anytime I am anywhere between my front door and the main entrance, this woman (I have no other option but to say she is an old woman) whose name I of course cannot remember, appears like a mosquito at a campsite.

She is there every time—every time—if I’m walking out (I’ve learned not to step out of my door in only my boxer shorts) to throw my trash down the chute, she’s there; if I am coming or going to work, she’s there; if I open my door (I’ve learned not to open my door without my boxer shorts on) to get the newspaper, she’s there; and especially if I’m returning with rapidly cooling carry-out food, she’s there.

I had half-seriously begun to consider whether or not she had rigged my door to some sort of honing device, and then I slowly started to notice, over time, it isn’t just me (of course it isn’t just me)—it’s even worse than that. It’s everyone, it’s anyone: anyone she can see or talk to, anyone she can make that human touch with, however fleetingly, any excuse she can find to escape the oppression of her immaculate isolation.

V.

When the train left the station, it had two lights on behind,

Well, the blue light was my baby and the red light was my mind.

I didn’t say that.

A daydream:

Every so often I can’t help hoping that there will be a knock on my door and when I open it, who is there but my sexy soul mate, a beautiful woman who heard the blues music every time she walked by, and wondered if, according to her own fantasy, a sensitive, erudite dude had been right there all along, waiting for her, waiting for happily ever after. And after a while, she could no longer ignore the siren song escaping under the small space under the front door and came knocking.

Of course, this illusion presupposes three things, in descending order of unlikelihood: one, that there are such things as soul mates; two, that my soul mate happens to live in my building; and three, that anyone actually listens to—much less enjoys—blues music.

All my love’s in vain.

What he said.

VI.

I see the woman, sitting silent, alone, waiting for the bus that may or may not decide to pick her up today.

I think: same woman, same bus stop, same book in her hands: Where is she going? What is she doing? What is she reading?

The woman is a nun, as her quaint costume makes abundantly clear. She sits alone, silent, a human statue: perfect posture now habitual from years of training, browbeating and, ultimately, ardent emulation. Her attention to the small book she holds is entire, unyielding, austere.

And it takes several seconds for the understanding to occur: this is a cliché. Of course. But like any cliché worth its stench, there is a twist, a discernible fork in the future, a possibility.

Either: this woman—this quiet, meekly loyal, unreservedly religious woman—is, of course, reading the bible. For the thousandth time, the millionth? In her unremarkable way fortifying one of the increasingly intractable truths: there still exists the possibility that custom and tradition count for something, are still worth attaining. And this woman, this archetype, beautifies what should not change, an innocence somehow not contaminated by our co-opted culture.

Or: it brings into sharp relief the pitiful, ceaseless certainty that our capacity for wonderment, our curiosity and confusion, are not strong enough to escape superstitions and easy answers: that anyone could find comfort, or meaning, in a ritualized routine, reading the same spurious words endlessly, unfolding their anti-mysteries into eternity.

VII.

Cats are everywhere.

How did this happen? When did that slippery slope of sentimental turn from simple companionship to disconcerting, then beyond even that? It’s not your fault: you could see the other cats coming, waiting out there in the evening; and yourself, inside, able at any time to make it all better. All of these overlooked lives, are they the symptom or the antidote for that feeling you cannot constrain? Are they serving a separate purpose, a preemptive action against isolation? An excuse to keep connected, in some small way? A strategy to keep from slipping, to stave off starvation? Or the streets, which are always hungry, always eager to be kept company when nights bring the cold comfort of winter?

Yes, you think (to yourself again): it could be all of those things, eventually. Inevitably. But mostly (you know), any effort you might someday make would be driven by the fear of becoming that person. The person who everyone knew, the one who had patrolled the same city corner for as long as anyone was able—or wanted—to remember. The man with his hand-scribbled signs, capital letter screeds against the machine, words that sought to explain who he was and why he was here. His message, excusing himself from any culpability, of course, and allowing everyone who took the time to try and make sense of it all that they were either with him or against him; if they did nothing to intervene, they were abetting the not-so-secret society that could snap a finger and take everything you owned, including your identity. He stood at the intersection for years, outlasting several politicians who recycled themselves in public office, sworn to uphold the status quo and ensure that the have-nots would not, and keep everyone else safe from the crimes committed by people who could not close their eyes.

And then, one day, he was no longer there. He had just disappeared.

How does this happen?

