When I play, sometimes I hum (very quietly), and sometimes I rock, or I move my upper body in circles, but in which direction, clockwise or counter-clockwise, I've never been able to tell. There is a spot I look at a lot, a spot off to my left and down towards the floor, and it seems to take me out of myself and put me in a trance. I read about something similar in a book by Carlos Castaneda, but I don't remember much about it, except it was to shift the observer into the second attention, a concept I fully understand and endorse.
The more I watch Glenn Gould, the more I realize how much I have in common with him when it comes to my present playing style. The old videos I see of me now were made before I ever saw or heard Gould play. I see a lot of similarities in them, though. The economy of motion, the deep concentration, and the hunching posture.
Back then, I sat on a piano bench. Now I sit on a chair with a back. The chair stands at 16 inches off the ground.
I could not ever use a bench or stool again.
The chair back is essential for my technique, and the lower height enables such precision and dexterity and speed that I can't even play a piece on a regular bench anymore. It has affected my Music immensely, in a very positive way, and has freed me of so many technical restrictions that I feel as if I can do just about anything.
It is the single biggest and best thing that I have ever done to improve my piano playing.
The other thing is to remove the fall-board when I play (and, of course, the music stand, but I have been doing that for many years to gain easy access to the piano's strings) and that gives my fingers more room to move about, not just from side to side, but inwards toward the key's fulcrum.
The piano's tone changes if I play closer in toward the fulcrum, so it's another way to change the sound and get more color out of the instrument.
Also, after removing the music stand, if I use the lid open at full stick, I "close the flap"; that is, I fold the top out and not over, so that the piano appears longer and the sound is directed downward, on top of me. Be careful when standing abrubtly not to bang your head or face on the piano's now larger "top".
I use all three pedals, and the middle pedal is as important as the sustain pedal is.
The soft pedal is essential. Sometimes I think the piano would have been better made (for me, at least) to have two strings (not three) in the treble and upper range. The tuning is better with the soft pedal down (remember, the soft pedal mutes one string and plays only the two remaining, by shifting the entire key assembly up a notch) and so is the tone. But the volume is diminished.
And that's a "sticking point" with me. Everybody wants the lid open, full-stick, because it looks better. I think that sometimes, most times, the piano sounds better closed. [If it's too loud, it negatively impacts your use of dynamics.]
So, at home, I keep the lid closed most of the time, with the fall board off, and the music stand off (if you read, how can you listen???), and the chair that's 16 inches high is there, all the time.
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I have a Roland X8, with 88 weighted keys, and the touch is adjustable, so you can make it really difficult to play. I practice on this at 4 or 5am if I want to play and not disturb anyone. It's really a gas as its piano sounds are so warm and realistic, at least through headphones. But it's not a piano.
When I perform, which is never nearly often enough, I want the piano parallel to the stage edge. I don't like it angled so that "they can see my facial expressions" or angled so that "they can see my hands" because I don't like my back to the audience and I don't like the right half of the audience to see my hands and the left half not see them.
Putting the piano in a straight line, parallel to the stage, is the right way, the formal, and correct way.
Often on the road, someone will ask me for a "sound check at 3pm." Get real! A sound check for a solo acoustic piano? What are they going to do, knock out a wall? And so they'll say, "well, we thought you might want to practice." I've been playing for 56 years. Practice? Practice what? Badminton?
About Travel
It's really important to rest and sleep before a concert, and not to eat too much. If at all. An excellent food choice is sardines, in your hotel room, with chopsticks. Homeland Security will not allow forks to be carried. Chopsticks are fine.
Bananas and peanut butter are great too. That's what we call road food. But I usually eat NOTHING the day of the concert. After the concert, I'm famished.
I have discovered, after 40 years of travel, that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is one serious problem for many performers, and for solo performers in particular. It's important to travel with lots of vitamins, and to stay warm and dry, and to reserve energy for the concerts. Do NOT let a promoter tell you that you have to take a cab to the venue, or rent a car at the airport. And at no time should you be exposed to the elements.
I have a boardroom pass for the airport that allows me to be in a much more controlled environment than that which prevails at most US hub airports. Airports in the EU are infinitely more civilized, with areas for reading, resting, and even showering.
Boardroom passes are expensive (usually 3-400 dollars a year) but they are worth every penny. Particularly when your flight is delayed or canceled.
When you get to flying a lot, you'll find that certain things become very important. One is hydration.
It's in my contract that I have 5 or 6 liters of Evian or Volvic Bottled Water waiting at my destination, with a few liters in the car or limo that picks me up. Some promoters think that musicians neither eat nor drink. They even think that we'll drink the tap water. And I've NEVER been to a town where the promoter DID NOT SAY:
"You can drink this tap water... it's the BEST water in the whole WORLD." Without fail, I've heard that innumerable times. It's a standard and very stale joke with me. Do NOT, EVER, drink that tap water. Even at home, we drink FUJI or EVIAN.
So hydration after a long haul is very important, as is sleep.
Sometimes (all the time for me) it's very hard to get to sleep. If you leave NYC for Heathrow (in the UK), you're looking at a 6-hour time difference, plus a six hour flight. From SFO, the flight is ten and a half hours. The planes don't fly as fast now, to save on jet fuel. Honest. Usual air speed at 36,000 feet is about 550 mph maximum, and with a strong headwind it can be as low as 420 mph.
And when you get to the hotel finally, you're bone-tired. You need water first, and food. I travel with sardines and crackers and natural health-food cookies or scones. I only pack one bag, but I know exactly what to take, and a bag is always half-stocked with things I need. I used to take a hair-dryer but now most hotels have them. The hard part in certain cities in the USA and most all of Europe is finding a non-smoking room. [Ireland leads the EU in changing this reality.]
The Brits will say "Oh my. Well, we'll remove the ashtrays, and that'll make it a non-smoking room." No it won't. The smell permeates everything. They have to do better than that. And, as consciousness is raised about the hazards of second-hand smoke, the world is gradually changing. But when I was in North Carolina it was AWFUL. The entire hotel smelled like a pub in Birmingham.
No aspersions on the great city of Birmingham.
After you hang up your clothes, you hit the bed. If anything is wrinkled, hang it inside the bathroom, on the door, so that when you shower, the hot water vapor will take out the creases and wrinkles.
If you have really cool cable TV, be sure you don't stay up until 7am watching an Adam Sandler movie. ESPECIALLY an Adam Sandler movie. Just bring a book with you and read. Put a cover over the light so you can see to read, but so the room is dark. Remember to put the "do not disturb" sign on your door. And always leave a "wake-up call" with the front desk, even if you have a good digital clock. Sometimes they won't go off, or you're so out of it that you won't hear it. The phone ringing will usually wake you up.
Before you leave the hotel to play the concert, pray or chant or do something verbal, something to clear your throat and lungs, something that'll make it easier to walk out in front of hundreds or thousands of people and feel like you can talk easily. I get really inward, pensive, and introspective inside those hotel rooms. Not a funk or depression but very inward... quiet and self-absorbed. So it's good to talk to anyone, even yourself, before you go out there to play the concert.
The performance
You'll usually be an hour or two hours early to the concert. Not because you need or want to be, but because the promoter is nervous and wants you there so that he knows you haven't flown the coop. Also, he wants you to "acclimate" and maybe even "check out the piano"...I always say this: "If I don't like the piano, are you going to go out and get me another one?" This usually works to stifle their panic enough to leave me alone.
Because they are ALL in various states of panic, all the time. And, if you're not careful, the panic will communicate itself to you. So you have to be really laid back. Go to your "Green Room" and stay there. Sit and drink water and don't think or say too much.
Never make set lists. It's okay to have a slip of paper up there with you but never write anything on it. It's just to look at. I promise, if you get bandstand amnesia, that by looking at a blank piece of paper, a piece will pop right into your head.
Also, take a small clock (not a watch) and set it strategically on the piano, inside where the music stand usually resides, so that only you can see it. Digital clocks are great. So when the promoter says "play about 55 minutes" you and go out there, calculate what time it will be when 55 minutes have passed, and stop when it gets to be that time.
I usually only play ONE set; I always say "if one set was good enough for Gould, it's good enough for me." So my set is usually one hour and a half.
If I hear a tune VERY strongly in my head when I sit down at the piano, I'll usually let myself play it. Otherwise, I'll hear that song for the rest of the concert and it'll undermine everything I play. My performance will arise spontaneously, and I'll know what to play next almost immediately upon finishing the piece I'm playing. If I don't know, I'll sit there for a while and stare. It's my stage. I'll do what I want to. But I try not to take too much time as the audience fidgets and gets nervous.
Sometimes I'll just play. Improvise, make things up. Sometimes those are the best segments.
When playing a ballad or an Adagio (or any piece) I'll let the last chord ring, but I WON'T REMOVE MY HANDS FROM THE KEYBOARD UNTIL THE SOUND HAS FULLY DIED AWAY.
I can't stress that enough. The minute you remove your hands from the keys, the applause starts, and the dying tones are mushed out.
If you are holding a chord with your left hand, as I often do, use your RIGHT HAND to conduct the piece to a close. It can just be a downward gesture, palm open, hand moving slowly down. Sometimes a natural tremor will run through the right hand, as if there is GREAT INTENSITY in the last chord, as if the hand was straining to close down the tones. There IS great intensity, really. It is the END, the last thing the audience hears of that piece. It MUST BE THE BEST PART.
And I try to never put two pieces together that are in the same key. That's an obvious one.
Now that I use a chair with a back, I can set back, lift both legs, and play very very VERY fast. It's like flying with your feet forward as if you were driving a car or a plane. It's a trip!
[For a long time, I had an issue: I was convinced that, as I aged, I was slowing down. Now, with the new seating arrangement, my recordings are evidence to me that I am speeding up, and my fears are thus allayed. Speed is only for the service of content and communication. Still, it is an important facility, and I am determined to retain and improve it.]
And when I bow, I bow from the waist, as it is a show of great respect for your audience. Japanese people do it all the time: the deeper the bow, the more respect is conveyed. I bow as deeply as I can with this old back of mine.
Then "show's over" unless there's an encore or a call-back. It's important to think of this piece alone before you ever walk on the stage. At that point, you have finished, and you're being asked, begged, to play another piece. Make sure it's the right one. Have several encore pieces in your arsenal.
Then I might sell some cds and sign them. I always like to sit down and have someone help me. The audience will want signatures but they won't often remove that hated shrink-wrap so I need help, as I don't have much in the way of fingernails. I always keep them clipped down drastically. (My own company, Red and Blue Recordings, does NOT use shrink-wrap for a number of very good reasons)
I'll always sit with a wall behind me so that no one sneaks up behind me and pulls a handful of hair out or puts me in a choke-hold. I know this sounds insane, but these things have happened. Once, in Saskatoon, a fellow who ran a local jazz radio show snuck up behind me, grabbed me by my head (in a wrestler-like scissors-hold) and lifted me out of the chair, all the while telling me he loved me madly. The last thing I heard was someone remarking, "I think you're hurting her, Chris." And I woke up in the hospital with a badly bruised nose and forehead. So now I sit against a wall, and I try to make it a brick wall if they have one.
Also, I'm VERY careful shaking hands. Some guys don't know their own strength. Either give them only a few fingers by retracting your hand just as theirs starts to close, or use your left hand turned sideways and also retract it before they can fully grab it. The BEST ADVICE is to NOT SHAKE ANY HANDS. This is a thing that most people will understand immediately. "Her hands are her life." If you MUST shake hands, use the techniques above. If you are like me, you won't EVER shake hands with a stranger.
Also, wear silly-looking gloves before and after the concert. They'll keep your hands warm before the concert, and after the concert they'll discourage too much skin contact. Gloves with the tips of the fingers open are nice. They allow you touch sensation (you can even play in them if necessary) but keep your hands very warm.
After the concert I NEVER "hang out" with the promoters. Or anyone. I came to do a job and I do it with all my heart, and afterwards I have nothing to give in a social situation. I never get too close to the promoters. I usually dislike most of them, but I'm not there to be liked and neither are they. They're usually all about business, and that's the way I prefer it.
The Courage to die, onstage and otherwise
This is what I love about Keith Jarrett. He takes enormous risks. Sometimes he succeeds brilliantly, and brings us gifts from the gods and goddesses that are priceless. Never before or since has anyone taken quite as many risks as Keith and Glenn Gould and John Coltrane. I can't claim the success rate of any of those giants. I'm beginning to understand this, though:
When we rely on formula for life, whether it's giving up your beloved art or music or other sacred gifts to pursue a lucrative career that you love not at all, because "that's the way we do things here in the USA", then the results will be predictable and uninteresting. When we step outside of the formula, we step outside of the zone of safety.
In Tales of Power by Carlos Castenada, Don Juan admonishes Carlos:
"If you take the warrior's path, you will cry a million tears. But if you step off of that path, you will die a million deaths. So cry, Carlos. Go on, have a fit."
So I work without a net now, and more and more people want to see and hear me do that.
That net's always there, should I need it. After playing predominantly jazz, professionally, for 45 years, I have plenty of licks and chops and cliches and lines. They're all "nets".
Without that net, I moan and whisper to myself. I forget my body, I forget my life, I forget my flu if I happen to have it, I forget my bills and my fears and my pains and, well, everything. I sing the Song of the Sirens. I'm alone in the Universe with the notes and they bring me to my God, which is the MUSIC that has run through my life like a red thread since I was a very very little girl. All of the things I am are in the notes. I sometimes exclaim loudly, wordlessly. I sometimes laugh hilariously. I am told the light is bright, and I am told I am very beautiful (at my age that's a real compliment). One woman left the room last night because she couldn't bear the light; she went outside and stared at the stars and cried.
This must be God. This must be what everyone seeks but few truly find. This must be what the Buddhists call "the sacred ground of being", the "bardo state", the "luminous state", the experience of being a Bodhisatva.
I am not happy to have this: I am blessed, elated, and humbled to have this, even for a moment. I could die happy right now. Buddhists embrace death so that they may know and love life better. I am no longer afraid of death and so I'm no longer afraid to live. This is not forever, for anyone. We know what we know, then we evaporate. We are visitors, renters. We own nothing. The world is a minute of our time. It's awful and it's awfully beautiful.
Makes me think of that tune by Thelonious Monk. Ugly Beauty. I just recorded that and it's on a new CD for Red and Blue called DEEP MONK. You'll be able to get that when it's released in a few weeks. Meanwhile my latest recordings are here.
Feb 16, 2008
Songs for a New Century
My new CD for Origin Arts, street date around Apr 22, 2008
"Songs for a New Century" is what I'm hearing and seeing now, all the time, under the surface of everything I do or say or feel, every day. It's the undercurrent of my life. I feel that it's my best work so far in terms of clarity, focus, and depth of feeling. But then, I can never say that for sure, as I'm too close to it. I remember something that Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington said when asked which of his albums was his personal favorite: "The next one!"
Perhaps it's my favorite because of its optimistic tone. After September 11, 2001, the universal key of life for me and many others, at least those in tune with the laws of nature and physics, was D minor. I have a form of synesthesia, the not-uncommon ability to see colors when one hears sounds. The one color I saw that day was orange - exactly matching our Homeland Security's usual threat level, i.e. "code orange" - or yellow. F major is brown to me, and E minor has always looked red. A minor is blue-green, and C is a cream color. I've never been sure if others with synesthesia see these same colors but I suspect similarities.
There is no doubt that, existentially at least, 9-11 was an orange, D minor event. It looked that way to me. It sounded that way to me. Its place in my heart is coded in that color. I had never before thought that orange could be a color of unimaginable sadness and grief. But it stayed that way for me until quite recently. I suppose I was grieving, and not just for the victims and heroes of 9-11. I was grieving for America, for the very idea of America.
Pianistically, I've always gravitated to "open keys" with brilliant colors. If I were a painter, I would be considered a "colorist". I hear in primaries. B-flat or E-flat, while the keys of choice for many "jazz musicians", have never struck a chord in me. This is perhaps unusual because some of my main influences in American Classical Music (Jazz) have been saxophonists and trumpeters. Particularly John Coltrane and Miles Davis.
To be sure, there are pieces that I've written that belong in these keys, and so I have always let the music choose it's own key, just as I let the melody-line choose its own motion. Also, my art always cycles throughout every key and every color. But "my" keys are E, A, D, G, F, C, and their minor equivalents. E-flat minor does certainly sing, though, and D-flat major remains positively mellifluous to me.
These observations are generalizations, but I mention them here because they comprise the primary colors and keys of "Songs for a New Century".
And now, some years after "The Day the World Changed", I hear and sense and see and smell happiness and hope again. I am so very hopeful that our country becomes the dream it CAN be rather than the nightmare that still lurks in the shadows. This Music is my own very small but personally significant contribution to the re-building and re-fortification of that new America that most of us long for.
The "painting" still contains Orange, but not nearly as much. Now, G major is here! To me it is the color of the sky when it is sunny and cloudless. And earth-brown F major has returned, too, with patches of green, like grasses growing in a once-barren landscape.