You’ve seen some things, of course. You have heard them, read about them. The things people talked about when they talked about crazy people. The sort of people who, after numerous squabbles with long-suffering neighbors, finally had to have it out with Johnny Law over the piles of junk spewing out from their cellars, piling out from inside, forming extensions of the hand-me-down universe they’d created (in their own image?)—misguided gods of an always-imperfect world. These people who would holler and curse, and show up in court, when convicted, to protest that there was a method to their madness (they wouldn’t call it madness at all), a purpose to their paranoia, that it was no one else’s business if they found some sort of salvation in other folks’ debris, redeemable lives otherwise left for dead. Exasperated landlords, forced to take pictures in order to appeal to the proper authorities, having to prove that they weren’t capable of fabricating this sort of insanity: carpets pulled up from the floors, the linoleum in the kitchen removed, presumably by hand, the stacks of unread newspapers, the insects. And the pictures, of course, only half told the story, since pictures don’t move, pictures don’t stink, pictures only imitate what they are programmed to report. The stories that go far beyond the obligatory shit-smeared-on-the-walls sort of psychosis that always seems so overdone in bad movies (because the movies are bad; because truth always outpaces our best efforts to expose it). 

Then what happens?

You are (of course) left asking questions that always better unaddressed. Who could explain the motivation behind behavior like that? Who would want to? Who could comprehend where a mind has been, or is going, to find sense or security in this imitation of living?

VIII.

I think the same question each time I see him (every day: the same man in the same spot, holding the same sign that tells everyone who he is, now—begging the question: who did he used to be, at some point in the past?) at the intersection he has stood at for several years now: the cardboard sign he holds both question and answer: Homeless veteran (the explanation), can you put some pocket change in this plastic cup (the question). The sign says he is a veteran. Okay. And even if he isn’t actually a veteran, he has been homeless long enough to be a veteran; or if he is not actually homeless, he has been acting the part long enough—as long as most people cruising past him have held jobs—to earn the title. Either way, it is time for a promotion.

And so, I think, this is the problem with the homeless problem: it wasn’t (some of us learned—too late) the ones who hustled or even approached you who were down and out; they were the ardent ones, half the time they weren’t even homeless; it is the ones you never even saw, even when they sprawled on the concrete right beside you, the ones who were down, the ones who were out, the ones who had nothing to ask for, nothing to say, nothing to do except wait, sit it out until time or the whiter man’s burden delivered them that eventual, inevitable verdict. It was the ones you could afford not to be afraid of, the ones who could not even hurt themselves, because they’d already dug as deep inside as their ashen fingers could reach, the ones too dead to tear out their hearts, but not dead enough to unloose their souls, the ones who learned (too late) that death was only impatient for the fools who feared it, it had all the time in the world for those who the world owed nothing except the decency of an overdue death.

Could that be me?

The ultimate fear, the oldest worry. Who knew how it happened, who could make sense of it? And yet. These people do not wake up one random morning, on the streets and out of their minds. Or do they? If you believed the signs the man on the corner held, the government did this to him—and could do it to anyone else: that was his message, his mission. How different were those handwritten signs from my aunt’s scribbled revisions? Was one merely an extension of the other?

The problem with the homeless problem is that these people who don’t see you and can’t see themselves are all chasing something they can no longer name: memories. Or, even worse, it is the memories that are chasing them, speaking in tongues they long ago ceased to understand.

IX.

Myself when I am real:

Real old, that is. At least forty. Maybe fifty, sixty even—it’s almost inevitable, if you believe some of what you see and half of what you read that humans live that long these days.

You are looking in the mirror, standing over the sink. We’ve been here before, recently. And, of course, the sluggish maestro in your mind reminds you that this is approximately the sixty-thousandth time you’ve brushed your teeth (but now, with age and experience, more than slightly appreciative that these are your teeth you are cleaning, not dentures—not yet). But you are distracted by a difference, a new presence you have added to your arsenal of afflictions. There is a growth on your back. And apparently it’s been there for a while, because it has already misshapen your shoulders, making you half-whale and half-fairytale caricature. It is obvious that the bones have shifted ever so slightly from this new burden, the way a bank account accrues interest, over time.

This is not cancer, it can be claimed with some confidence. You are so certain cancer is at some stage of development inside you that you’ll suffer those semi-annual exams, just to keep his fears simmering on the back burner. There is no mystery—this, after all, is not a dream—it is obvious how this accessory was earned. Overlooked, or ignored, while attention focused on other things, like freedom, a life apart, independent, answering to no one else, et cetera.

This is how it happens: you find ways to displace the pains, internalize the trepidation, ingest the indignity, hang on to the hang-ups. You disregard what remains always on the inside, and it takes root, takes hold and takes on a life of its own. Everyone else might see it, and they may even talk about it, but unless you notice it, until you see it for yourself, it never exists. It is simply not there until you finally feel it: eventually, inevitably you feel the pain.

It is loneliness. 

X.

If I had lived in the ‘50’s, I would have taken a real job right out of college, or I may not have gone to college. I would have had to start earning a living to support my family: married at twenty-two, a father within the year. That’s just the way it would have been.

Maybe I’d like my job; maybe I would be content. Maybe I would consume so many steaks and cigarettes and whiskey sours that nothing could touch me—I would be obese, an impenetrable fortress of flesh, and no pain could get past me.

Or maybe I would work and eat and smoke myself into a muddled mess and punch the clock prematurely—another casualty of the Cold War. Maybe I would be smart enough to have left my family something, and maybe my wife would remarry and live off the fat of my labor and I wouldn’t begrudge her because I was in a better place, drinking Bloody Marys on the great golf course in the sky.

Or maybe my wife, being of her time, would not wish to remarry and instead focus her energies on the grandchildren and church functions and the increasingly mundane exigencies of old age. Maybe she’d wish to meet another man but her prospects would be poor—after all, she was married to a big slob who she somehow stayed devoted to and still mourned. Plus, there were always the kids to contend with. Used goods are used goods, whether you’re talking cars, real estate or relationships.

Maybe she would solider on, alone, oblivious to the insanity of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, indifferent to the surreal psychosis of the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, and grow into her shrinking body the way a spider’s web settles into a windowsill.

Maybe she would eventually understand that the family home—the house in which she lost her virginity, raised her children, cleaned a thousand rooms, cooked a million meals—had outlasted her, and embrace the inevitable.

Maybe, in the end, she would be a lot like the woman across the hall. She’s had a good life (please allow her to have been happy: in my mind if not in actual fact). She, at least, once had a husband, and maybe a son and daughter whom she dotes on and who love her dearly, but they live so far away and are so busy with work and kids and life and time just slips away and so it goes.

Or maybe it is even worse than that: maybe she was never married, never found exactly what she was looking for, or the right ones overlooked her until it was too late. Maybe she was cursed with the blessing of being always apart, in all the important ways, from the utterly average, anonymous faces she came into contact with day in and day out, and like almost no one else she knew, she was unaware of it.

I want to walk out my door, but I can’t.

And this time, for once, it’s not because I don’t want to, it’s because I’m desperately certain that she won’t be outside waiting for me.

Blogs are, or can be, like diaries.

Except that diaries, by nature, are private. Which begs the question: do people who blog censor or soften the observations, complaints or critiques that in other times would exist inside a document designed to remain unread by others? (Or more to the point, should they?) To be certain, only a few years ago, thoughts like the ones I’m about to express would have been safely ensconced inside a journal, not read by anyone else, even including myself (I don’t often return to old journals, hopefully because I’m too busy living in the here and now). And for whatever it’s worth, I am humble enough to know that small numbers of people visit this blog, and I have enough sense (or self-respect) to instinctively acknowledge that nobody is well served by overly earnest airing of personal trivia.

Put another way, I don’t begrudge anyone else documenting every last detail of their existences (no matter how mundane or mawkish); I simply remain uninterested in reading about it. In that regard, blogs are self-regulating: if you don’t write things that others will find interesting, you won’t have an audience. And who cares anyway? In that regard, blogs are like diaries: people post on them because they want to, or need to, and the concept of friends or strangers reading their innermost thoughts won’t necessarily hamper their willingness to compose. Still, only the sensation-seekers looking for notoriety (usually the already famous, and even those folks have a shelf-life of about six months) go out of their way to wax solipsistic in a public forum.

When it comes to the death of my mother, I of course have meditated on the loss privately and publically, and anyone who knows me (or reads this blog) understands that her life and death are an unequivocal component of my ongoing existence. Nothing remarkable about that, really: it is what it is. I am not alone; in fact, one need not suffer the untimely death of a parent to understand that their presence is inextricable from one’s own. That said, it’s not because my feelings or experiences are unique, but because they are the opposite that I have little compunction sharing some thoughts on this plaintive anniversary. Indeed, for me these occasions are much more a celebration of her life (and her unambiguously positive influence in my life) than any sort of disconsolate meditation on death. It is what it is.