G major is so much with me, which is a very good sign, and finds its joyous expression in two personal favorites rendered here: Fantasia and If Only. They are very new right now, and will remain in a state of becoming as long as I play them. The new that I'm hearing is so vastly different from the old, and the shift in thinking so profound, that it seemed like alien territory to me for awhile. But in many ways, it's full circle, back to my childhood, my years at Peabody Conservatory, and my youthful search for the creative center of my existence. This has been my life of late. It's the return to form in it's truest sense. It's still improvised, extemporized, and spontaneous, while relying almost entirely on emotional power, visceral content, and heartfelt longing. I can not explain the feeling I have while it's happening to me. It is like "automatic playing". It has to do with grace and intent and genuine amazement. I am amazed it is happening. I am hypnotized.
Take If Only for an example. Literally simple beyond belief, it could be played by any proficient third-year piano student. But the density, the gravity, the fulcrum of the piece is not it's melody or its chords: they're wonderful but not the center. The center is its raw emotion. Emotion of such intensity can only be expressed on an instrument that responds to the slightest variations and the smallest permutations of touch. Since touch and tone production have become so central to my playing, I should share a few discoveries that might contribute to someone's similar quests.
It has been noticed (and remarked upon, not always favorably) that I sit very low - a mere 16 inches off of the ground at last measurement, with a strong inclination to go even lower if my chair would only allow it - because I do not wish to push the keys down.
I neither wish to push the keys down or "strike" the keys. I want instead to pull the keys down, thus imparting an almost imperceptible weight - or gravity - to the sound each key can produce.
Likewise, I want to use my fingers for the strength or softness, the loudness or almost inaudible quietness, of each note. I NEVER use my upper arms and shoulders for "power" anymore. Older videos of me playing exasperate me. They are studies in awkwardness to me. The fingers have to lift higher to attain maximum expressivity, and this can't be easily done by sitting high up. When I sit on a piano bench these days I can not believe that I ever made any real music way up there!
And since I never read music (I do write it, very, very fast) because I believe that one can not have their ears and eyes fully focused and "on" at one time, I always remove the piano's music stand. I can't understand how anyone can possibly think that they might play to their optimum potential while reading a blueprint or a roadmap or a novel. If they don't know the music, and are reading it off of a page, how in the world can we be expected to believe in it when we hear it? Obviously the musician playing it can not even remember it, much less play it with total immersion!
Similarly, I remove the fall-board, that piece of wood that your fingers bump into sometimes, the piece of wood that comes down to meet the keys. With the fall-board off, you can play much closer to the fulcrum of the key. Even onto the unfinished wooden part of the key. And, amazingly (but not surprisingly when you think about it) the sounds one can get are inaccessible when the fall-board is left on. I have been accused of disassembling the piano before playing it. The truth is that, for me, those parts are superfluous - even impediments - to playing.
I also "lower the flap" on the hood. At full-stick, the piano looks longer, and that's nice for appearances, but the main reason is that the sound now has another foot-and-a-half to bounce off of, and it is deflected down around the player. I am very careful when I stand up so I don't knock myself out on the overhang.
And all three pedals are fundamental. necessary. Absolutely indispensable. The soft pedal is my friend. Some critics say I over-use it. That's their opinion and they're entitled to it. The middle pedal is for, among other things, those beautiful drones and single notes that ring out and hold while other staccato notes fly by with precision and clarity. The best-kept secret of the piano is the middle pedal. Its absence on some Bosendorfers is unforgivable!
These are not things I worked on or even consciously understood. They were things that just happened. The low chair was inspired first by a fascination with Glenn Gould. I wanted to try that. It worked. But it is different for me: I need a certain kind of back to that chair, and it needs to fit the curvature of my spine so that I can lift both legs out in front of me at times and simply fly, feet-first. There seems no speed-limit in this somewhat ridiculous posture, and I'm going to continue pursuing these unusual-looking activities for as long as they serve me. My present chair is a height-adjustable, swivel, armless office chair with a bit of padding for comfort. 16 inches is its lowest limit and that will be addressed on my next visit to Office Max.
The focusing of powerful feeling through such a stripped-down vehicle is breath-taking to me. I don't care if it sounds or looks like this or that, like so-and-so, like me or not like me. It is right because it allows and encourages my heart to beat in symphony with all of life, and pour forth like a river, unimpeded by fall-boards and high perches.
So here we are. It is NOW, no longer 9-11, and even if it's in D minor (as are three of these entries) it is pure joy and for this I am so grateful.
Intention:
Seeking Beauty and Truth in Music for the healing of people, for the healing of the self. MY self included. This is the intent of my Music now, as it is the intent of my very life. It must be clear and true and without the shackles of a tired and unhealthy past: the "hang", the promoter's greedy whims, the record producer's "brilliant" ideas, the critic's pompous decree, the rule of art by committee, and the general sense that being a Musician is somehow about being popular, accepted, approved of, and lauded by all.
That is no way to live. That is no way to make Art! There is no return in making billions of manic notes spin through the air like so many kernels of popped corn. That's exactly how I feel when I hear that kind of "music". I feel assaulted, I feel as if someone is hitting me with thousands of pieces of flying popcorn. It doesn't hurt, but it isn't pleasant, and it's a waste of time.
And of popcorn.
One lesson I've learned is directly from Star Wars' Yoda: "TRY, and you will not DO. There is no trying. There is only DO and NOT DO." All doing comes from love, and all love comes from a heart filled with peace. Conversely, all trying comes from the drive to compete, impress, and garner love. To get love we will usually always try, and we will usually always fail, because love is in one's heart, and letting it be free to speak and fly and soar is the only way to do anything creative. Setting it free is the wall and the obstacle we have to face. It is enormous. It is daunting. And when that is done, one must live with, and love, the results. It doesn't much matter what anyone critical or jaded or invested in reactionary thought-patterns will say or think.
It matters what a child will think, what a loved one will feel, what a stressed person will take away from it, what a sick person will get from it to help them heal themselves. It matters because we are human and frail and mortal, and that we will all, at the end, be the same ...as if we are not already... The Beatles said it on Abbey Road:
"And, in the end, the love you take
is equal to the love you make."
All of us have been changed by the events of our world, and the events of the past decade have left many of us off-balance, seeking deeper meaning in our life. Love is the answer - we know this - but our material world is not always kind to affairs of the heart. It doesn't matter, it can't matter to the true artist. We make art because it MUST be made. We play because it is our one reliable source of inexhaustible wonder. And we ALL must believe in love as a force, a force as real and as immutable and as universal as gravity or electromagnetism, because it is literally what binds the planet and its peoples together. It may not look like it sometimes, but we really do love each other. Otherwise, we'd be extinct by now!
Here is my Music now, at this very moment, with its strengths and its weaknesses - which I suppose are my strengths and weaknesses. This is a very transparent album, from me, to you. It pleases me most of the time, and I hope it pleases you. It also speaks to me of new ideas and things that need to be done next. It is one more step. I really hope you enjoy it. It IS for you, from the depth of my heart.
It's my way to finally start off this Century.
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Press Release:
Jessica Williams' newest album for Origin Arts, "Songs for a New Century", more than lives up to its proud title with 8 originals by Jessica Williams and one seldom-heard chestnut by Sonny Rollins. The music is as new as the 21st Century and quite unlike ANYTHING Ms Williams has committed to CD before: in a program that spans all of the emotions, from longing, sadness, wonder, and optimism, to melting love, there are times when one may wonder if it's "just a piano" they're hearing. On "Toshiko", she manages to coax the sounds of a Koto or a Shamisen out of the instrument, all without any overdubs. Her heart-breaking "Fantasia" is a strong reminder of her extensive conservatory training and extraordinary touch, often compared to Bill Evans (and, more recently, to Glenn Gould) by JazzTimes critic Doug Ramsey. Still firmly rooted in her nearly 50 year love-affair with jazz, she offers her deeply-felt tribute to the memory of the great pianist Oscar Peterson, and rounds out the mesmerizing program with her original compositions containing soaring lines and rapid-fire sheets-of-sound that were inspired by the ground-breaking work of one of her strongest and earliest influences, saxophone giant John Coltrane.
Remembering that jazz has always embraced - if sometimes reluctantly - new forms, we're amazed at the sheer BREADTH of music presented here, all in a concentrated ONE hour of continuously stimulating and moving revelation.
The recording sound is wide, resonant, and remarkably "present". Recorded on her new 7-foot Mason & Hamlin concert grand piano on state-of-the-art recording equipment in her own home studio, without any constraints or time limitations, she has created something simultaneously beautiful AND ground-breaking, something that fully lives up to its name and its scope.
"Songs for a New Century" is an album of wonders, music so colorful and hypnotic that you'll see it as well as hear it!
"Songs for a New Century"
1 Empathy (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)
2 Toshiko (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)
3 Fantasia (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)
4 Song for a Baby (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)
5 Blessing in Disguise (Sonny Rollins)
6 Lament (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)
7 Dear Oscar (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)
8 Spoken Softly (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)
9 If Only (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)
Total time: 1:00:57
ALL TRACKS recorded during the last 2 weeks of Jan 2008, direct to disc, 2-track stereo
"Songs for a New Century" is what I'm hearing and seeing now, all the time, under the surface of everything I do or say or feel, every day. It's the undercurrent of my life. I feel that it's my best work so far in terms of clarity, focus, and depth of feeling. But then, I can never say that for sure, as I'm too close to it. I remember something that Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington said when asked which of his albums was his personal favorite: "The next one!"
Perhaps it's my favorite because of its optimistic tone. After September 11, 2001, the universal key of life for me and many others, at least those in tune with the laws of nature and physics, was D minor. I have a form of synesthesia, the not-uncommon ability to see colors when one hears sounds. The one color I saw that day was orange - exactly matching our Homeland Security's usual threat level, i.e. "code orange" - or yellow. F major is brown to me, and E minor has always looked red. A minor is blue-green, and C is a cream color. I've never been sure if others with synesthesia see these same colors but I suspect similarities.
There is no doubt that, existentially at least, 9-11 was an orange, D minor event. It looked that way to me. It sounded that way to me. Its place in my heart is coded in that color. I had never before thought that orange could be a color of unimaginable sadness and grief. But it stayed that way for me until quite recently. I suppose I was grieving, and not just for the victims and heroes of 9-11. I was grieving for America, for the very idea of America.
Pianistically, I've always gravitated to "open keys" with brilliant colors. If I were a painter, I would be considered a "colorist". I hear in primaries. B-flat or E-flat, while the keys of choice for many "jazz musicians", have never struck a chord in me. This is perhaps unusual because some of my main influences in American Classical Music (Jazz) have been saxophonists and trumpeters. Particularly John Coltrane and Miles Davis.
To be sure, there are pieces that I've written that belong in these keys, and so I have always let the music choose it's own key, just as I let the melody-line choose its own motion. Also, my art always cycles throughout every key and every color. But "my" keys are E, A, D, G, F, C, and their minor equivalents. E-flat minor does certainly sing, though, and D-flat major remains positively mellifluous to me.
These observations are generalizations, but I mention them here because they comprise the primary colors and keys of "Songs for a New Century".
And now, some years after "The Day the World Changed", I hear and sense and see and smell happiness and hope again. I am so very hopeful that our country becomes the dream it CAN be rather than the nightmare that still lurks in the shadows. This Music is my own very small but personally significant contribution to the re-building and re-fortification of that new America that most of us long for.
The "painting" still contains Orange, but not nearly as much. Now, G major is here! To me it is the color of the sky when it is sunny and cloudless. And earth-brown F major has returned, too, with patches of green, like grasses growing in a once-barren landscape.
G major is so much with me, which is a very good sign, and finds its joyous expression in two personal favorites rendered here: Fantasia and If Only. They are very new right now, and will remain in a state of becoming as long as I play them. The new that I'm hearing is so vastly different from the old, and the shift in thinking so profound, that it seemed like alien territory to me for awhile. But in many ways, it's full circle, back to my childhood, my years at Peabody Conservatory, and my youthful search for the creative center of my existence. This has been my life of late. It's the return to form in it's truest sense. It's still improvised, extemporized, and spontaneous, while relying almost entirely on emotional power, visceral content, and heartfelt longing. I can not explain the feeling I have while it's happening to me. It is like "automatic playing". It has to do with grace and intent and genuine amazement. I am amazed it is happening. I am hypnotized.
Take If Only for an example. Literally simple beyond belief, it could be played by any proficient third-year piano student. But the density, the gravity, the fulcrum of the piece is not it's melody or its chords: they're wonderful but not the center. The center is its raw emotion. Emotion of such intensity can only be expressed on an instrument that responds to the slightest variations and the smallest permutations of touch. Since touch and tone production have become so central to my playing, I should share a few discoveries that might contribute to someone's similar quests.
It has been noticed (and remarked upon, not always favorably) that I sit very low - a mere 16 inches off of the ground at last measurement, with a strong inclination to go even lower if my chair would only allow it - because I do not wish to push the keys down.
I neither wish to push the keys down or "strike" the keys. I want instead to pull the keys down, thus imparting an almost imperceptible weight - or gravity - to the sound each key can produce.
Likewise, I want to use my fingers for the strength or softness, the loudness or almost inaudible quietness, of each note. I NEVER use my upper arms and shoulders for "power" anymore. Older videos of me playing exasperate me. They are studies in awkwardness to me. The fingers have to lift higher to attain maximum expressivity, and this can't be easily done by sitting high up. When I sit on a piano bench these days I can not believe that I ever made any real music way up there!
And since I never read music (I do write it, very, very fast) because I believe that one can not have their ears and eyes fully focused and "on" at one time, I always remove the piano's music stand. I can't understand how anyone can possibly think that they might play to their optimum potential while reading a blueprint or a roadmap or a novel. If they don't know the music, and are reading it off of a page, how in the world can we be expected to believe in it when we hear it? Obviously the musician playing it can not even remember it, much less play it with total immersion!
Similarly, I remove the fall-board, that piece of wood that your fingers bump into sometimes, the piece of wood that comes down to meet the keys. With the fall-board off, you can play much closer to the fulcrum of the key. Even onto the unfinished wooden part of the key. And, amazingly (but not surprisingly when you think about it) the sounds one can get are inaccessible when the fall-board is left on. I have been accused of disassembling the piano before playing it. The truth is that, for me, those parts are superfluous - even impediments - to playing.
I also "lower the flap" on the hood. At full-stick, the piano looks longer, and that's nice for appearances, but the main reason is that the sound now has another foot-and-a-half to bounce off of, and it is deflected down around the player. I am very careful when I stand up so I don't knock myself out on the overhang.
And all three pedals are fundamental. necessary. Absolutely indispensable. The soft pedal is my friend. Some critics say I over-use it. That's their opinion and they're entitled to it. The middle pedal is for, among other things, those beautiful drones and single notes that ring out and hold while other staccato notes fly by with precision and clarity. The best-kept secret of the piano is the middle pedal. Its absence on some Bosendorfers is unforgivable!
These are not things I worked on or even consciously understood. They were things that just happened. The low chair was inspired first by a fascination with Glenn Gould. I wanted to try that. It worked. But it is different for me: I need a certain kind of back to that chair, and it needs to fit the curvature of my spine so that I can lift both legs out in front of me at times and simply fly, feet-first. There seems no speed-limit in this somewhat ridiculous posture, and I'm going to continue pursuing these unusual-looking activities for as long as they serve me. My present chair is a height-adjustable, swivel, armless office chair with a bit of padding for comfort. 16 inches is its lowest limit and that will be addressed on my next visit to Office Max.
The focusing of powerful feeling through such a stripped-down vehicle is breath-taking to me. I don't care if it sounds or looks like this or that, like so-and-so, like me or not like me. It is right because it allows and encourages my heart to beat in symphony with all of life, and pour forth like a river, unimpeded by fall-boards and high perches.
So here we are. It is NOW, no longer 9-11, and even if it's in D minor (as are three of these entries) it is pure joy and for this I am so grateful.
Intention:
Seeking Beauty and Truth in Music for the healing of people, for the healing of the self. MY self included. This is the intent of my Music now, as it is the intent of my very life. It must be clear and true and without the shackles of a tired and unhealthy past: the "hang", the promoter's greedy whims, the record producer's "brilliant" ideas, the critic's pompous decree, the rule of art by committee, and the general sense that being a Musician is somehow about being popular, accepted, approved of, and lauded by all.
That is no way to live. That is no way to make Art! There is no return in making billions of manic notes spin through the air like so many kernels of popped corn. That's exactly how I feel when I hear that kind of "music". I feel assaulted, I feel as if someone is hitting me with thousands of pieces of flying popcorn. It doesn't hurt, but it isn't pleasant, and it's a waste of time.
And of popcorn.
One lesson I've learned is directly from Star Wars' Yoda: "TRY, and you will not DO. There is no trying. There is only DO and NOT DO." All doing comes from love, and all love comes from a heart filled with peace. Conversely, all trying comes from the drive to compete, impress, and garner love. To get love we will usually always try, and we will usually always fail, because love is in one's heart, and letting it be free to speak and fly and soar is the only way to do anything creative. Setting it free is the wall and the obstacle we have to face. It is enormous. It is daunting. And when that is done, one must live with, and love, the results. It doesn't much matter what anyone critical or jaded or invested in reactionary thought-patterns will say or think.