 

As I have mentioned in other pieces (most recently on my birthday), one of my earliest and most positive memories of art and discovery is associated with my mother: listening to Nutcracker Suite and drawing pictures. Tchaikovsky has a real Proust-like effect on me (and, I suspect, a great many grown-ups who have indelible memories of the Nutcracker or Fantasia, or both), but on a purely aesthetic level it is like Bizet’s Carmen: I can (and do) enjoy it on purely musical terms. Moreover, I prefer it that way (and having seen my share of holiday performances and the opportunity to enjoy a full performance of Carmen, I’m happy to have those experiences and need not go there again). Anyway, there are more than a handful of favorite moments (coincidentally or not, conductor Fritz Reiner’s version from 1960 is the first compact disc I ever purchased, in 1986), but the one that gets me every time is the sombre yet majestic ”Coffee: Arabian Dance”.

There’s no shame in my game. I cannot deny my past and the fact of the matter is, back in the ’70s I thought Jesus Christ Superstar was pretty awesome. Moms, sis and I knew this one by heart (at least Side A of the 8-Track, which received heavy airplay in the Ford Grenada). This was in the pre-Kiss and post Fantasia time period, and of course before I discovered the original “rock opera” Tommy (not the last time ALW would be influenced by a rock band). In any event, this was my first and last dalliance with Andrew Lloyd Webber and while I can hardly stomach it now, oh how I loved it then. And you know what? A handful of moments are still worth reliving.

I’ve also alluded to the fact that we worshipped at the altar of the White Album, and we’d listen to the cassette (taped from the original double record) constantly in the car. Our favorite singalong was (obviously) “Rocky Raccoon”, but one of my favorites that I can never hear, now, without thinking of my mother and those million car rides is another great song by McCartney, “Mother Nature’s Son”:

It was pretty cool to watch movies with my mom, who was much more lenient than Pops when it came to the Rated R ones. One we watched many times (which I haven’t seen in ages and suspect I’d like much less now) was The Big Chill. Of course, the soundtrack was ubiquitous at that time and did for Motown what soundtracks like O Brother, Where Art Thou? did for bluegrass and Goodfellas did for oldies (or at least Tony Bennett). It’s silly to contemplate now, but it was almost a novelty to hear Smokey Robinson and The Temptations in the very arid early years of the ’80s. Indelible baby steps for an impressionable young honky:

Beethoven. I’ve spoken often in regards to my worship of Ludwig Van. Everyone encounters the symphonies first, but once I latched onto the piano sonatas, that was it. It still is. I’m not sure if I ever succeeded in getting my mother to really appreciate the immortal  Mondschein, but she at least tolerated how often it was played during the late ’80s and early ’90s in her house. Since I’ve already thrown Barenboim a bone, I’d like to give props to Freddy Kempf’s superlative rendition of one of the truly sublime compositions ever written:

The other great discovery and love of my life around this time was Bob Marley: kind of like Beethoven and the symphonies, it’s impossible to have ears and not be exposed to Legend at some point in high school or college. When the amazing Songs of Freedom (by far the best box set of all time) came into my life during grad school I latched onto it like a remora. This career-spanning set opened a large door wide on Marley’s music (particularly the mostly unknown, and remarkable, work from the late ’60s and very early ’70s), and eventually, reggae. Moms needed no convincing, she formed her own deep love and appreciation for Marley and would sing his songs on my answering machine. Suffice it to say, our shared love of the great man is one of the very special bonds in my musical and spiritual life.

I think she saw pretty quickly that I was going to be a special case, and there is little doubt that regardless of anyone’s opinion, I was off and running early on, and little could come between me and music. Nevertheless, her encouragement (from Kiss to The Beatles to The Doors all the way through classical and then jazz) was generous, ceaseless and always appreciated. It’s kind of neat to consider that a CD she originally bought for me my senior year of college (when I explained to her that it was very important for both my studies and my sanity to procure this album) is one I wrote about almost twenty years later. I can’t think of a more beautiful song from a more perfect album to commemorate my gratitude.

Not too much needs to be said by way of introduction to Jimi Hendrix, but my mother definitely dug some of his (less experimental? more accessible?) work. This one was, and is, a no brainer: a song he wrote about his mother (who passed away when he was ten years old): “Angel”:

August 27, 2002 was the first day of the rest of our lives. Anyone who has lost a loved one will recall (or half-reall) the blur of events that come after, all of which are a blessing in the disguise of distraction. I did a lot of driving: driving from father’s house to my place, from funeral home to father’s place, to the airport to pick up relatives. The emotions and sensations would become overwhelming at times, and there are those awful moments when you wonder how you can possibly find peace or make sense of anything ever again. During one of these episodes I was coming or going somewhere and I had not been paying attention to my car stereo, and then this song (by the great Israel Vibration) broke through that haze like the sun and saved my life:

Finally, and this one is the most important, for me.
The ’70s: this one reminds me of coming home from school and spending time in the house in between games of soccer or kickball or whatever else I was up to in those days. I have a memory: it was either autumn or winter, but it was a day I couldn’t play outside, so I was stuck inside the house and my mother had first dibs on the sounds. She was a huge fan of Janis Ian (as I would become, and remain) and I don’t think it’s a stretch to consider Between The Lines one of the better albums of that time, or anytime. “At Seventeen”, “Tea and Sympathy”, “Light a Light”: this is as good as it gets. But it’s the swan song, “Lover’s Lullaby” that affects me most; it haunts and restores me in equal measure. This one makes me think of my mother, so young; myself, so young, and even the beautiful Janis Ian, so incredibly young and so unbelievably beautiful. Sentimental? Not so much. True, this is wistful on multiple levels, and while my nature is to embrace or confront things that I consider cliche, it still took me quite a while before I could bring myself to listen to this song after my mother’s death.

I can, now, and when I do I naturally think of her. And inevitably I think about myself:

Be thou, Spirit fierce,

My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,

Like wither’d leaves, to quicken a new birth;

And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!

Be through my lips to unawaken’d earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

 –Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind”

From Popmatters.

Miles Davis is responsible for so much incredible music that at times it’s overwhelming to grapple with his legacy. To be certain, no one who knows anything can disagree that he dropped at least a half-dozen indispensable masterpieces. Yet even that high-level assessment will not suffice: it is no exaggeration to claim (as he was never reluctant to do) that Miles Davis changed music several times. Following his active participation in the bebop apotheosis with Charlie Parker, et al., he released his first enduring classic, Birth of the Cool. Two decades later he ushered in the electronic revolution with the one-two punch of In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew. Miles Davis was not at the vanguard so much as he was the vanguard. Arguably, he never fired on all cylinders—before or after—quite the way he did in 1959 and into 1960. That he released what is commonly considered the most important (and best) jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue, signified an obvious artistic apex. That he followed this up with the only slightly less momentous and enduring Sketches of Spain is ample evidence that the man with the horn was very much in rarefied air.

Miles had already worked extensively with Gil Evans, dating back to the Birth of the Cool sessions, and later on the full-blown collaborations Miles Ahead and Porgy and Bess. While it is fair to suggest that either man might have taken the raw material of what became Sketches of Spain and created an interesting, possibly excellent album, it could never have turned out so well without both men’s involvement. To imagine how this album may have sounded had Miles chosen to employ a more traditional jazz approach, consider “Flamenco Sketches”, the sublime tone poem from Kind of Blue. Davis’s interest in Spanish music preceded the recording of “Flamenco Sketches”; indeed, his earlier work with Evans resulted in “Blues for Pablo” (from Miles Ahead). So while this pairing was inspired, it was not unpredictable.

Of the many accolades lavished on Sketches of Spain over the years, perhaps the two most prevalent are how well it has aged, and how disarmingly honest it remains. The secret to creating music that stands the test of time is to create timeless music. Simple in theory; near-impossible in practice. What exactly is meant by calling this album honest? Plainly put, Miles seemed incapable of playing false or forced notes, in part because his technique was not impeccable. Critics have long discussed (and debated) how Miles was neither the flashiest nor most proficient trumpeter of his time(s). On the other hand, accepting or embracing this circumstance enabled Davis to play, literally, to his strengths. As a result, he cultivated an approach that relied upon silence as much as sound: Miles took the philosophy of less is more to unprecedented levels. In a sense, he transcended technique, evolving into a directness that achieved an uncommon sensitivity: his solos were ceaselessly expressive, lyrical and filled with concentrated feeling. This facility was perhaps never on more obvious display than it is throughout Sketches of Spain.

It is easy to appreciate how, without Evans, this could have been a minimalist, deeply emotional record. Astonishingly, even with an orchestra, it still manages to be a minimalist, deeply emotional record. Evans certainly augments the sound in all the obvious ways, but he also embellishes the feeling. To understand the extent to which Evans was willing—and able—to tailor his already compatible approach to suit Miles’s style, it was the trumpeter himself who proclaimed, “He can read my mind and I can read his.”