It matters what a child will think, what a loved one will feel, what a stressed person will take away from it, what a sick person will get from it to help them heal themselves. It matters because we are human and frail and mortal, and that we will all, at the end, be the same ...as if we are not already... The Beatles said it on Abbey Road:
"And, in the end, the love you take
is equal to the love you make."
All of us have been changed by the events of our world, and the events of the past decade have left many of us off-balance, seeking deeper meaning in our life. Love is the answer - we know this - but our material world is not always kind to affairs of the heart. It doesn't matter, it can't matter to the true artist. We make art because it MUST be made. We play because it is our one reliable source of inexhaustible wonder. And we ALL must believe in love as a force, a force as real and as immutable and as universal as gravity or electromagnetism, because it is literally what binds the planet and its peoples together. It may not look like it sometimes, but we really do love each other. Otherwise, we'd be extinct by now!
Here is my Music now, at this very moment, with its strengths and its weaknesses - which I suppose are my strengths and weaknesses. This is a very transparent album, from me, to you. It pleases me most of the time, and I hope it pleases you. It also speaks to me of new ideas and things that need to be done next. It is one more step. I really hope you enjoy it. It IS for you, from the depth of my heart.
It's my way to finally start off this Century.
-
Press Release:
Jessica Williams' newest album for Origin Arts, "Songs for a New Century", more than lives up to its proud title with 8 originals by Jessica Williams and one seldom-heard chestnut by Sonny Rollins. The music is as new as the 21st Century and quite unlike ANYTHING Ms Williams has committed to CD before: in a program that spans all of the emotions, from longing, sadness, wonder, and optimism, to melting love, there are times when one may wonder if it's "just a piano" they're hearing. On "Toshiko", she manages to coax the sounds of a Koto or a Shamisen out of the instrument, all without any overdubs. Her heart-breaking "Fantasia" is a strong reminder of her extensive conservatory training and extraordinary touch, often compared to Bill Evans (and, more recently, to Glenn Gould) by JazzTimes critic Doug Ramsey. Still firmly rooted in her nearly 50 year love-affair with jazz, she offers her deeply-felt tribute to the memory of the great pianist Oscar Peterson, and rounds out the mesmerizing program with her original compositions containing soaring lines and rapid-fire sheets-of-sound that were inspired by the ground-breaking work of one of her strongest and earliest influences, saxophone giant John Coltrane.
Remembering that jazz has always embraced - if sometimes reluctantly - new forms, we're amazed at the sheer BREADTH of music presented here, all in a concentrated ONE hour of continuously stimulating and moving revelation.
The recording sound is wide, resonant, and remarkably "present". Recorded on her new 7-foot Mason & Hamlin concert grand piano on state-of-the-art recording equipment in her own home studio, without any constraints or time limitations, she has created something simultaneously beautiful AND ground-breaking, something that fully lives up to its name and its scope.
"Songs for a New Century" is an album of wonders, music so colorful and hypnotic that you'll see it as well as hear it!
"Songs for a New Century"
1 Empathy (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)
2 Toshiko (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)
3 Fantasia (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)
4 Song for a Baby (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)
5 Blessing in Disguise (Sonny Rollins)
6 Lament (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)
7 Dear Oscar (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)
8 Spoken Softly (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)
9 If Only (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)
Total time: 1:00:57
ALL TRACKS recorded during the last 2 weeks of Jan 2008, direct to disc, 2-track stereo
Glenn Gould
Lately I've watched a LOT of flash videos of one of my very few piano heroes, Glenn Gould. You'll find a plethora of good ones on YouTube
Prepare to be mesmerized.
Most of my models in the "jazz idiom" were horn players like Miles and 'Trane. And Mary Lou Williams did my soul so much good, her just being there and doing what she did.
Watching and listening to Glenn Gould, the amazing Canadian pianist whose "eccentricities" made him both a major attraction and a pariah among the classical critics (what's new?) has stirred something deep within me, something in desperate need of stirring.
That first evening of discovery, I spent a two-hour listening session during which I cried tears of joy and sadness and laughed gleefully as a scarf-draped and overcoat-wearing Gould, right in the midst of a sternly-played Bach Etude, stood up, sang the part, walked to the window, looked at the ducks in the pond outside (keeping perfect rhythm all the while and conducting the orchestra that was obviously playing inside of his head) and then darting back to the piano to finish the piece with a flourish. Immediately upon releasing the keys, he bounced up and darted out of the camera's field before anyone could blink.
And I had that feeling of immense and jubilant discovery that I had experienced when I first really began to make Music, way back when I was four years old. I was making Music even then, no doubt about that. I can remember when it started to "lock in" for me. I wasn't one of those children that had to practice scales and study day and night. My hands may have been tiny, but, as I've said many times, Music doesn't come from one's hands. It comes from one's HEART.
As is usual, there were certain technical problems to overcome. Fingerings, mainly. My time was there, always, and you can still set your clocks to me. And not having perfect pitch was no shortcoming. Relative pitch in me was there to begin with. It was just THERE. Perfect pitch is an ambivalent anomaly, and not often one that serves its owner. I can play a piano INTO tune if it's out. I have known a few people who have that ability. But the piano may still be a semi-tone LOW. That doesn't hurt me at all. To someone with perfect pitch, that could be more than a mild annoyance. It could stop the Music altogether.
When I was four, as when I was fourteen, I could HEAR the Music before it was played, and sometimes AFTER it was played. But always I could hear it.
If I heard it, I knew I could play it. I was so full of confidence that it took many, many years for my teachers and my parents and my plague-ridden society to instill a small but potent fear in me, a certain self-questioning hesitation.
And that drove my Music into the realm of the technically brilliant, ego-driven, speed-centered, socially-sanctioned style that is so prevalent in "jazz".
I now avoid the word. I bracket it in quotation marks. I have come to dislike the word. The word itself derives from roots that hold disrespectful and flatly barbaric connotations for me. I do not feel like a jazz musician. I do not know what that is anymore.
Perhaps I am too sober. Being a non-drinker and a non-smoker, having left all of my nasty little vices and habits behind, I don't often feel comfortable around true "jazz buffs". When I play festivals (which I do with much less frequency than before) I feel as though I'm at a really big, loud party where everyone is having an absolutely great time but me. The wine is flowing and the smoke is blowing and the drums are banging and the bass is twanging and I feel totally displaced.
I have either moved away from it or it has moved away from me.
I see now that many jazz bands have hired turntable players or rappers. Some have taken to playing the music of Willie Nelson or Elton John or The Beatles (seriously...this is not something that I have the audacity to fabricate) and others have taken to wearing outlandish costumes and acting "hip" in ways not previously considered hip at all...
I've seen a band that has three very scantily-clad females and a turntable whiz kid (playing at the St Lucia Jazz Fest) and I've seen (and unfortunately heard) a pianist that plays so ridiculously fast that each and every tune contains every single "lick" known and unknown. Not an ounce of honest passion. Just a billion flying fingers.
It's like watching the great Jackie Chan doing Kung Fu, but stripped of all the love and the fun. It's barely believable, but without the joy and without the passionate involvement, it's just tricks... a thicket of notes that pelt me like teeny tiny pebbles. It's like being hit by little stones, or perhaps a nasty and forceful spray of cold water.
So, after being immersed in the great Gould, I went to the piano and let my fingers do exactly what they wanted to do. Emboldened by his very infectious (highly contagious) and passionate affection for his own nearly-immaculate abilities and for the Music that was literally bubbling up from the depths of his soul, I did what I haven't done since I was a young child. I played MY way, outside of "jazz" or "classical" or any category or box you can think of.
AND I DID NOT QUESTION MYSELF. I DID NOT ASK MYSELF IF IT WAS "VALID"; I DID NOT CENSOR OR JUDGE OR CONTROL MYSELF IN ANY WAY.
It was beauty pure and untarnished. To me.
And that was what I have been doing these past months. I have, every day, gone to my piano and let my soul and spirit soar and roam and wander and flounder and resuscitate and shine and grow dark and become brilliant. I have done this all alone.
Sometimes the thoughts come unbidden. "What would this or that critic think of this?" or "What would my daddy think if he were alive" or "what would my piano teachers have thought"...and I have to SHUT DOWN THOSE VOICES.
Now I better understand what the great Salvador Dali was painting about when he created "The Persistence of Memory" and now I more fully know where Keith Jarrett goes and WHY HE CHOOSES TO GO THERE, in the face of so much opposition from his critics and his culture.
I should insert here that I have always lowered the bench to it's absolute lowest position.
And I went out and bought a suede padded swivel office chair that is armless and puts me at 17.5 inches off of the floor.
I have found that this position is breaking up old playing patterns and creating new ones.
It not only enhances touch and accuracy: it causes one to be very close to the keys without slouching.
I have to sit up, and not slouch down, to touch the keys, and the sensitivity and RANGE of touch is vastly greater for me.
The WAY in which I touch the piano changed immediately. It's like a different instrument.
Music is like a river that's always moving, sometimes rushing, sometimes whispering by. Always carrying me along. Sometimes even in directions I'm not sure I should be going.
I never know where it will take me. We never know that, do we?
We, as artists and musicians and poets, in a dimming, darkening age, are often the last to know where we're headed with our creativity.
All I can say with any certainty is that listening to Glenn Gould has changed me in some fundamental way, at least for now.
And I need to let that happen.
Prepare to be mesmerized.
Most of my models in the "jazz idiom" were horn players like Miles and 'Trane. And Mary Lou Williams did my soul so much good, her just being there and doing what she did.
Watching and listening to Glenn Gould, the amazing Canadian pianist whose "eccentricities" made him both a major attraction and a pariah among the classical critics (what's new?) has stirred something deep within me, something in desperate need of stirring.
That first evening of discovery, I spent a two-hour listening session during which I cried tears of joy and sadness and laughed gleefully as a scarf-draped and overcoat-wearing Gould, right in the midst of a sternly-played Bach Etude, stood up, sang the part, walked to the window, looked at the ducks in the pond outside (keeping perfect rhythm all the while and conducting the orchestra that was obviously playing inside of his head) and then darting back to the piano to finish the piece with a flourish. Immediately upon releasing the keys, he bounced up and darted out of the camera's field before anyone could blink.
And I had that feeling of immense and jubilant discovery that I had experienced when I first really began to make Music, way back when I was four years old. I was making Music even then, no doubt about that. I can remember when it started to "lock in" for me. I wasn't one of those children that had to practice scales and study day and night. My hands may have been tiny, but, as I've said many times, Music doesn't come from one's hands. It comes from one's HEART.
As is usual, there were certain technical problems to overcome. Fingerings, mainly. My time was there, always, and you can still set your clocks to me. And not having perfect pitch was no shortcoming. Relative pitch in me was there to begin with. It was just THERE. Perfect pitch is an ambivalent anomaly, and not often one that serves its owner. I can play a piano INTO tune if it's out. I have known a few people who have that ability. But the piano may still be a semi-tone LOW. That doesn't hurt me at all. To someone with perfect pitch, that could be more than a mild annoyance. It could stop the Music altogether.
When I was four, as when I was fourteen, I could HEAR the Music before it was played, and sometimes AFTER it was played. But always I could hear it.
If I heard it, I knew I could play it. I was so full of confidence that it took many, many years for my teachers and my parents and my plague-ridden society to instill a small but potent fear in me, a certain self-questioning hesitation.
And that drove my Music into the realm of the technically brilliant, ego-driven, speed-centered, socially-sanctioned style that is so prevalent in "jazz".
I now avoid the word. I bracket it in quotation marks. I have come to dislike the word. The word itself derives from roots that hold disrespectful and flatly barbaric connotations for me. I do not feel like a jazz musician. I do not know what that is anymore.
Perhaps I am too sober. Being a non-drinker and a non-smoker, having left all of my nasty little vices and habits behind, I don't often feel comfortable around true "jazz buffs". When I play festivals (which I do with much less frequency than before) I feel as though I'm at a really big, loud party where everyone is having an absolutely great time but me. The wine is flowing and the smoke is blowing and the drums are banging and the bass is twanging and I feel totally displaced.
I have either moved away from it or it has moved away from me.
I see now that many jazz bands have hired turntable players or rappers. Some have taken to playing the music of Willie Nelson or Elton John or The Beatles (seriously...this is not something that I have the audacity to fabricate) and others have taken to wearing outlandish costumes and acting "hip" in ways not previously considered hip at all...
I've seen a band that has three very scantily-clad females and a turntable whiz kid (playing at the St Lucia Jazz Fest) and I've seen (and unfortunately heard) a pianist that plays so ridiculously fast that each and every tune contains every single "lick" known and unknown. Not an ounce of honest passion. Just a billion flying fingers.
It's like watching the great Jackie Chan doing Kung Fu, but stripped of all the love and the fun. It's barely believable, but without the joy and without the passionate involvement, it's just tricks... a thicket of notes that pelt me like teeny tiny pebbles. It's like being hit by little stones, or perhaps a nasty and forceful spray of cold water.
So, after being immersed in the great Gould, I went to the piano and let my fingers do exactly what they wanted to do. Emboldened by his very infectious (highly contagious) and passionate affection for his own nearly-immaculate abilities and for the Music that was literally bubbling up from the depths of his soul, I did what I haven't done since I was a young child. I played MY way, outside of "jazz" or "classical" or any category or box you can think of.
AND I DID NOT QUESTION MYSELF. I DID NOT ASK MYSELF IF IT WAS "VALID"; I DID NOT CENSOR OR JUDGE OR CONTROL MYSELF IN ANY WAY.
It was beauty pure and untarnished. To me.
And that was what I have been doing these past months. I have, every day, gone to my piano and let my soul and spirit soar and roam and wander and flounder and resuscitate and shine and grow dark and become brilliant. I have done this all alone.
Sometimes the thoughts come unbidden. "What would this or that critic think of this?" or "What would my daddy think if he were alive" or "what would my piano teachers have thought"...and I have to SHUT DOWN THOSE VOICES.
Now I better understand what the great Salvador Dali was painting about when he created "The Persistence of Memory" and now I more fully know where Keith Jarrett goes and WHY HE CHOOSES TO GO THERE, in the face of so much opposition from his critics and his culture.
I should insert here that I have always lowered the bench to it's absolute lowest position.
And I went out and bought a suede padded swivel office chair that is armless and puts me at 17.5 inches off of the floor.
I have found that this position is breaking up old playing patterns and creating new ones.
It not only enhances touch and accuracy: it causes one to be very close to the keys without slouching.
I have to sit up, and not slouch down, to touch the keys, and the sensitivity and RANGE of touch is vastly greater for me.
The WAY in which I touch the piano changed immediately. It's like a different instrument.
Music is like a river that's always moving, sometimes rushing, sometimes whispering by. Always carrying me along. Sometimes even in directions I'm not sure I should be going.
I never know where it will take me. We never know that, do we?
We, as artists and musicians and poets, in a dimming, darkening age, are often the last to know where we're headed with our creativity.
All I can say with any certainty is that listening to Glenn Gould has changed me in some fundamental way, at least for now.
And I need to let that happen.
About my dog Watson and his passing
This has been the most difficult, most painful, and most instructive holiday season of my life.
And it has been the happiest.
Life is not just about happy endings. It's about learning, about miracles, about powerful forces and our ability to access them; about the power of love and our ability to change reality.
Several years ago we knew our Scottish Terrier, Watson, was ill in some deep core sense. When one has a core illness, it means that the illness has gotten hold at the center of the being and has compromised the life force.
We took him to many veterinarians. One wanted to turn 'Little Dog' (one of our pet names for him) into a bionic android by removing this and that, and by attaching tubes to this and that. We fired that idiot immediately. The issue was and is always quality of life; life at any cost can be worse than death.
Sometimes it really is time to die.
We visited another who (rightly) assessed Watson as having periodontal problems. Watson had just turned 12, and his breath wasn't exactly 'mint-fresh'. Other than that, he seemed fine, if a bit lethargic, and so we accepted the diagnosis as being the root of his problem and started regular brushings and implemented some dietary changes (hard food to remove plaque, bones, healthy snacks).
For several years now, Watson has been the same faithful, guileless, noble friend he always was; but last month, food started falling out of his mouth as he ate, and he began to lose weight. His lethargy became chronic, and often he'd have sleepless nights. He never barked, and his interest in squirrels and alien kittens vanished.
On the advice of a good neighbor, we took him to Dr Miller, a veterinarian, animal lover and healer who has earned the reputation of being thorough, optimistic (a very important trait in any healer), and compassionate in ways that few folks are in any field these days.
He initially concluded that Watson needed 'multiple extractions', perhaps complete removal of all teeth. This was an acceptable option, as the gums harden over time, and toothless dogs can bite with the best of them. The relief from pain and the treatment of the infection will often bring a dog back from near-death.
He also did a blood panel.
The panel wasn't good; Watson's liver enzymes were extremely elevated. He might have liver cancer. But Dr Miller rightly felt that Watson had a will of steel (many Scotties are noted for their stubborn attitudes) and a healthy constitution, and so may have a few good years of life and squirrel chasing left to him, and we opted for 'multiple extractions' under general anesthesia. We prepared him for surgery with two courses of Baytril (a strong antibiotic) and SamE (a new drug just approved by the FDA and used predominantly in humans for the treatment of various liver diseases).