The first track, and centerpiece, is “Concierto De Aranjuez (Adagio)”, composed by Joaquin Rodgrigo in 1939. The original version, which Miles heard and became transfixed by in early ’59, featured guitar—Miles would subsequently simulate (and emulate) those notes with his trumpet. Once he shared the piece with Gil Evans, the two immediately agreed that this should be the focal point of their next album. Evans set about the painstaking task of writing and arranging the work (focusing on the Adagio movement of Rodrigo’s original), and the results, while initially slow to coalesce, are extraordinary. For starters, the robust and lush sound that Evans manages to entice from only 21 players speaks volumes about his considerable prowess as a conductor. The finished product was, and remains, quite unlike anything else created in the jazz idiom. It is not exactly classical, or jazz, or traditional Spanish (or Flamenco) music, nor is it intended to be. Using the source material as a point of departure, the two men manage to pay homage while tapping into something quietly profound. The music fittingly epitomizes many of the paradoxes inherent in Davis’s aesthetic: it is ostensibly simple, but it elicits complicated feelings; it seems tranquil, but packs a disarming intensity. The songs are relatively easy to follow and remember, but repeated listens invariably expose new, intriguing aspects previously undiscovered.

“Will O’ the Wisp” (an excerpt from Spanish composer Manuel de Falla’s ballet El Amor Brujo, composed in 1915), is deceptively upbeat. Deceptive because, despite the warmth, there is an inexorable melancholy underneath, courtesy of the sulking bassoon. Miles’s muted trumpet is used to particularly powerful effect for the coda, making this short song a masterful example of dynamics, fully abetted by Evans’s crafty instincts. “The Pan Piper” incorporates oboe and a chorus of flutes, along with more muted trumpet from Miles, before settling into fully orchestrated interplay. Once again, Evans manages to surround Davis’s horn with a robust but restrained embellishment. “Saeta”, another Andalusian period piece, is traditionally sung (a capella) during Easter to commemorate the Virgin Mary. No religious overtones are necessary in order to appreciate the haunting effect of this languid march. The drums and fanfare approach, wail, then recede into the distance. The listener is front and center for the exceptionally emotional solo, Miles at his most coruscating.

“Solea” is the other extended (12 minute) composition, which closes out the original album. While Miles shines throughout, guiding the action with his cries and exhortations, this is a tour de force from Evans. He utilizes the entire orchestra to spectacular effect, calmly but confidently ratcheting up the intensity to its climax. Of all the songs, this one comes closest to swinging, albeit in a subdued, introspective way. While the piece glides along, Miles never stepping aside from the procession, the brass and woodwinds flutter in and out of the foreground, at one moment brazen, the next ethereal. Right around the nine minute mark, Davis offers one of his better instances of invoking maximum feeling with a minimum of notes (and melodrama)—he simply belts out a series of emanations, creating space with his intentional pauses, heightening the already puissant atmosphere.

The last selection on the first disc is “Song of Our Country” (also recorded during the Sketches of Spain sessions), a not-fully-realized companion piece for the original album. It features the same orchestra and more solid expressiveness from Miles, but leans more formal than Flamenco. It is a delightful “bonus track”, and if it cannot improve upon, it certainly does not mar the perfection that precedes it. A quick word about the production values: the sound quality is superlative. You can hear the intake of breath before the notes are blown on certain solos. You can hear and feel the bass, as well as the brushstrokes almost inaudible on previous versions.

The second disc, with more than 70 minutes worth of miscellaneous outtakes and rarities, is the real draw for folks considering laying down money for this Legacy Edition. There is enough previously unreleased material to entice fans who already own the original (not to mention the initial mid-’90s remaster, which improved the first pressing’s sound and offered three bonus tracks). An interesting decision has been made to include two pieces, one that preceded Sketches of Spain, and one recorded later. The first, “The Maids of Cadiz”, is from Miles Ahead, the initial Davis/Evans project. It represents not only the first Spanish-flavored experiment from these men’s adventures, but anticipates the themes they would fully embrace a few years later. The second, which closes the set, is “Teo” (a tribute to producer Teo Macero from 1961’s Someday My Prince Will Come), a tune that can be appreciated as an extension of this material sans orchestra. It is, literally, a traditionally swinging jazz workout, featuring John Coltrane (an added bonus then and now) and, taken along with “The Maids of Cadiz”, nicely bookends the developmental chronology of this music.

In addition to the various alternate takes and the tracks-in-progress, there is an interesting live version of “Concierto De Aranjuez” from 1961 that first saw the light of day on vinyl in 1987). As is so often the case, this extra music might be considered revelatory or overkill, depending upon one’s appetite. Certainly, this type of release is readymade for the more dedicated fans and/or completists, but even a new listener will find much to appreciate. As usual, it is enlightening to hear famous compositions slowly take shape in the studio. “Concierto De Aranjeuz” is a noteworthy example here (hence the 5 versions), because of all the musicians and elements involved: the initial test runs nail most of the notes and the vibe, but it takes a while for both to crystallize. This, of course, is a tribute to Evans and Davis for persisting until they were finally satisfied. That the early, often rough drafts help put the ultimately polished product in perspective is a given. With material this complex and challenging, it provides invaluable insight.