After three weeks of preparation, several days after Christmas day, we took him to the animal hospital and dropped him off at 8 am, expecting the usual call around 4 pm telling us we could pick up our friend.
At 10 am we received a call from Dr Miller. But we hadn't noticed. We had returned home moments after the call had come in, and it remained on our answering machine.
I had been playing the piano and chanting for Watson's health.
I discovered the call at 11:30 am, and called Dr Miller immediately.
He had discovered two massive tumors on the top of the tongue, one the size of a golf ball, far back in the throat; the masses had made intubation almost impossible! A third tumor was found outside the stomach lining. He had called to ask for authorization. Did we want our Little Dog 'put down', or did we want to go ahead with what amounted now to major surgery, on a dog that might not survive at all?
Of course we authorized the surgery, made all the more dangerous by the fact that he was in recovery already (because I hadn't caught that call) and would have to be re-anesthetized.
Those few long hours before the next phone call were excruciating, with emotions ranging from guilt (WHY didn't I check the answering machine?) to sadness (how will he survive this at 14 years old, so weak and so deeply ill?) to guilt again (WHY hadn't we been more aggressive in finding the root of his problems? He had suffered for years, and it was OUR fault!)
I sat down at the piano and played a tune by Coltrane, a tune I did not know, Crescent. Not knowing it, I played it wrong. I didn't care right then; I improvised a new framework, using what I remembered from the record (Crescent, by John Coltrane, on MCA Impulse, with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones). Tears streamed down my face as I played this tune, one that I had never ever played in my life, not knowing why, just playing and praying and crying.
Finally the call came. A very happy and somewhat amazed Dr Miller told me that Watson had done wonderfully; the tumor detritus was excised, the throat was clear, the mass on his stomach removed, and three teeth had been extracted. Also the doctor had done a vigorous and thorough teeth- cleaning. Watson's vitals were strong, and he was hydrated, stable, and starting to gain consciousness.
We were elated.
-
He's home now, it's day number 3, and he's eating chicken broth and rice, taking his Baytril and very mild pain medication, sleeping through the night, and making guttural, open sounds deep in his throat!
I spoke with Jane Librizzi on the phone recently. She has a radio show out of Syracuse, NY (WAER, Jazz 88.3 FM), and plays my Music all the time. She tells me that she played Crescent by John Coltrane and dedicated it to me. It turned out that she had played it on her show at the exact time that I sat down and tried to play it (she knew nothing of Watson or of his surgery)...
Today I put Crescent on the CD player and played along with it once, and learned it RIGHT. It is in D minor, the 'key of this time'. There's a section where McCoy drops out and it's just Trane with Jimmy and Elvin, and I comped all through that part, and it was such a revelation to play with them. I started to cry again, this time in joy. It was a time of epiphany and of release, of realization and of redemption.
A tsunami has just visited immeasurable horror and death to many many thousands of people in Sri Lanka and neighboring nation-states; a little dog has survived; a woman living in the mountains with her wonderful family feels the presence of the universal life-force, and the world now spins a bit faster. The earthquake was of such a magnitude that it sped the rotation of our planet by a fraction, thus shortening our days forever.
My heart bleeds and it also sings. Such extremes of events, such range and variation, turbulent as Beethoven, unpredictable as Stravinsky! Life is a high-wire act without a net. All moments are divine, and no moment is without meaning.
I no longer believe that our souls are so different from other animals. I believe that there are different WAYS to be conscious, and different KINDS of sentience. I do NOT believe that we are conclusively the dominant species on Earth.
My FRIEND, my FAMILIAR, my ALLY Watson has enlightened me in ways that no human has. I am humbled in the face of his nobility and courage and inner strength. I am amazed that Crescent came to me in this fashion. I am amazed that the world spins faster than before the tsunami, amazed that so many have died on the other side of the world, amazed that some people can not see the value of life and our moral obligation to worship and protect and respect it in all of its forms.
I am amazed at many many things, and I am also humbled, inspired, overcome, enraged, awed.
A 'certified health care professional' once told me that my passion, my elan vitale, was a form of mania, a liability in this culture (and, strangely, an admired trait in the romantic and artistic cultures, like Spain, France, and Italy). She told me that Wellbutrin or Paxil would stabilize me, narrow the range of my responses, flatten my emotions, and make me 'more like everyone else'.
From what I can see, the one and only spirit that I want to be more like is my little friend Watson. Got a drug for that, doc?
You can be sure, absolutely sure, that I will be playing, exploring, discovering, and rediscovering the piece called Crescent for the rest of my life. And you can be sure that I will fight for the lives of those I love, against any enemy of life, with all of my passion and will and spirit.
Life is a treasure beyond price, and Watson has taught me that it is worth the fight.
The squirrels are not sleeping quite so soundly tonight, I think.
To Dr Miller
This is an expression
of gratitude
for such a valiant man
who would give his
greatest effort
and use his blessed gift
to preserve this life-
to value this life-
to understand the
importance of a soul
so guileless and innocent
as our noblest and most
revered friend, Watson.
With our deepest
appreciation.
12.30.04
The Little Dog Update:
1.04.05: I feel bad for the squirrels. Watson is like a brand new dog. A puppy, actually. He's eating his new (very healthy, very expensive) gourmet food with unfettered enthusiasm, he's sleeping through the night, and he's even barked a few times! We have him back for a while. All any of us have is a while! This really has been a wonderful holiday season, and we're thankful to have our friend with us... he seems equally happy to be here, eating, barking, chasing squirrels, playing with the other dogs in the neighborhood, taking walks, enjoying his life again.
Meanwhile, even the kitty is relieved. Kayla really loves her dog; she just feigns disgust and disapproval, because he's... well... a dog!
As of 1.09.05, Watson continues to amaze us with his newly-won health. He is positively frisky. He is chowing down, bouncing along (Scotties swagger when they walk) and is generally acting like a young pup again. Don't anyone say there's no such thing as a miracle. Watson rocks. And he thanks you for all of your e-mails! (Well, he would if he could...) and I thank you also.
-
And today (1.10.05) was so sad.
He's still feeling wonderful, but the biopsy came back and reveals a very aggressive and fast growing cancer. He may have weeks or months. As I wrote to several friends this evening:
'We were doing so well. Watson had major surgery to remove the tumors in his throat that prevented him from eating and breathing freely. He had felt so terribly bad. He is still so very much better now. But today we went to the Vet and found the results to the biopsy... a very aggressive form of cancer that could put him in the same position in days or weeks.
'I don't believe much of what the experts say. I don't disbelieve either... Watson is 14. But no one can see the future. I could walk out tomorrow and get hit by a meteorite. We are going to love him and play with him every day and enjoy every single moment. When he's ready he'll tell us. No more surgeries or antibiotics or heroic measures. he is a heroic figure and his little life has changed us forever.
'Shalom and bless you - Jessica'
-
It's a truth none of us escape. We may not go softly into that good night, but we go anyway. I am very blessed to have had so many wonderful years with the Prince among dogs. Hopefully, we'll be given more time. Anything now is a bonus, icing on the cake. As so many of you wrote:
'GO, Watson!'
-
Update 1.21.05
Miracles are afoot. He's acting like a pup. He sleeps through the night. Please keep chanting, praying, thinking of him in your thoughts. It's working. I dare not say more. I am amazed. I am so happy! So is he! Life is a beyond our capacity to predict or fully understand.
Update 2.2.05
Watson passes quietly in our arms (with the vets assistance). We grieve.
b 7-17-91, d 2-2-05
(When we got to the vets office, the cancer had hit the bone, and he was in pain. I'd given him a pain med, but it wasn't enough. The nurse sedated him and still he was awake. We just held him and talked to him, tears rolling down our faces. Dr Miller gave him the euthanasia drug and he was gone in 15 seconds. His spirit went through my body and stayed in my heart for a moment before leaving. The love was a palpable presence in my heart. The room was filled with this noble spirit's love. In a very short time, his body, swollen and lumpy from the cancer, was no longer him, but a shell. He had loved the last weeks of life before his transition; practically pain-free until yesterday, he had chased squirrels, played with the big neighborhood dogs, and filled our lives with profound joy.
As we left the vet's, weeping and mourning and in shock, we were both struck by how banal the world had become in such a short time. A car passed us on a two lane country road and almost killed 4 people to get by us.
When we arrived home I checked the e-mail. 12 people tried to plant malicious code or spyware on my computer (business as usual), 14 were peddling drugs like O.x.y.con.tin (a powerful pain med), V.ico.din, V.ia.gr.a, and Va.li.um. 25 e-mails were of a nature unmentionable here; 2 were legitimate correspondences.
Later, to try and escape our grief, we (accidentally) saw, on TV, someone (a man who told us he had a mandate and lots of political capital to spend) making plans for our future in an ego-driven megalomaniacal display of contempt and disregard for any form of human decency or compassion.
This is not about love. Watson was about love. We need to strive for that in our lives.
Being driven by love, there can be no fear.
-
So that's that. No lessons, really, except that we need to appreciate every single day that we're here, and love who we love with a totality of being and an abandon of spirit. There can be no illusions about beginnings and endings. Things end. People end. So we have to do the best we can while we're here. No time for agendas, lies, games. Mother Teresa said, 'Every day is a gift from God. What we do with every day is a gift to God.'
I will always have the beautiful memories of Watson at the beach, doing things that Scotties are not supposed to be able to do, like swimming and fetching. He sat at my feet as they worked the pedals of the piano as I played (he is there on almost every recording I have released to date on my own label) and he stayed by my side throughout every personal storm and every joyous moment. Every time I came off a road trip, we'd play on the floor together and 'nuzzle'. He sat up late as I wrote poetry, and kept jazz musician hours. He was my friend.
Thank you all for caring and for sending cards and e-mails. He had a regular fan base. You can be sure he'll be in all my Music in some form, and that tunes will be written for him.
I just miss him.
And it has been the happiest.
Life is not just about happy endings. It's about learning, about miracles, about powerful forces and our ability to access them; about the power of love and our ability to change reality.
Several years ago we knew our Scottish Terrier, Watson, was ill in some deep core sense. When one has a core illness, it means that the illness has gotten hold at the center of the being and has compromised the life force.
We took him to many veterinarians. One wanted to turn 'Little Dog' (one of our pet names for him) into a bionic android by removing this and that, and by attaching tubes to this and that. We fired that idiot immediately. The issue was and is always quality of life; life at any cost can be worse than death.
Sometimes it really is time to die.
We visited another who (rightly) assessed Watson as having periodontal problems. Watson had just turned 12, and his breath wasn't exactly 'mint-fresh'. Other than that, he seemed fine, if a bit lethargic, and so we accepted the diagnosis as being the root of his problem and started regular brushings and implemented some dietary changes (hard food to remove plaque, bones, healthy snacks).
For several years now, Watson has been the same faithful, guileless, noble friend he always was; but last month, food started falling out of his mouth as he ate, and he began to lose weight. His lethargy became chronic, and often he'd have sleepless nights. He never barked, and his interest in squirrels and alien kittens vanished.
On the advice of a good neighbor, we took him to Dr Miller, a veterinarian, animal lover and healer who has earned the reputation of being thorough, optimistic (a very important trait in any healer), and compassionate in ways that few folks are in any field these days.
He initially concluded that Watson needed 'multiple extractions', perhaps complete removal of all teeth. This was an acceptable option, as the gums harden over time, and toothless dogs can bite with the best of them. The relief from pain and the treatment of the infection will often bring a dog back from near-death.
He also did a blood panel.
The panel wasn't good; Watson's liver enzymes were extremely elevated. He might have liver cancer. But Dr Miller rightly felt that Watson had a will of steel (many Scotties are noted for their stubborn attitudes) and a healthy constitution, and so may have a few good years of life and squirrel chasing left to him, and we opted for 'multiple extractions' under general anesthesia. We prepared him for surgery with two courses of Baytril (a strong antibiotic) and SamE (a new drug just approved by the FDA and used predominantly in humans for the treatment of various liver diseases).
After three weeks of preparation, several days after Christmas day, we took him to the animal hospital and dropped him off at 8 am, expecting the usual call around 4 pm telling us we could pick up our friend.
At 10 am we received a call from Dr Miller. But we hadn't noticed. We had returned home moments after the call had come in, and it remained on our answering machine.
I had been playing the piano and chanting for Watson's health.
I discovered the call at 11:30 am, and called Dr Miller immediately.
He had discovered two massive tumors on the top of the tongue, one the size of a golf ball, far back in the throat; the masses had made intubation almost impossible! A third tumor was found outside the stomach lining. He had called to ask for authorization. Did we want our Little Dog 'put down', or did we want to go ahead with what amounted now to major surgery, on a dog that might not survive at all?
Of course we authorized the surgery, made all the more dangerous by the fact that he was in recovery already (because I hadn't caught that call) and would have to be re-anesthetized.
Those few long hours before the next phone call were excruciating, with emotions ranging from guilt (WHY didn't I check the answering machine?) to sadness (how will he survive this at 14 years old, so weak and so deeply ill?) to guilt again (WHY hadn't we been more aggressive in finding the root of his problems? He had suffered for years, and it was OUR fault!)
I sat down at the piano and played a tune by Coltrane, a tune I did not know, Crescent. Not knowing it, I played it wrong. I didn't care right then; I improvised a new framework, using what I remembered from the record (Crescent, by John Coltrane, on MCA Impulse, with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones). Tears streamed down my face as I played this tune, one that I had never ever played in my life, not knowing why, just playing and praying and crying.
Finally the call came. A very happy and somewhat amazed Dr Miller told me that Watson had done wonderfully; the tumor detritus was excised, the throat was clear, the mass on his stomach removed, and three teeth had been extracted. Also the doctor had done a vigorous and thorough teeth- cleaning. Watson's vitals were strong, and he was hydrated, stable, and starting to gain consciousness.
We were elated.
-
He's home now, it's day number 3, and he's eating chicken broth and rice, taking his Baytril and very mild pain medication, sleeping through the night, and making guttural, open sounds deep in his throat!
I spoke with Jane Librizzi on the phone recently. She has a radio show out of Syracuse, NY (WAER, Jazz 88.3 FM), and plays my Music all the time. She tells me that she played Crescent by John Coltrane and dedicated it to me. It turned out that she had played it on her show at the exact time that I sat down and tried to play it (she knew nothing of Watson or of his surgery)...
Today I put Crescent on the CD player and played along with it once, and learned it RIGHT. It is in D minor, the 'key of this time'. There's a section where McCoy drops out and it's just Trane with Jimmy and Elvin, and I comped all through that part, and it was such a revelation to play with them. I started to cry again, this time in joy. It was a time of epiphany and of release, of realization and of redemption.
A tsunami has just visited immeasurable horror and death to many many thousands of people in Sri Lanka and neighboring nation-states; a little dog has survived; a woman living in the mountains with her wonderful family feels the presence of the universal life-force, and the world now spins a bit faster. The earthquake was of such a magnitude that it sped the rotation of our planet by a fraction, thus shortening our days forever.
My heart bleeds and it also sings. Such extremes of events, such range and variation, turbulent as Beethoven, unpredictable as Stravinsky! Life is a high-wire act without a net. All moments are divine, and no moment is without meaning.
I no longer believe that our souls are so different from other animals. I believe that there are different WAYS to be conscious, and different KINDS of sentience. I do NOT believe that we are conclusively the dominant species on Earth.
My FRIEND, my FAMILIAR, my ALLY Watson has enlightened me in ways that no human has. I am humbled in the face of his nobility and courage and inner strength. I am amazed that Crescent came to me in this fashion. I am amazed that the world spins faster than before the tsunami, amazed that so many have died on the other side of the world, amazed that some people can not see the value of life and our moral obligation to worship and protect and respect it in all of its forms.
I am amazed at many many things, and I am also humbled, inspired, overcome, enraged, awed.
A 'certified health care professional' once told me that my passion, my elan vitale, was a form of mania, a liability in this culture (and, strangely, an admired trait in the romantic and artistic cultures, like Spain, France, and Italy). She told me that Wellbutrin or Paxil would stabilize me, narrow the range of my responses, flatten my emotions, and make me 'more like everyone else'.
From what I can see, the one and only spirit that I want to be more like is my little friend Watson. Got a drug for that, doc?
You can be sure, absolutely sure, that I will be playing, exploring, discovering, and rediscovering the piece called Crescent for the rest of my life. And you can be sure that I will fight for the lives of those I love, against any enemy of life, with all of my passion and will and spirit.
Life is a treasure beyond price, and Watson has taught me that it is worth the fight.
The squirrels are not sleeping quite so soundly tonight, I think.
To Dr Miller
This is an expression
of gratitude
for such a valiant man
who would give his
greatest effort
and use his blessed gift
to preserve this life-
to value this life-
to understand the
importance of a soul
so guileless and innocent
as our noblest and most
revered friend, Watson.
With our deepest
appreciation.
12.30.04
The Little Dog Update:
1.04.05: I feel bad for the squirrels. Watson is like a brand new dog. A puppy, actually. He's eating his new (very healthy, very expensive) gourmet food with unfettered enthusiasm, he's sleeping through the night, and he's even barked a few times! We have him back for a while. All any of us have is a while! This really has been a wonderful holiday season, and we're thankful to have our friend with us... he seems equally happy to be here, eating, barking, chasing squirrels, playing with the other dogs in the neighborhood, taking walks, enjoying his life again.