Miles Davis is justly venerated for many things. Perhaps most significant, and unique, was his instinctive awareness that one need not play perfectly to occasionally achieve something very near perfection. Sketches of Spain is a case study, and stands as a high point in Davis’s career, as well as one of the crucial works of the 20th century.

Okay.

I wrote words about (and worse, posted pictures of) Camille Paglia and Bret Michaels on this blog within the past month.

Since my aim was to bury both and praise neither, I feel I should be forgiven. But some sort of palliative gesture would seem appropriate, if not imperative at this point.

And so, I turn to one of the few artists of whom I can find nothing negative to say: Jimi Hendrix.

Indeed, the only critique one can make of Hendrix is that he did not live past the offensively young age of 27. Regrettably, when it comes to musicians checking out before their time, there are simply too many tragedies to count. But Jimi Hendrix remains the Alpha and Omega of artists whose abrupt departures leave us inconsolable. Considering that we are still trying to come to terms with what Hendrix did between 1967 and 1971, it is excruciating to contemplate what he would have achieved had he reached even early middle-age.

Art Tatum and the piano. Jimi Hendrix and the guitar.

Take any and all other instruments and let the debates begin, but those two are covered; there is nobody who can make a convincing argument otherwise. When it comes to Hendrix, there is no conjecture: he already did it, but the growth he displayed in only a couple of years is unlike what we’ve witnessed from just about any other musician or composer, ever. We’re talking light years, the universe expanding; real quantum type shit. Put it this way: Miles Davis, who didn’t have many good things to say about the best Jazz musicians, made no bones about his desire to get Hendrix in the studio to jam. That’s like Michael Jordan saying he’d like to play some pick-up basketball with you, or Muhammad Ali asking you to spar with him.

Pure, unfiltered artistry. Unparalleled achievement. Jimi Hendrix did it first, and he did it best. He was, quite possibly, not entirely human. To quote Bill Hicks, Case. Fucking. Closed.

Exhibit A: Pali Gap. If the liner notes are accurate (and why wouldn’t they be?) this was just an impromptu jam miraculously caught live in the studio because the tapes were rolling. Imagine if they hadn’t been? Imagine what other spontaneous jams weren’t captured? Imagine all the jams he never had a chance to create? No, don’t. It’s too painful. All we can do is appreciate what we got while he was here: it’s more than enough to tide us mere mortals over until we punch the great clock in the sky. Is it too much to hope he’s already out there somewhere, waiting for us? Probably. Either way, this world isn’t a particularly terrible place so long as we can still listen.

Everyone knows that Herbie Hancock is one of the coolest men on the planet, and has been for almost half a century. Anyone who doesn’t know this doesn’t know much; all we can offer them are condolences. Only Miles Davis, with whom Hancock worked for several crucial years (in both mens’ lives) during the mid-’60s, can possibly be invoked in any discussion of popular musicians who consistently shaped, then challenged the vanguard over a substantial period of time. These artists not only made new music but changed music on at least a handful of occasions.

Most folks know, and love, Hancock from what was likely their first association with him: the song (and more significantly, the video) “Rockit”, which was prominent in the MTV rotation circa 1983. The import of this one song is impossible to overstate: it not only spotlighted black men on the then-lilywhite music video channel, it spotlighted a jazz band. On top of that, it served as a mainstream introduction to scratching and turntable pyrotechnics. To say the earth was no longer flat, sonically speaking, after “Rockit” is only hinting at its influence.

But before the ’80s, Hancock made music that remains fresh and vital. Just looking at some of the album covers from the ’70s era (below) should hearten the faithful and intimidate the weak. Street cred? Can you say soundtrack to Death Wish? That not impressive enough? How about Antonioni’s Blow-Up?

          

Of course, Herbie arguably made his most enduring music in the ’60s. In 1963 Miles Davis asked Hancock (along with bassist Ron Carter, tenor sax player Wayne Shorter and seventeen year old wunderkind drummer Tony Williams) to join his new quintet. To put it as simply as possible, this is the best band ever assembled in jazz history; only John Coltrane’s Classic Quartet comes close. And while many geniuses, from Charlie Parker to Ornette Coleman, led top-tier collectives, there is really no touching this ensemble. Perhaps nowhere is the uncanny dynamic of the group displayed in fuller effect than on Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints”; there are great live versions here and here but the definitive version is the one that appeared on Miles Smiles (from 1967):

Incidentally, at the same time he was making history with Miles Davis, he was recording a string of albums under his own name that, taken together, would easily put him on the very short list of all-time greats.