Meanwhile, even the kitty is relieved. Kayla really loves her dog; she just feigns disgust and disapproval, because he's... well... a dog!
As of 1.09.05, Watson continues to amaze us with his newly-won health. He is positively frisky. He is chowing down, bouncing along (Scotties swagger when they walk) and is generally acting like a young pup again. Don't anyone say there's no such thing as a miracle. Watson rocks. And he thanks you for all of your e-mails! (Well, he would if he could...) and I thank you also.
-
And today (1.10.05) was so sad.
He's still feeling wonderful, but the biopsy came back and reveals a very aggressive and fast growing cancer. He may have weeks or months. As I wrote to several friends this evening:
'We were doing so well. Watson had major surgery to remove the tumors in his throat that prevented him from eating and breathing freely. He had felt so terribly bad. He is still so very much better now. But today we went to the Vet and found the results to the biopsy... a very aggressive form of cancer that could put him in the same position in days or weeks.
'I don't believe much of what the experts say. I don't disbelieve either... Watson is 14. But no one can see the future. I could walk out tomorrow and get hit by a meteorite. We are going to love him and play with him every day and enjoy every single moment. When he's ready he'll tell us. No more surgeries or antibiotics or heroic measures. he is a heroic figure and his little life has changed us forever.
'Shalom and bless you - Jessica'
-
It's a truth none of us escape. We may not go softly into that good night, but we go anyway. I am very blessed to have had so many wonderful years with the Prince among dogs. Hopefully, we'll be given more time. Anything now is a bonus, icing on the cake. As so many of you wrote:
'GO, Watson!'
-
Update 1.21.05
Miracles are afoot. He's acting like a pup. He sleeps through the night. Please keep chanting, praying, thinking of him in your thoughts. It's working. I dare not say more. I am amazed. I am so happy! So is he! Life is a beyond our capacity to predict or fully understand.
Update 2.2.05
Watson passes quietly in our arms (with the vets assistance). We grieve.
b 7-17-91, d 2-2-05
(When we got to the vets office, the cancer had hit the bone, and he was in pain. I'd given him a pain med, but it wasn't enough. The nurse sedated him and still he was awake. We just held him and talked to him, tears rolling down our faces. Dr Miller gave him the euthanasia drug and he was gone in 15 seconds. His spirit went through my body and stayed in my heart for a moment before leaving. The love was a palpable presence in my heart. The room was filled with this noble spirit's love. In a very short time, his body, swollen and lumpy from the cancer, was no longer him, but a shell. He had loved the last weeks of life before his transition; practically pain-free until yesterday, he had chased squirrels, played with the big neighborhood dogs, and filled our lives with profound joy.
As we left the vet's, weeping and mourning and in shock, we were both struck by how banal the world had become in such a short time. A car passed us on a two lane country road and almost killed 4 people to get by us.
When we arrived home I checked the e-mail. 12 people tried to plant malicious code or spyware on my computer (business as usual), 14 were peddling drugs like O.x.y.con.tin (a powerful pain med), V.ico.din, V.ia.gr.a, and Va.li.um. 25 e-mails were of a nature unmentionable here; 2 were legitimate correspondences.
Later, to try and escape our grief, we (accidentally) saw, on TV, someone (a man who told us he had a mandate and lots of political capital to spend) making plans for our future in an ego-driven megalomaniacal display of contempt and disregard for any form of human decency or compassion.
This is not about love. Watson was about love. We need to strive for that in our lives.
Being driven by love, there can be no fear.
-
So that's that. No lessons, really, except that we need to appreciate every single day that we're here, and love who we love with a totality of being and an abandon of spirit. There can be no illusions about beginnings and endings. Things end. People end. So we have to do the best we can while we're here. No time for agendas, lies, games. Mother Teresa said, 'Every day is a gift from God. What we do with every day is a gift to God.'
I will always have the beautiful memories of Watson at the beach, doing things that Scotties are not supposed to be able to do, like swimming and fetching. He sat at my feet as they worked the pedals of the piano as I played (he is there on almost every recording I have released to date on my own label) and he stayed by my side throughout every personal storm and every joyous moment. Every time I came off a road trip, we'd play on the floor together and 'nuzzle'. He sat up late as I wrote poetry, and kept jazz musician hours. He was my friend.
Thank you all for caring and for sending cards and e-mails. He had a regular fan base. You can be sure he'll be in all my Music in some form, and that tunes will be written for him.
I just miss him.
The healer got sick
The healer got sick. The healer got tired.
There are those of us who work in the healing arts. I'm proud to be one, a healer. I don't think I always heal directly. I think the way it works is, when I play, I open a portal in some people's souls, and my spirit and theirs sort of fuse. It becomes a dance of magic. It doesn't work all the time. But it works when I let myself be real, which is pretty consistent, and when other people take off their masks and their armor. I don't seem to have any armor. That makes it tough to live in a world that's not exactly brimming over with loving kindness, but I manage somehow.
So I had a conversation with my friend Andi today. She's a fine pianist. She said that she had attended a camp where there were a lot of amateur pianists, and that she had a great time being there. I said that I thought that amateur musicians were often more likely to make music of substance than "professionals", simply because they weren't placed in positions where they had to prove themselves every time they played. They play for fun, or self-expression, or to learn about things. Pros have to be ON all the time.
Andi said this:
"The classical pianists that were there were playing fast, technical music, fast and furious. They were all competing. The amateurs were just having fun, and they were playing all these beautiful pieces that never get played, simply because they don't show off the technical brilliance of the pianist."
-
Now, as some of you may know, I'm not as young as I used to be. Unless you've figured out a way to defy physics, neither are you. As we get older, things happen inside of us that we never expected in our younger years, and they're not always good things. But sometimes dark clouds really do have silver linings, and that's how I'm choosing to looking at this particular dark cloud.
For the past four years, I have had terrible bouts of tiredness. I don't mean the kind of tiredness where you just get a good night's sleep and that fixes it. I'm talking about a pervasive bone-weariness, a lethargy that at times makes the simplest activity seem like a major expenditure of energy.
We're all like little suns, atomic furnaces that burn fuel and emit heat and light, joy and sorrow, creativity and work, all the things that make us who we are.
My tiredness was more profound than I may ever be able to describe.
Somehow I managed to play concerts through it all, but there were times when, just before I walked on stage, I wanted to walk the other way and just leave the concert hall. If I had done that I would have been sued by the promoters. But I was getting to the point where I didn't much care. I was THAT tired.
I flew to Brecon, Wales, in Great Britain, to play a concert, and wisely allowed myself three days to rest before I played a one-hour concert. I slept almost every single minute of those three days. About all that I saw of Wales was the inside of the hall, the keys of the piano, and the ducks outside of my hotel room. At least that's all that I clearly remember.
I figured, at 60, that I was dying. "Strange," I thought, "that I should die so young, but I guess quality is better than quantity." And I'd console myself, noting that I'd made a slew of records and CDs, most of which I could live (or die) with, and that I've loved and been loved.
Then, last week, I went to my doctor for my regular checkup, and came back home and fell into what I later found out could've been my last night's sleep... the next morning my doctor called, telling me to get to the pharmacy... that he'd called in a drug that I needed to start taking immediately. He told me some other stuff too, some really scary stuff, but I want to focus on this tiredness, because really, that's what the past four years have been about.
Unbelievable fatigue.
And the really scary stuff isn't so scary, because, when you're this tired, not much scares you!
It turns out that I have hypothyroidism. Mine is not not a mild form. My thyroid is dead as a door-nail.
It turns out that I've been walking around for four years with little-to-no thyroid activity. My thyroid was most likely cutting in and out, like a bad stereo speaker. Some days static, other days, nothing at all. The thyroid gland regulates every single function of your body, and you can't live without it: you go into a coma and die. Turns out that I did nearly go into that coma, but was awakened by my partner just in time.
So now, every day for the rest of my life, I have to take a synthetic version of the hormone that the thyroid gland is supposed to produce on it's own, something called Levothyroxin. Meanwhile, my thyroid itself is out of the game forever, over with, kaput.
Hello, Levothyroxin.
Goodbye, thyroid gland.
I've only been taking the drug for three days, and it takes months for it to fully work and (hopefully) get me back up to speed. But just knowing WHY I was feeling so very very bad is enough to take some of the weight off.
I've been dealing with a whole laundry list of symptoms:
Weakness
Fatigue
Cold intolerance
Constipation or diahrea
Weight gain
Depression
Joint and muscle pain
Thin, brittle fingernails
Thin brittle hair
Paleness
Slow speech
Dry flaky skin
Puffy face, hands and feet
Decreased taste and smell
Thinning of eyebrows
Hoarseness
Overall swelling
Muscle spasms and cramps
Muscle atrophy
Uncoordinated movement
Joint stiffness
Hair loss
Drowsiness
Appetite loss
Ankle, feet, and leg swelling
The inability to deal with record producers
What a horrible four years I've had. Being an optimist (I actually am, really really!) I made it through. But it's been hard to really give my best while dealing with such a formidable opponent as thyroid disease.
I never focus on personal subject matter in my on-line writings. I'm of the generation that still believes in good taste, propriety, and privacy. But I bring this up here because of what it's taught me, what it's done to - and for - my art, and what it means for my future, at least as far as I understand it at the moment.
It reminds me a bit of what Keith Jarrett went through, and I can only say I admire that man with all of my heart and soul. What a trooper! When one is so tired that just getting out of bed is a major miracle, it's a real accomplishment to walk out there in front of a thousand people and play your heart out.
Here's an excerpt from an interview that Keith Jarrett did with Terry Gross on Fresh Air (my interview with her is here):
Mr Jarrett: I had to change everything about my approach before I could even start to play again. And "The Melody At Night, With You" was - - there won't be another recording that's more important to me, in many ways. But one of them that I can explain easily is that I had not played for a long time. And I didn't know if I would ever play again.
And when you -- it's something I did since I was three years old. So when I was able to sit at the piano without being sick and play a little bit, there was a way of dealing with economy that is way past anything I can imagine doing when I'm well. It's hard to describe.
It's almost like the disease made it possible to deal with the skeleton instead of the surface, you know--just the heart of things, because there was no energy for more than that.
Ms Gross: What about the mental focus, though, to figure out what the skeleton is--where it is?
Mr Jarrett: That came--comes and goes. And I was already on the therapy that I'm still on at the time. And it was one of the things that was slowly--the connection between my brain and hands was starting to return enough that--and I added kind of a way of thinking about playing that music. I didn't want to be clever because I didn't want to get into my old habit patterns. In a way, that's what an improviser always wants. And, in this case, I was forced to be that way, more than ever. And so I was starting at zero and being born again at the keyboard. And that's what comes through, I think.
There are those of us who work in the healing arts. I'm proud to be one, a healer. I don't think I always heal directly. I think the way it works is, when I play, I open a portal in some people's souls, and my spirit and theirs sort of fuse. It becomes a dance of magic. It doesn't work all the time. But it works when I let myself be real, which is pretty consistent, and when other people take off their masks and their armor. I don't seem to have any armor. That makes it tough to live in a world that's not exactly brimming over with loving kindness, but I manage somehow.
So I had a conversation with my friend Andi today. She's a fine pianist. She said that she had attended a camp where there were a lot of amateur pianists, and that she had a great time being there. I said that I thought that amateur musicians were often more likely to make music of substance than "professionals", simply because they weren't placed in positions where they had to prove themselves every time they played. They play for fun, or self-expression, or to learn about things. Pros have to be ON all the time.
Andi said this:
"The classical pianists that were there were playing fast, technical music, fast and furious. They were all competing. The amateurs were just having fun, and they were playing all these beautiful pieces that never get played, simply because they don't show off the technical brilliance of the pianist."
-
Now, as some of you may know, I'm not as young as I used to be. Unless you've figured out a way to defy physics, neither are you. As we get older, things happen inside of us that we never expected in our younger years, and they're not always good things. But sometimes dark clouds really do have silver linings, and that's how I'm choosing to looking at this particular dark cloud.
For the past four years, I have had terrible bouts of tiredness. I don't mean the kind of tiredness where you just get a good night's sleep and that fixes it. I'm talking about a pervasive bone-weariness, a lethargy that at times makes the simplest activity seem like a major expenditure of energy.
We're all like little suns, atomic furnaces that burn fuel and emit heat and light, joy and sorrow, creativity and work, all the things that make us who we are.
My tiredness was more profound than I may ever be able to describe.
Somehow I managed to play concerts through it all, but there were times when, just before I walked on stage, I wanted to walk the other way and just leave the concert hall. If I had done that I would have been sued by the promoters. But I was getting to the point where I didn't much care. I was THAT tired.
I flew to Brecon, Wales, in Great Britain, to play a concert, and wisely allowed myself three days to rest before I played a one-hour concert. I slept almost every single minute of those three days. About all that I saw of Wales was the inside of the hall, the keys of the piano, and the ducks outside of my hotel room. At least that's all that I clearly remember.
I figured, at 60, that I was dying. "Strange," I thought, "that I should die so young, but I guess quality is better than quantity." And I'd console myself, noting that I'd made a slew of records and CDs, most of which I could live (or die) with, and that I've loved and been loved.
Then, last week, I went to my doctor for my regular checkup, and came back home and fell into what I later found out could've been my last night's sleep... the next morning my doctor called, telling me to get to the pharmacy... that he'd called in a drug that I needed to start taking immediately. He told me some other stuff too, some really scary stuff, but I want to focus on this tiredness, because really, that's what the past four years have been about.
Unbelievable fatigue.
And the really scary stuff isn't so scary, because, when you're this tired, not much scares you!
It turns out that I have hypothyroidism. Mine is not not a mild form. My thyroid is dead as a door-nail.
It turns out that I've been walking around for four years with little-to-no thyroid activity. My thyroid was most likely cutting in and out, like a bad stereo speaker. Some days static, other days, nothing at all. The thyroid gland regulates every single function of your body, and you can't live without it: you go into a coma and die. Turns out that I did nearly go into that coma, but was awakened by my partner just in time.
So now, every day for the rest of my life, I have to take a synthetic version of the hormone that the thyroid gland is supposed to produce on it's own, something called Levothyroxin. Meanwhile, my thyroid itself is out of the game forever, over with, kaput.
Hello, Levothyroxin.
Goodbye, thyroid gland.
I've only been taking the drug for three days, and it takes months for it to fully work and (hopefully) get me back up to speed. But just knowing WHY I was feeling so very very bad is enough to take some of the weight off.
I've been dealing with a whole laundry list of symptoms:
Weakness
Fatigue
Cold intolerance
Constipation or diahrea
Weight gain
Depression
Joint and muscle pain
Thin, brittle fingernails
Thin brittle hair
Paleness
Slow speech
Dry flaky skin
Puffy face, hands and feet
Decreased taste and smell
Thinning of eyebrows
Hoarseness
Overall swelling
Muscle spasms and cramps
Muscle atrophy
Uncoordinated movement
Joint stiffness
Hair loss
Drowsiness
Appetite loss
Ankle, feet, and leg swelling
The inability to deal with record producers
What a horrible four years I've had. Being an optimist (I actually am, really really!) I made it through. But it's been hard to really give my best while dealing with such a formidable opponent as thyroid disease.
I never focus on personal subject matter in my on-line writings. I'm of the generation that still believes in good taste, propriety, and privacy. But I bring this up here because of what it's taught me, what it's done to - and for - my art, and what it means for my future, at least as far as I understand it at the moment.
It reminds me a bit of what Keith Jarrett went through, and I can only say I admire that man with all of my heart and soul. What a trooper! When one is so tired that just getting out of bed is a major miracle, it's a real accomplishment to walk out there in front of a thousand people and play your heart out.
Here's an excerpt from an interview that Keith Jarrett did with Terry Gross on Fresh Air (my interview with her is here):
Mr Jarrett: I had to change everything about my approach before I could even start to play again. And "The Melody At Night, With You" was - - there won't be another recording that's more important to me, in many ways. But one of them that I can explain easily is that I had not played for a long time. And I didn't know if I would ever play again.
And when you -- it's something I did since I was three years old. So when I was able to sit at the piano without being sick and play a little bit, there was a way of dealing with economy that is way past anything I can imagine doing when I'm well. It's hard to describe.
It's almost like the disease made it possible to deal with the skeleton instead of the surface, you know--just the heart of things, because there was no energy for more than that.
Ms Gross: What about the mental focus, though, to figure out what the skeleton is--where it is?
Mr Jarrett: That came--comes and goes. And I was already on the therapy that I'm still on at the time. And it was one of the things that was slowly--the connection between my brain and hands was starting to return enough that--and I added kind of a way of thinking about playing that music. I didn't want to be clever because I didn't want to get into my old habit patterns. In a way, that's what an improviser always wants. And, in this case, I was forced to be that way, more than ever. And so I was starting at zero and being born again at the keyboard. And that's what comes through, I think.
...Goodbye, Watson
(Written shortly after my dog Watson's passing, the following is, in retrospect, a study in the emotional emptiness of loss. I was 'crazy with grief', and now I understand that term. 30 years ago I lost both of my parents, and I felt something similar, but it lasted for years, and so I've learned that mourning takes many forms.)