       

“Speak Like A Child”, from 1968:

 

Taking the electronic mantle from Miles (after the shot-heard-round-the-world of Bitches Brew, which remains controversial 40 years on), Hancock reinvented his own language with works that were equal parts jazz, fusion and what is now called “world music”: in 1973 he dropped Head Hunters and it became an instant classic. Here is Hancock and his band, performing ”Butterfly”, from 1974:

Easing into the ’80s, there is of course, this, the aforementioned “Rockit” (Herbie could even make the early ’80s seem cool; think about how indescribably lame virtually all of the videos from this era are, and check out how hip and vaguely unsettling this one still seems):

Herbie had nothing left to prove at this point. But he had more to give. A lot more. In addition to being a genius, by all accounts Hancock has always been exceedingly modest and softspoken; a gentleman of the old school. Check out this slice of heaven, Herbie keeping it real with the kids on Sesame Street:

 

And here he is, fresh from winning a Grammy (for 2008’s Album of the Year River: The Joni Letters), playing “Watermelon Man” for Elvis Costello on Sundance Channel’s Spectacle (the original is here and the remake from his ’70s classic Headhunters is here).

It’s all gravy at this juncture. It has been since 1973, if not 1969. Hancock has been the baddest, nicest and coolest cat on the scene for five decades; what could he possibly have in store for us next?

   

Yes, sometimes you can judge an album by its cover. Especially if it Jazz. Most especially if it was from the ’70s (that Sun Ra cover is from the ’60s, but nevertheless…)

A lot of people don’t understand, or appreciate Jazz.

A lot of people don’t understand, or appreciate, the ’70s…

We cannot help these people.

                  

Pharoah Sanders:

Lonnie Liston Smith:

Pat Martino:

Sun Ra:

Miles Davis:

Herbie Hancock:

When Obama takes office in January of 2009, it will be a half-century since Free Jazz forefather Ornette Coleman dropped the provocatively titled “The Shape of Jazz to Come”. 1959 was a watershed year for jazz music (arguably the greatest single year for jazz in all history–which is saying a LOT). Here’s a taste: Miles Davis “Kind of Blue”, John Coltrane “Giant Steps”, Charles Mingus “Ah Um”. That is like the holy trinity of jazz music; all from the same year. But in the not-so-silent shadows a young, relatively unknown alto saxophonist was poised to fire the musical shot heard ’round the world–a shot that still reverberates today. “Kind of Blue” is correctly celebrated for establishing modal music, and a genuine evolution from bop and post-bop; “Giant Steps” is the apotheosis of the “sheets of sound” that John Coltrane had been practicing and perfecting for a decade; “Ah Um” is an enyclopedic history of jazz music, covering everyone and everything from Jelly Roll Morton to Duke Ellington. And each of those albums were immediately embraced, and remain recognized as genuine milestones today. But “The Shape of Jazz to Come” was incendiary and complicated: it inspired as much resistance as it did inspiration. Some folks (Mingus included) bristled that it was all so much sound and fury, signifying…little. But what Coleman (along with trumpet player Don Cherry, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Billy Higgins–representing as solid a quartet as any that have made music, ever) achieved was, arguably, the most significant advancement since Charlie Parker hit the scene. Of course, Parker was also misunderstood and dismissed when his frenetic, almost incomprehensibly advanced alto saxophone assault began to cause scales to drop from audiences’ eyes–if not their ears. Like any genuine iconoclast of the avant garde, Parker and Coleman were not being new for newness sake; they had to fully grasp and master the idiom before they could transcend it. Tellingly, what was revolutionary and almost confrontational, then, seems rather tame and entirely sensible, now. Of course, it didn’t take 50 years for Coleman to resonate: he not only found his audience, John Coltrane–the all-time heavyweight champion–embraced his compatriot. He endorsed, and, crucially, he imitated. The Book of Revelation that Coltrane’s mid-’60s Impulse recordings comprise did, in many respects, grow directly out of the opening salvo fired by Coleman in ‘59.

Coleman’s compositions are nakedy emotional, unabashedly intense, totally human. Like the best jazz music, all of the instruments are communicating. What they are saying are different things, at different times, to different people. That is the power of this music. It was the soundtrack for a truly unique and momentous time in American history. It remains, more so than ever, the soundtrack of now.

1. Congeniality

2. Focus on Sanity

3. Peace