After 14 years, you knew him well. You knew that, towards the end, the pain drove him from his little bed in the hours before dawn. You knew if you walked through the darkened room you might stumble over his small black body and cause him terrible distress.
Now that he's crossed over, you still turn on the light out of habit. You still look into the corner where his little bed was, and marvel, dumbly, at its absence. You see traces of him everywhere: in your desk drawers, in your photo albums, in your closet, on your web site. Almost every night you dream of him. Many times you wake up crying, astounded at the depth of pain that this loss has caused you.
You even feel guilty about his death. You killed him. You said, 'Come here, Little Dog' to him as he hid under the piano that last morning, his flanks shaking with cancer pain and the fear of death. He came slowly, trembling, towards you, he followed you to the car that would take him to the vet and to his death. He trusted you even though he knew where he was going, knew he wouldn't be coming home with you, any more, ever. This is one image you know is seared into your visual cortex; it's going to take several forevers to forget that one.
You hold him as he lays there shaking on the vet's table, cradled in his favorite blanket. he's been heavily sedated but he's still a Scottish Terrier, so stubborn and willful that even powerful drugs are nearly useless on him. You whisper over and over in his ear, 'I'm here, Little Dog, I love you, it's OK', and it is NOT OK but it keeps you busy, keeps you partially sentient. His spirit lodges itself in your heart. You expect it to leave but it's lodged there, it's staying for awhile.
And then it's not his body there. It's just a lumpy mass of cancer-ridden tissue and disheveled hair. His body had hurt so bad that you couldn't bear to comb his hair for the last few days.
-
Now all that's left is the grief. The good memories will come later, you hope. Right now, all you have is your tears and the emptiness in your belly and the burning pain in your heart. You are the guilty one. You should have let go days ago, maybe weeks. How could you be so selfish?
At home in bed, you are totally amazed at the TV news; the lineup of familiar political clowns and celebrities in varying stages of moral disintegration is almost amusing. Michael Jackson's nose looks ridiculous, downright offensive. You think it's amazing that people still follow him around, cheering. George Bush, you notice, does not carry Barney properly. The Scotty's tail is pointed earthward. Scottish Terriers do not like being carried. They are a proud and self-sufficient breed. You observe that Ariel Sharon better lose weight soon or risk the ignoble and embarrassing possibility of exploding in public. You watch in startled amazement as CNN serves up images of an Iraqi man being shot, right there on your TV screen. You are in wonder of man's ability to do violence to others. You are in wonder that there are billions of people still alive. How did they survive this? How did Michael's nose occur, why did it exist at all, what purpose did it serve in the universe? How have you lived long enough to witness this carnival of deformity?
And all of a sudden you're thinking of your Little Dog, the light. Just a blinding light, completely free of agenda and artifice and fakery and duplicity and facade. You dealt today with a number of people, and only one of them was even close to being 'clean'. You yourself feel dirty, unwashed, spoilt. You're part of humanity, part of the scourge, part of the plague. All you can do is cry, because your Little Dog isn't coming home again. You'll only see him on the other side, presuming there is such a thing. You're not sure of anything, except that you miss him like you've never missed anything or anyone, ever. You've lost both parents. It didn't hurt like this.
And somewhere between the sobs, you start to understand.
You miss him because he was the perfect incarnation of all that is good and right and simple and noble and just and clean. Even your parents weren't that. They certainly were not that.
Later you think of the shooting star that you and your mate saw streaming across the sky, the night after the morning he died.
And you think about all that he taught you. You're not the same woman now. You are radically different and yet not many will notice. You will stop speaking to many people, gradually or immediately. You will stop playing silly games. You will not be able to stand playing games. You will not be able to sit through a performance by an egomaniacal musician. You will not be able to look at art that is not art or listen to music that is not music or read literature that is not literature. All of this will now sicken you. It always has but now you will be stricken if you protest your own inner truth. You may vomit.
Your life has changed with the passing of your Little Dog. He taught you more than all the mystical, mythical prophets, gurus, and saints put together. He left you drained of artifice, he left you defenseless, maskless, naked. If you play now, you will play only the truth. You will never play for money again. You will never play to gain attention again. You will never play for people of ill will again. You will play because you want to make the world stop, you want to make the war stop, you want to make the air around you sing with the truth:
There is no value in anything if there is no love.
Who has the most toys, who owns the most houses, who has the newest car, who has the most expensive clothes, who is the youngest, the prettiest, the sexiest, the most desirable... all of this is valueless. There is no value in anything if there is no love.
You've learned this, all of this, from a Little Dog. And yes, there really was a shooting star. - JW 2.16.05
After 14 years, you knew him well. You knew that, towards the end, the pain drove him from his little bed in the hours before dawn. You knew if you walked through the darkened room you might stumble over his small black body and cause him terrible distress.
Now that he's crossed over, you still turn on the light out of habit. You still look into the corner where his little bed was, and marvel, dumbly, at its absence. You see traces of him everywhere: in your desk drawers, in your photo albums, in your closet, on your web site. Almost every night you dream of him. Many times you wake up crying, astounded at the depth of pain that this loss has caused you.
You even feel guilty about his death. You killed him. You said, 'Come here, Little Dog' to him as he hid under the piano that last morning, his flanks shaking with cancer pain and the fear of death. He came slowly, trembling, towards you, he followed you to the car that would take him to the vet and to his death. He trusted you even though he knew where he was going, knew he wouldn't be coming home with you, any more, ever. This is one image you know is seared into your visual cortex; it's going to take several forevers to forget that one.
You hold him as he lays there shaking on the vet's table, cradled in his favorite blanket. he's been heavily sedated but he's still a Scottish Terrier, so stubborn and willful that even powerful drugs are nearly useless on him. You whisper over and over in his ear, 'I'm here, Little Dog, I love you, it's OK', and it is NOT OK but it keeps you busy, keeps you partially sentient. His spirit lodges itself in your heart. You expect it to leave but it's lodged there, it's staying for awhile.
And then it's not his body there. It's just a lumpy mass of cancer-ridden tissue and disheveled hair. His body had hurt so bad that you couldn't bear to comb his hair for the last few days.
-
Now all that's left is the grief. The good memories will come later, you hope. Right now, all you have is your tears and the emptiness in your belly and the burning pain in your heart. You are the guilty one. You should have let go days ago, maybe weeks. How could you be so selfish?
At home in bed, you are totally amazed at the TV news; the lineup of familiar political clowns and celebrities in varying stages of moral disintegration is almost amusing. Michael Jackson's nose looks ridiculous, downright offensive. You think it's amazing that people still follow him around, cheering. George Bush, you notice, does not carry Barney properly. The Scotty's tail is pointed earthward. Scottish Terriers do not like being carried. They are a proud and self-sufficient breed. You observe that Ariel Sharon better lose weight soon or risk the ignoble and embarrassing possibility of exploding in public. You watch in startled amazement as CNN serves up images of an Iraqi man being shot, right there on your TV screen. You are in wonder of man's ability to do violence to others. You are in wonder that there are billions of people still alive. How did they survive this? How did Michael's nose occur, why did it exist at all, what purpose did it serve in the universe? How have you lived long enough to witness this carnival of deformity?
And all of a sudden you're thinking of your Little Dog, the light. Just a blinding light, completely free of agenda and artifice and fakery and duplicity and facade. You dealt today with a number of people, and only one of them was even close to being 'clean'. You yourself feel dirty, unwashed, spoilt. You're part of humanity, part of the scourge, part of the plague. All you can do is cry, because your Little Dog isn't coming home again. You'll only see him on the other side, presuming there is such a thing. You're not sure of anything, except that you miss him like you've never missed anything or anyone, ever. You've lost both parents. It didn't hurt like this.
And somewhere between the sobs, you start to understand.
You miss him because he was the perfect incarnation of all that is good and right and simple and noble and just and clean. Even your parents weren't that. They certainly were not that.
Later you think of the shooting star that you and your mate saw streaming across the sky, the night after the morning he died.
And you think about all that he taught you. You're not the same woman now. You are radically different and yet not many will notice. You will stop speaking to many people, gradually or immediately. You will stop playing silly games. You will not be able to stand playing games. You will not be able to sit through a performance by an egomaniacal musician. You will not be able to look at art that is not art or listen to music that is not music or read literature that is not literature. All of this will now sicken you. It always has but now you will be stricken if you protest your own inner truth. You may vomit.
Your life has changed with the passing of your Little Dog. He taught you more than all the mystical, mythical prophets, gurus, and saints put together. He left you drained of artifice, he left you defenseless, maskless, naked. If you play now, you will play only the truth. You will never play for money again. You will never play to gain attention again. You will never play for people of ill will again. You will play because you want to make the world stop, you want to make the war stop, you want to make the air around you sing with the truth:
There is no value in anything if there is no love.
Who has the most toys, who owns the most houses, who has the newest car, who has the most expensive clothes, who is the youngest, the prettiest, the sexiest, the most desirable... all of this is valueless. There is no value in anything if there is no love.
You've learned this, all of this, from a Little Dog. And yes, there really was a shooting star. - JW 2.16.05
Stream of Consciousness
Where does the Music I play come from?
It comes from the air. It comes from all the experience I've had. No, I didn't really study classical music. That was a temporal hoop I had to jump through, and it helped my fingering and my technique to go to the Peabody Conservatory all those years.
But it's not really responsible for my clarity of expression.
Yes, I practice. But I never do it too much.
Sometimes I play 14 or 16 hours straight at home. Then there are days I don't play at all.
I don't want to let all the notes out before I perform a concert, so I usually touch the piano not at all on the day of the concert.
I'm from Baltimore. I grew up, really, in Philly. But California is a beautiful state, and a state of mind. It's just stupidly, obscenely expensive. You can't easily live a sustainable life in CA, and the stress is increasing.
But I couldn't live in a place that didn't welcome African Americans and Jews and Native Indian Americans and gay people and Jamaicans and Hispanics and, well, everyone.
I need the water too. The Pacific Ocean is a direction, a gravity well, a womb, a presence I feel and see out of the corner of my eye. I can't be away from her for too long.
I wonder about the desert sometimes, though. A different kind of beauty.
Back east, I learned to lay back from the beat and stay ahead at the same time. Like Lee Morgan and Dexter Gordon. All laid back and leaning forward.
I don't rush that beat. THE TIME IS SACROSANCT.
It's the bedrock of jazz, of all great music.
Am I afraid to go out in front of a thousand people and play poorly?
No.
Everyone has 'one of those days.'
Monk came off the stage one night unimpressed with what he had just played, and while the audience was on their feet and applauding in appreciation, he said to the stage-hand, 'I played all the WRONG mistakes.'
Those people know what I'm doing. I'm working it out. I'm looking for God. When I hit that place of fluidity and serendipity that I call the Sacred Ground, everyone seems to know it.
It's also called the 'luminous ground'.
It's worth the wait and it's worth the risk.
It gets old just playing what you KNOW. I get old playing what I know.
I have to play what I HEAR and FEEL. If that isn't what I prepared for, tough for me. I go for it, as long as the audience is with me, and they usually are.
People are really way nicer than the media would have us believe.
People in America, for the most part, are absolutely wonderful people. Some are very unhappy, and troubled, and over-worked. Some are very angry, and lost, and frightened.
All the things that you and I have been and may be again. Because they're us. The whole world is like us, and we like them. Don't feel superior. If you're in a warm house with food to eat, you're doing OK. If you have someone to love, you are doing GREAT.
If you have 19 BMW's, you are probably NOT as OK as you might think.
I don't think too much of those Bosendorfers with the 97 keys. It's like owning two swimming pools.
I like things to be the way they are supposed to be. A piano with 97 keys just confuses me. I'll take a Bleuthner or a Knabe or a Steinway any day.
-
There are petty fabrications. Harmless ideas that help us live our lives. Whether it's the tooth fairy or the comfort of a certain belief system or the use of anti-depressant medications, some people really need help getting through this life.
No harm done.
And then there are the evil lies. These are the lies that cause pain to others, illness to the inner self, and can even cause rampant genocide if left unchecked.
One such lie is that of racial superiority.
It's pretty obvious that our country has a long way to go before anything like racial parity and equality is reached.
Martin Luther King's great speech
He speaks of Jews and Gentiles, White and Black, ALL of the world's people. Getting together. Loving one another.
His dream is MY dream. It is the dream of billions of people.
When I play, I'm told that lots of people can HEAR what I believe. Just by listening.
This dream, this desire is so great and so deep, that it breaks through in all great Art and Music. I hear it in Coltrane. I hear it in Jarrett, and I hear it in Miles.
I hear it in Beethoven.
I think the Music is my way of working for FREEDOM.
MY MUSIC IS MY MINISTRY, I said recently to a packed house in Yakima, Washington. I said that again in Seattle.
I said it last year at the Kennedy Center, and I'll probably say it this year when I'm there.
-
Cannonball Adderley said this. He said:
"I don't much like crowds 'less they came to see old Cannonball."
I am DOWN with that!
-
I found out that George Clooney has back problems. he said so on a talk show.
I like him for that.
If you've seen him in some of those action flicks he's made, he does a GREAT job of hiding his pain. Back pain isn't something you can hide easily.
Take it from someone who knows (about L5-S1 and lamenectomies and paralysis and sciatica...)
You can't just take a Vicodin and act normal. It messes with your movements and your balance.
He's always great to look at, and now I really like him. I admire him for that. And, given some of the roles he's played, I think he can actually ACT!
George Clooney is OK.
-
Michael Jackson is NOT OK. I hope he stays away. I became very weary of seeing him and listening to him explain himself ad nauseam. He should go very far away and leave the children alone. I think he's ill. And he hasn't made any music at all for many years.
Good riddance to bad luggage.
-
I miss The Beatles. I miss Strawberry Fields Forever!
"Living is easy with eyes closed,
Misunderstanding all you see...
it's getting hard to be someone but it all works out...
it doesn't matter much to me.
Let me take you down, 'cause we're going to...
Strawberry Fields...
Nothing is real...
And there's nothing to get hung about...
Strawberry Fields Forever!"
Rapper G just doesn't get it for me. No aspersions.
-
I listen to the waves pound the shore. I think of that really bad movie that Marlon Brando made. It was a western. He was sitting on the Pacific Shoreline. Not far from where I live right now.
His line was, "Les' go rob a bank or suppem'. Ah'm sicka listenin' to these here waves flopping."
Flopping.
Imagine that. A cinematic moment to remember.
And then a good movie, recommended to me by my good friend Andy; Peter O'Toole in My Favorite Year. His friend tells him "Two things Jewish folks are really good at. The first is suffering...and the second is finding Chinese food at 4 am."
Worthy of Woody Allen. Great flick.
-
And I saw The Big Sleep with Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart a few nights ago. It was wonderful.
Bogey says to Bacall "all these people with all these crazy ideas...so what's wrong with YOU?" and she says without a pause "nothing you can't fix."
They don't write lines like that any more. Nobody would believe them.
Truth is, there's still some of us who actually talk like that. And we mean it. Life's fun when you're coming up on sixty and feeling like you're twelve.
-
War is wrong. Torture is wrong. Killing is wrong.
Lying, deceit, treachery, murder, torture, rape, molestation and abuse, human rights abuse, civil rights violations, illegal detentions in undisclosed locations, racial prejudice...all these things are WRONG.
Years from now, these words will seem silly. (A silly restatement of what every sensible, healthy human being knows in their heart and in their biological core.)
Now, at this moment in our history, these words would be considered treasonous.
Now, at this moment in our history, these words are considered wrong.
So NOW, at this moment in our history, these words are NECESSARY.
-
I will always play the Music that is in my heart, with all of my heart, and never veer from that course.
I will never change my Music to fit the whims of a record producer or a music promoter. I will never let a record producer or music promoter tell me who to play with, how to play, what to play, or when and where to play.
I will never accept less payment than what I think I am worth for my Music. My Music is a Force that has healed and brought happiness to many thousands of people, and to have it maligned or reduced in value is an insult and a moral crime that I will not allow.
Each of us sets their own value based on their intimate knowledge of their Art and their feelings of self-worth. No one has a right to set these values for another.
I will play always out of love; never out of fear. If my environment is antithetical to the creation of Art and love, I will do everything in my power to turn the poison into medicine and to turn the fear into love.
My primary goal is to heal people and to report on the personal primacy of my own experience as a maker of Art in this world. My first goal is to heal and enlighten; my motivation is to capture my experience and express it truthfully and lovingly.
I will never compete. I will never play through my ego. I will always play through my heart (meaning the Music will play itself and I will listen and facilitate it.)
I already do all of these things. Those who take issue with this way can be of no concern to me. Anyone who has experienced the river flowing knows that I am not its source and that the source amazes me as much as it amazes others. It's not my job to explain the source.
I just let it flow.
-
Beautiful things everyone should know about:
• How cute bulldogs and terriers are when you get to know them.
• Green Tea ice cream, like they serve in some Japanese and Chinese restaurants. You can get it in organic yogurt form at our health food store, and oh is it good.
• How great the new PowerMac G5 Dual Core Processor computer is. I don't have the MacIntel for Universal Binaries yet, or Boot Camp (the ability to run Windows software on a Mac) but I will. Meanwhile, with David Lanham's or Dave Brascaglia's icons running and the Tiger Aqua Blue desktop picture plus a flat screen 21" Samsung moniter and a 9800SE Radeon Graphics Card, it is so easy just to sit here and look at it! It's so pretty. I'm no materialist, but this machine is a good machine to have.
• Like a Rolling Stone from 40 years ago, sung by it's writer, singer and poet Bob Dylan, and accompanied by "The Band"...
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't feel so proud
After havin' to scrounge up...your last meal...
How does it feel?
How does it feel?
To be on your own?
With no direction shown?
A complete unknown?
Just like a rollin' stone?
...and then his harmonica comes in, and the organ player plays that little line behind him, and it's in my brain forever. If I should die (G-d forbid) I might even hear that as I fade away. That would be nice.
• That CD Mingus Plays Piano on Impulse
• How great it feels to play solo piano for a beautiful, quiet audience, especially if the instrument is one of excellence.
• How wonderful it is to see the sunsets on the Central Coast of California, looking out on the Pacific. To be able to see that, every evening. Then to hear the waves, all night long.
• To look into the eyes of a person who sees the lines like I do. There are a few, but not many. Less all the time. I treasure that.
• Listening to Miles or Coltrane and hearing the intent, seeing the ghosts, feeling the haint (the haunting). Sorcerers.
• The Fourth Symphony by Pyotr IlyichTchaikovsky
• Sheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
• Any painting by Odd Nerdrum
-
Do your best
When you do something, anything, do your best. Or don't do it.
Sometimes, it's important NOT to do stuff. Things that you know might be bad for your spirit. You should be careful about your spirit, but most people will think you're hiding out or avoiding "having experiences"...that seems to be it in this society...having experiences means doing anything to fill up the hours. Otherwise you're somehow missing something.
Reality shows are like that. Eating a bowl full of living, writhing, South American Viper-eels while everybody stands around yelling and cheering and going "yuuuuk". Having experiences. I call it having a psychotic episode. Then they rush you to emergency and vacuum your small intestine.
Getting back on the track, do your best. Don't try to do BETTER than you always do, Then you'll TRY, and nothing will happen.
You'll fizzle out.
I know. I've fizzled more than once.
When you play, this can easily happen. You challenge yourself and you don't often meet the challenge. I've gotten very used to seeing musicians destroy themselves on the stage.
The secret to playing? One is don't try. Just do what you do and it will do you back.
That's doing your best, no more, no less.
And don't eat anything that writhes.
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Ghouls
When I play, I don't often think. When I think, it's a different part of my brain I'm using. Not the part that lets the Music happen.
When I try to read Music, my ocular segment occludes my auditory segment. Eyes on, ears off. Never trust music made by people reading from the page. Even in a symphony, everyone should know the piece, every nuance and note, by heart. Heart.
Hands? We don't play Music with our hands. We play Music with our heart.
If we read sheet music when performing, we lose the Magic by looking at notes on paper. Mingus (like Duke, like the Count) had big bands. Little was written, or if it was, it was learned and discarded. The band members were chosen for their "voice": Booker Ervin was a strong voice and so was Jaki Byard.
Mingus would sing the parts. The musicians would embellish the parts to make a whole.
If you think or read, you might as well take a novel on stage and read it while you play. That might even be better. At least if it's a good book it might inspire the music.
Because Music is Magic, I enter a trance. It's a place beyond common thought or feeling. It's a still place away from any madness. Even if the notes are flying, it's still and quiet in the center. The sacred ground is solid. I know where I stand. And the Music? IT IS WRITTEN. Meaning: it is there for me, every idea that is spontaneous. It's spontaneous but it is there if I listen to the silence, and it is as if it is WRITTEN (not on paper), WRITTEN in the way people speak of religious prophecies being WRITTEN. In stone. Everytime I play it is different, and yet it leaves no doubt. When you follow the lines, you know the next note instinctively, like you had learned it before, somewhere, someplace, from a very wise seer.
The broken part of Jazz Music is the player who believes that technique and ego is the center and the fulcrum of making music. It's not music. It's ego. It's technique. And, like Barry Harris said, it's like listening to someone talk who never stops, just rattles on and on and then takes a big breath and starts again, with no pause or respite.
A good speaker, a good storyteller will pause for effect, for drama, for reflection. A fool will talk incessantly. And never learn a thing.
It's only through listening that we learn. And every time we play we should LISTEN. I mean playing alone, solo, we should be listening to the silence in our souls and the stillness in our hearts. If there's no silence and stillness in us, there's no Music in us.
A few people have gotten very angry with me because I would not engage in "noise" (not necessarily in the musical sense). I mean even the "noise" that people make when they use each other to make personal gains. Many people's only purpose in playing music is to appear creative and gifted. I say "appear". They need this for their egos.
So it's noise to make music or conversation or plans or friends with them. They are there for THEM. They aren't there for YOU, or MUSIC, or LOVE, or other PEOPLE. When you walk away from noisemakers, when you shut them out of your life, they get violently angry, because they are almost always passive-aggessive. They can be very very dangerous.
They tell you at first how wonderful you are, thinking that you'll get them on stage, or get them a record deal, or get them into a circuit, or introduce them to the right people. If you do this, you never play Truth and Beauty, you never make Magic.
You make noise with other noisemakers.
They are trying to steal your Power, your Magic, your Thunder, your SOUL. They don't know they are. They have been doing this forever. It's what they do.
What you do is your business. You can NEVER let this kind of person be with you. It drains away all the Magic until the notes hurt you, and the Music becomes noise too.
If someone comes in to your life and says awful things about others, they will say awful things about you to others, too.
If they say you are so special and wonderful and unique and amazing, over and over, this is a sign to step away, to get away as you would get away from a rabid dog.
It is dark and evil magic that they carry. It is anti-life, and not only that, it can be as powerful as your beauty. It can destroy beauty. No one can do this if you are courageous and brave. They can scream and yell and talk about you...they can even hit you or try to kill you. But they will NOT be able to steal your SOUL.
When you play, you are doing an act that is the mortal equivalent of a Sacred Spirit on earth. It's an act of GRACE. It has been with you since before you were born. It is the roots of the tree that is visible to others: it is the roots of your life, invisible to others, that goes down into the soil of your soul. And up out of the top of your head and into the universe, like a beacon. It's light.
Carrying this is a TRUST. Will you defend a trust, or will you allow others to define it, defile it, use it, disrespect it, crush it, dirty it, and destroy it? Some will, and the more powerful your Magic is, the more people will gather to try. They are jealous, but they are also drawn to the LIGHT. They want it. Not being able to possess and control it makes them dangerous and violent.
This is a law, and like any TRUE law, it must be respected.
True ART and MUSIC and LIFE = BEAUTY and TRUTH and MAGIC.
They can NOT be bought or learned or developed or stolen. Only with your permission can they be taken from you and used against you.
Some say that I ramble when I talk. One man shouted during a concert "shut up and play the &^%$*&^ piano!" I believe that when I talk during a concert of mine, it is part of the Music. I may not know what I have to say. I never know what I have to PLAY! I find it out by playing, and I find out what I have to say by talking. I wander when I play. People who LISTEN wander with me. If I say too much, I have not committed a crime. I have been annoying, at the most. If I play too much, I may become tiresome. But not often. It doesn't matter.
I always do the best I can, no more or less. If I tried to top myself, I'd be trying. And when you TRY, you defeat yourself. It's like having a contest with yourself.
All of this is a part of playing for me. But I never think of it.
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March 17th, my birthday
Having been born on March 17th, the date best known as the holiday of green beer, most folks will just assume I'm Irish. And it's half true. On my daddy's side, I'm Irish as a Shamrock, green as a Leprechaun, and as prone to alcoholism as anyone alive today, given the need for anesthesia just to read ones' monthly phone bill. Being sober for a decade has been great for me, as my liver was about to give up the ghost anyway. I never liked the green beer. But even with my life of sobriety, I miss the Guinness. They say that pregnant women in Ireland drink Guinness for the iron. It's like liquid bread. I certainly liked Guinness. In Ireland, it's different. It's the real thing. They keep the best for themselves.
I can't say I blame them.
On my mother's side I'm Jewish. Not that she was having any of that. As anti-Semitic as any repressed German housfrau, she figured that being Jewish was just one more thing to cause trouble for her in life. And it's true. After the big war (the big 20th century war, there being a bigger one in store for us in the 21st), I'm told there was quite a bit of anti-Semitic feelings in America. Seems to me now as if there always has been. I've never seen a more maligned and misunderstood group of people (of which I'm one) and I've never been able to get a grip on the why and the wherefore of it. I know it's partially about killing our Lord and Savior, but I didn't do it, honest.
And when that little wrinkled and leathery old woman on Alaska Air flight 375 to Seattle said to me, the very first time I wore my beautiful new gold-and-silver Star and Shim around my neck, "you killed Christ", all I could think of to say was "sorry".
And then I thought of what I should have said...we all do that.
I should have said "thank you, Mel Gibson."
Of course, Mel Gibson had just released his big blockbuster The Passion of Christ and it had all the rabid fundamentalists frothing and foaming.
I always thought Mel Gibson looked like Pat Metheny. (Or vice-versa).
Incidentally, Pat Metheny can really play the guitar. He's a genius. He's just not a diplomat.
And, equally incidentally, the scientists in the UK reconstructed, from skeletal remains found at old archeological digs, a model of what the real Christ probably looked like.
They say he looked like Mel Brooks.
(I think that that's just grand. I think it's a perfect look for the Savior of Humanity.)
I always thought that Pat Metheny was way out of line by coming down so hard in his blog and in interviews on Kenny G. I always said that Kenny G made me cry once, at Christmas-time, in an antique store with my honey. He was playing Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire. I think it's really called the Christmas Song; I said to my honey that if 'Trane would have heard that, he would've said that Kenny G had a great control of the soprano sax, and that his tone production was wonderful. And that he was right in tune.
He also has a "cool crib" in Beverley Hills, which is probably why the jazz musicians hate him so much. Pure jealousy. "Sour grapes", it's called.
So I didn't like Mel Gibson because he looked like Pat Metheny (or vice-versa). And because he (Mel Gibson) seemed to be blaming the Jews for killing Jesus Christ. I'm not sure which carried greater weight with me. I certainly didn't think his Lethal Weapon movies went very far to dispelling his guilt in the matter. Danny Glover I love, but even he couldn't save Mel from himself. And I don't think that 'Trane would've particularly liked what Pat Metheny had to say about Kenny G, or what Mel Gibson had to say about the Jews, either.
My birthday has thus been a source of discouragement for me. Being Jewish and being born on Saint Patrick's Day (I won't even investigate his credentials) seems slightly uncomfortable, somehow, as if I should be wearing Shamrocks instead of Stars of David. But it's not something one can control.
It's just my own Irish guilt at work.
And we all know about Irish guilt.
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Thank you, Wikipedia, for the info below
Births on MARCH 17th
1948 - Jessica Williams Citizen of the World (d. not yet)
1231 - Emperor Shigeo of Japan (d. 1242)
1473 - King James IV of Scotland (d. 1513)
1628 - François Girardon, French sculptor (d. 1715)
1676 - Thomas Boston, Scottish church leader (d. 1732)
1725 - Lachlan McIntosh, Scottish-born American military and political leader (d. 1806)
1777 - Roger Taney, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (d. 1864)
1780 - Thomas Chalmers, Scottish pastor, social reformer, author, and scientist (d. 1847)
1804 - Jim Bridger, American trapper and explorer (d. 1881)
1820 - Jean Ingelow, English poet (d. 1897)
1834 - Gottlieb Daimler, German engineer and inventor (d. 1900)
1846 - Kate Greenaway, English children's author and illustrator (d. 1901)
1862 - Silvio Gesell, Belgian economist (d. 1930)
1866 - Pierce Butler, Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (d. 1939)
1870 - Horace Donisthorpe, British entomologist (d. 1951)
1880 - Sir Patrick Hastings, British barrister (d. 1952)
1881 - Walter Rudolf Hess, Swiss physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
1883 - Urmuz, Romanian writer (d. 1923)
1884 - Alcide Nunez, American jazz clarinetist (d. 1934)
1892 - Benjamin Drake Van Wissen, Australian Engineer.
1894 - Paul Green, American writer (d. 1981)
1901 - Alfred Newman, American film composer (d. 1970)
1902 - Bobby Jones, American golfer (d. 1971)
1908 - Brigitte Helm, German actress (d. 1996)
1912 - Bayard Rustin, American civil rights activist (d. 1987)
1914 - Sammy Baugh, American football player
1916 - Ray Ellington, British singer (d. 1985)
1919 - Nat King Cole, American singer (d. 1965) (a true favorite of mine)
1920 - Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Prime Minister of Bangladesh (d. 1975)
1926 - Siegfried Lenz, German writer
1930 - James Irwin, astronaut (d. 1991)
1936 - Ladislav Kupkovic, Slovakian composer
1936 - Ken Mattingly, astronaut
1938 - Rudolf Nureyev, Russian-born dancer and choreographer (d. 1993)
1938 - Keith Michael Patrick Cardinal O'Brien, Northern Irish clergyman
1940 - Mark White, American politician
1941 - Paul Kantner, American musician (Jefferson Airplane)
1942 - John Wayne Gacy, American serial killer (d. 1994) (boooo!!!)
1944 - Pattie Boyd, British photographer and model
1944 - Cito Gaston, baseball player and coach
1944 - John Sebastian, American singer and songwriter
1945 - Elis Regina, Brazilian singer (d. 1982)
1945 - Katri Helena, Finnish singer
1947 - James Morrow, author
1948 - William Gibson, American-born writer
1949 - Patrick Duffy, American actor
1949 - Pat Rice, Northern Irish footballer and football manager
1950 - Patrick Adams, American record producer and songwriter
1951 - Kurt Russell, American actor (Wasn't he great as Snake Pliskin?)
1953 - Filemon Lagman, Filipino communist revolutionary (d. 2001)
1954 - Lesley-Anne Down, English actress
1955 - Gary Sinise, American actor
1956 - Patrick McDonnell, American cartoonist
1957 - Mal Donaghy, Northern Irish footballer
1957 - Michael Kelly, American journalist (d. 2003)
1959 - Danny Ainge, American basketball player and coach
1961 - Casey Siemaszko, American actor
1962 - Clare Grogan, Scottish actress-singer
1963 - Nick Peros, Canadian composer
1964 - Rob Lowe, American actor
1967 - Billy Corgan, American musician
1967 - Barry Minkow, American businessman
1969 - Mathew St. Patrick, American actor
1971 - Bill Mueller, US baseball player
1972 - Mia Hamm, American soccer player
1972 - Melissa Auf der Maur, Canadian rock musician
1973 - Caroline Corr, Irish singer and musician
1973 - Rico Blanco, Filipino singer (Rivermaya)
1975 - Justin Hawkins, British singer (The Darkness)
1975 - Andrew "Test" Martin, Canadian professional wrestler
1976 - Stephen Gately, Irish singer, musician, and actor (Boyzone)
1979 - Andrew Ference, Canadian hockey player
1983 - Alfred "A.C.E." Jones, Hip Hop Star, Producer
1990 - Katie Zenner, Queen of the Galaxy
(Queen of the Galaxy???)
Deaths on MARCH 17th
45 BC - Titus Labienus, Roman leader (in battle)
45 BC - Gnaeus Pompeius, the Younger, Roman general (executed) (ouch)
180 - Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor (b. 121)
493 - Saint Patrick, patron saint of Ireland
1040 - Harold Harefoot, King of England
1058 - King Lulach I of Scotland
1272 - Emperor Go-Saga of Japan (b. 1220)
1425 - Ashikaga Yoshikazu, Japanese shogun (b. 1407)
1516 - Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici, ruler of Florence (b. 1478)
1565 - Alexander Ales, Scottish theologian (b. 1500)
1620 - St. John Sarkander, Moravian priest, died of injuries caused by torturing (oh no)
1640 - Philip Massinger, English dramatist (b. 1583)
1680 - François de La Rochefoucauld, French writer (b. 1613)
1704 - Menno van Coehoorn, Dutch military engineer (b. 1641)
1715 - Gilbert Burnet, Scottish Bishop of Salisbury (b. 1643)
1741 - Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, French poet (b. 1671)
1764 - George Parker, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield, English astronomer
1782 - Daniel Bernoulli, Dutch-born mathematician (b. 1700)
1830 - Laurent, Marquis de Gouvion Saint-Cyr, French marshal (b. 1764)
1846 - Friedrich Bessel, German mathematician and astronomer (b. 1784)
1849 - William II of the Netherlands (b. 1792)
1853 - Christian Doppler, Austrian physician and mathematician (b. 1803)
1893 - Jules Ferry, French statesman (b. 1832)
1917 - Franz Brentano, German philosopher and psychologist (b. 1838)
1937 - Austen Chamberlain, English statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1863)
1956 - Fred Allen, American actor and comedian (b. 1894)
1956 - Irene Joliot-Curie, French physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (b. 1897)
1957 - Ramon Magsaysay, President of the Philippines (b. 1907)
1965 - Amos Alonzo Stagg, baseball, basketball, and football coach and player (b. 1862)
1976 - Luchino Visconti, Italian director (b. 1906)
1983 - Haldan Keffer Hartline, American physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1903)
1987 - Santo Trafficante, Jr., American gangster (b. 1914)
1989 - Merritt Butrick, American actor (b. 1959)
1990 - Capucine, French actress (b. 1931)
1993 - Helen Hayes, American actress (b. 1900)
1995 - Ronnie Kray, British gangster (b. 1933)
1999 - Ernest Gold, Austrian composer (b. 1921)
1999 - Rod Hull, British comedian (b. 1936)
2002 - Rosetta LeNoire, American actress and producer (b. 1911)
2002 - Pat Weaver, American broadcast executive (b. 1908)
2004 - J.J. Jackson, American television personality (b. 1941)
2005 - George F. Kennan, American Cold War strategist and historian (b. 1904)
2005 - Andre Norton, American writer (b. 1912)
2006 - Bob Blue, American singer-songwriter
2006 - Oleg Cassini, American fashion designer (b. 1913)
2006 - Ray Meyer, American basketball coach (b. 1913)
Holidays and observances on MARCH 17th
Ancient Latvia - Kustonu Diena (return of the larks) observed (ah! I knew they'd come back someday!)
Feast day of St Patrick: a public holiday in Ireland (National feast) and Montserrat, widely celebrated in North America (see St. Patrick's Day) (I've seen quite a few and would rather forget most of them!)
Boston, Massachusetts - Evacuation Day (in what sense?)
Ancient Rome - the second day of the Bacchanalia in honor of Bacchus (I honored him for years, and my liver's still on the mend)
Ancient Rome - the Liberalia in honor of Liber
Other Stuff on MARCH 17th
1577 - The Cathay Company is formed to send Martin Frobisher back to the New World for more gold (Martin never returned)
1673 - Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet begin their exploration of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi river
1756 - St. Patrick's Day is celebrated in New York City for the first time (at the Crown and Thistle Tavern) (It took them until 1756???)
1776 - American Revolution: British forces evacuate Boston, Massachusetts after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery overlooking the city
1805 - The Italian Republic, with Napoleon as president, becomes the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon as King (sounds like big fun)
1845 - The rubber band is invented (now THERE'S a cause for celebration)
1861 - The Kingdom of Italy is proclaimed (And lasts a whole WEEK!)
1901 - A showing of 71 Vincent van Gogh paintings in Paris, 11 years after his death, creates a sensation (I hope this doesn't happen to me)
1910 - Luther Gulick and his wife Charlotte found Camp Fire Girls (now Camp Fire USA) (formally announced in 1912) (Cookies abound!)
1917 - Delta Phi Epsilon was founded at New York University Law School
1921 - The Second Republic of Poland adopts the March Constitution
1931 - Nevada legalizes gambling (and Wayne Newton)
1939 - Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945): The Battle of Nanchang between the Kuomintang and the Japanese break out (Kuomintang?)
1941 - In Washington, DC, the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt
1948 - Benelux, France, and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Brussels, a precursor to the NATO Agreement
1950 - University of California, Berkeley researchers announce the creation of element 98, which they name "Californium" (Soon afterward, Arnold Schwartzenegger becomes Governor, and all scientific researchers are given pink slips)
1958 - The United States launches the Vanguard 1 satellite (YES! My daddy WORKED on the Vanguard Rocket. Yes, at the Glenn L Martin Company! And yes, the Russians beat us into space with Sputnik, anyway!)
1959 - Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, flees Tibet and travels to India (my hero)
1966 - Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb (Old "Nucular Ed" Teller was always misplacing stuff...his keys, his car, cadmium control rods...)
1969 - Golda Meir of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, becomes Prime Minister of Israel (Please let us have a woman prez soon)
1985 - Serial killer Richard Ramirez, the "Night Stalker", commits his first two murders in Los Angeles, California murder spree (Not cool, Rich)
It comes from the air. It comes from all the experience I've had. No, I didn't really study classical music. That was a temporal hoop I had to jump through, and it helped my fingering and my technique to go to the Peabody Conservatory all those years.
But it's not really responsible for my clarity of expression.
Yes, I practice. But I never do it too much.
Sometimes I play 14 or 16 hours straight at home. Then there are days I don't play at all.
I don't want to let all the notes out before I perform a concert, so I usually touch the piano not at all on the day of the concert.
I'm from Baltimore. I grew up, really, in Philly. But California is a beautiful state, and a state of mind. It's just stupidly, obscenely expensive. You can't easily live a sustainable life in CA, and the stress is increasing.
But I couldn't live in a place that didn't welcome African Americans and Jews and Native Indian Americans and gay people and Jamaicans and Hispanics and, well, everyone.
I need the water too. The Pacific Ocean is a direction, a gravity well, a womb, a presence I feel and see out of the corner of my eye. I can't be away from her for too long.
I wonder about the desert sometimes, though. A different kind of beauty.
Back east, I learned to lay back from the beat and stay ahead at the same time. Like Lee Morgan and Dexter Gordon. All laid back and leaning forward.
I don't rush that beat. THE TIME IS SACROSANCT.
It's the bedrock of jazz, of all great music.
Am I afraid to go out in front of a thousand people and play poorly?
No.
Everyone has 'one of those days.'
Monk came off the stage one night unimpressed with what he had just played, and while the audience was on their feet and applauding in appreciation, he said to the stage-hand, 'I played all the WRONG mistakes.'
Those people know what I'm doing. I'm working it out. I'm looking for God. When I hit that place of fluidity and serendipity that I call the Sacred Ground, everyone seems to know it.
It's also called the 'luminous ground'.
It's worth the wait and it's worth the risk.
It gets old just playing what you KNOW. I get old playing what I know.
I have to play what I HEAR and FEEL. If that isn't what I prepared for, tough for me. I go for it, as long as the audience is with me, and they usually are.
People are really way nicer than the media would have us believe.
People in America, for the most part, are absolutely wonderful people. Some are very unhappy, and troubled, and over-worked. Some are very angry, and lost, and frightened.
All the things that you and I have been and may be again. Because they're us. The whole world is like us, and we like them. Don't feel superior. If you're in a warm house with food to eat, you're doing OK. If you have someone to love, you are doing GREAT.
If you have 19 BMW's, you are probably NOT as OK as you might think.
I don't think too much of those Bosendorfers with the 97 keys. It's like owning two swimming pools.
I like things to be the way they are supposed to be. A piano with 97 keys just confuses me. I'll take a Bleuthner or a Knabe or a Steinway any day.
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There are petty fabrications. Harmless ideas that help us live our lives. Whether it's the tooth fairy or the comfort of a certain belief system or the use of anti-depressant medications, some people really need help getting through this life.
No harm done.
And then there are the evil lies. These are the lies that cause pain to others, illness to the inner self, and can even cause rampant genocide if left unchecked.
One such lie is that of racial superiority.
It's pretty obvious that our country has a long way to go before anything like racial parity and equality is reached.
Martin Luther King's great speech
He speaks of Jews and Gentiles, White and Black, ALL of the world's people. Getting together. Loving one another.
His dream is MY dream. It is the dream of billions of people.
When I play, I'm told that lots of people can HEAR what I believe. Just by listening.
This dream, this desire is so great and so deep, that it breaks through in all great Art and Music. I hear it in Coltrane. I hear it in Jarrett, and I hear it in Miles.
I hear it in Beethoven.
I think the Music is my way of working for FREEDOM.
MY MUSIC IS MY MINISTRY, I said recently to a packed house in Yakima, Washington. I said that again in Seattle.
I said it last year at the Kennedy Center, and I'll probably say it this year when I'm there.
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Cannonball Adderley said this. He said:
"I don't much like crowds 'less they came to see old Cannonball."
I am DOWN with that!
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I found out that George Clooney has back problems. he said so on a talk show.
I like him for that.
If you've seen him in some of those action flicks he's made, he does a GREAT job of hiding his pain. Back pain isn't something you can hide easily.
Take it from someone who knows (about L5-S1 and lamenectomies and paralysis and sciatica...)
You can't just take a Vicodin and act normal. It messes with your movements and your balance.
He's always great to look at, and now I really like him. I admire him for that. And, given some of the roles he's played, I think he can actually ACT!
George Clooney is OK.
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Michael Jackson is NOT OK. I hope he stays away. I became very weary of seeing him and listening to him explain himself ad nauseam. He should go very far away and leave the children alone. I think he's ill. And he hasn't made any music at all for many years.
Good riddance to bad luggage.
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I miss The Beatles. I miss Strawberry Fields Forever!
"Living is easy with eyes closed,
Misunderstanding all you see...
it's getting hard to be someone but it all works out...
it doesn't matter much to me.
Let me take you down, 'cause we're going to...
Strawberry Fields...
Nothing is real...
And there's nothing to get hung about...
Strawberry Fields Forever!"
Rapper G just doesn't get it for me. No aspersions.
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I listen to the waves pound the shore. I think of that really bad movie that Marlon Brando made. It was a western. He was sitting on the Pacific Shoreline. Not far from where I live right now.
His line was, "Les' go rob a bank or suppem'. Ah'm sicka listenin' to these here waves flopping."
Flopping.
Imagine that. A cinematic moment to remember.
And then a good movie, recommended to me by my good friend Andy; Peter O'Toole in My Favorite Year. His friend tells him "Two things Jewish folks are really good at. The first is suffering...and the second is finding Chinese food at 4 am."
Worthy of Woody Allen. Great flick.
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And I saw The Big Sleep with Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart a few nights ago. It was wonderful.
Bogey says to Bacall "all these people with all these crazy ideas...so what's wrong with YOU?" and she says without a pause "nothing you can't fix."
They don't write lines like that any more. Nobody would believe them.
Truth is, there's still some of us who actually talk like that. And we mean it. Life's fun when you're coming up on sixty and feeling like you're twelve.
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War is wrong. Torture is wrong. Killing is wrong.
Lying, deceit, treachery, murder, torture, rape, molestation and abuse, human rights abuse, civil rights violations, illegal detentions in undisclosed locations, racial prejudice...all these things are WRONG.
Years from now, these words will seem silly. (A silly restatement of what every sensible, healthy human being knows in their heart and in their biological core.)
Now, at this moment in our history, these words would be considered treasonous.
Now, at this moment in our history, these words are considered wrong.
So NOW, at this moment in our history, these words are NECESSARY.
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I will always play the Music that is in my heart, with all of my heart, and never veer from that course.
I will never change my Music to fit the whims of a record producer or a music promoter. I will never let a record producer or music promoter tell me who to play with, how to play, what to play, or when and where to play.
I will never accept less payment than what I think I am worth for my Music. My Music is a Force that has healed and brought happiness to many thousands of people, and to have it maligned or reduced in value is an insult and a moral crime that I will not allow.
Each of us sets their own value based on their intimate knowledge of their Art and their feelings of self-worth. No one has a right to set these values for another.
I will play always out of love; never out of fear. If my environment is antithetical to the creation of Art and love, I will do everything in my power to turn the poison into medicine and to turn the fear into love.
My primary goal is to heal people and to report on the personal primacy of my own experience as a maker of Art in this world. My first goal is to heal and enlighten; my motivation is to capture my experience and express it truthfully and lovingly.
I will never compete. I will never play through my ego. I will always play through my heart (meaning the Music will play itself and I will listen and facilitate it.)
I already do all of these things. Those who take issue with this way can be of no concern to me. Anyone who has experienced the river flowing knows that I am not its source and that the source amazes me as much as it amazes others. It's not my job to explain the source.
I just let it flow.
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Beautiful things everyone should know about:
• How cute bulldogs and terriers are when you get to know them.
• Green Tea ice cream, like they serve in some Japanese and Chinese restaurants. You can get it in organic yogurt form at our health food store, and oh is it good.
• How great the new PowerMac G5 Dual Core Processor computer is. I don't have the MacIntel for Universal Binaries yet, or Boot Camp (the ability to run Windows software on a Mac) but I will. Meanwhile, with David Lanham's or Dave Brascaglia's icons running and the Tiger Aqua Blue desktop picture plus a flat screen 21" Samsung moniter and a 9800SE Radeon Graphics Card, it is so easy just to sit here and look at it! It's so pretty. I'm no materialist, but this machine is a good machine to have.
• Like a Rolling Stone from 40 years ago, sung by it's writer, singer and poet Bob Dylan, and accompanied by "The Band"...
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't feel so proud
After havin' to scrounge up...your last meal...
How does it feel?
How does it feel?
To be on your own?
With no direction shown?
A complete unknown?
Just like a rollin' stone?
...and then his harmonica comes in, and the organ player plays that little line behind him, and it's in my brain forever. If I should die (G-d forbid) I might even hear that as I fade away. That would be nice.
• That CD Mingus Plays Piano on Impulse
• How great it feels to play solo piano for a beautiful, quiet audience, especially if the instrument is one of excellence.
• How wonderful it is to see the sunsets on the Central Coast of California, looking out on the Pacific. To be able to see that, every evening. Then to hear the waves, all night long.
• To look into the eyes of a person who sees the lines like I do. There are a few, but not many. Less all the time. I treasure that.
• Listening to Miles or Coltrane and hearing the intent, seeing the ghosts, feeling the haint (the haunting). Sorcerers.
• The Fourth Symphony by Pyotr IlyichTchaikovsky
• Sheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
• Any painting by Odd Nerdrum
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Do your best
When you do something, anything, do your best. Or don't do it.
Sometimes, it's important NOT to do stuff. Things that you know might be bad for your spirit. You should be careful about your spirit, but most people will think you're hiding out or avoiding "having experiences"...that seems to be it in this society...having experiences means doing anything to fill up the hours. Otherwise you're somehow missing something.
Reality shows are like that. Eating a bowl full of living, writhing, South American Viper-eels while everybody stands around yelling and cheering and going "yuuuuk". Having experiences. I call it having a psychotic episode. Then they rush you to emergency and vacuum your small intestine.
Getting back on the track, do your best. Don't try to do BETTER than you always do, Then you'll TRY, and nothing will happen.
You'll fizzle out.
I know. I've fizzled more than once.
When you play, this can easily happen. You challenge yourself and you don't often meet the challenge. I've gotten very used to seeing musicians destroy themselves on the stage.
The secret to playing? One is don't try. Just do what you do and it will do you back.
That's doing your best, no more, no less.
And don't eat anything that writhes.
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Ghouls
When I play, I don't often think. When I think, it's a different part of my brain I'm using. Not the part that lets the Music happen.
When I try to read Music, my ocular segment occludes my auditory segment. Eyes on, ears off. Never trust music made by people reading from the page. Even in a symphony, everyone should know the piece, every nuance and note, by heart. Heart.
Hands? We don't play Music with our hands. We play Music with our heart.
If we read sheet music when performing, we lose the Magic by looking at notes on paper. Mingus (like Duke, like the Count) had big bands. Little was written, or if it was, it was learned and discarded. The band members were chosen for their "voice": Booker Ervin was a strong voice and so was Jaki Byard.
Mingus would sing the parts. The musicians would embellish the parts to make a whole.
If you think or read, you might as well take a novel on stage and read it while you play. That might even be better. At least if it's a good book it might inspire the music.
Because Music is Magic, I enter a trance. It's a place beyond common thought or feeling. It's a still place away from any madness. Even if the notes are flying, it's still and quiet in the center. The sacred ground is solid. I know where I stand. And the Music? IT IS WRITTEN. Meaning: it is there for me, every idea that is spontaneous. It's spontaneous but it is there if I listen to the silence, and it is as if it is WRITTEN (not on paper), WRITTEN in the way people speak of religious prophecies being WRITTEN. In stone. Everytime I play it is different, and yet it leaves no doubt. When you follow the lines, you know the next note instinctively, like you had learned it before, somewhere, someplace, from a very wise seer.
The broken part of Jazz Music is the player who believes that technique and ego is the center and the fulcrum of making music. It's not music. It's ego. It's technique. And, like Barry Harris said, it's like listening to someone talk who never stops, just rattles on and on and then takes a big breath and starts again, with no pause or respite.
A good speaker, a good storyteller will pause for effect, for drama, for reflection. A fool will talk incessantly. And never learn a thing.
It's only through listening that we learn. And every time we play we should LISTEN. I mean playing alone, solo, we should be listening to the silence in our souls and the stillness in our hearts. If there's no silence and stillness in us, there's no Music in us.
A few people have gotten very angry with me because I would not engage in "noise" (not necessarily in the musical sense). I mean even the "noise" that people make when they use each other to make personal gains. Many people's only purpose in playing music is to appear creative and gifted. I say "appear". They need this for their egos.
So it's noise to make music or conversation or plans or friends with them. They are there for THEM. They aren't there for YOU, or MUSIC, or LOVE, or other PEOPLE. When you walk away from noisemakers, when you shut them out of your life, they get violently angry, because they are almost always passive-aggessive. They can be very very dangerous.
They tell you at first how wonderful you are, thinking that you'll get them on stage, or get them a record deal, or get them into a circuit, or introduce them to the right people. If you do this, you never play Truth and Beauty, you never make Magic.
You make noise with other noisemakers.
They are trying to steal your Power, your Magic, your Thunder, your SOUL. They don't know they are. They have been doing this forever. It's what they do.
What you do is your business. You can NEVER let this kind of person be with you. It drains away all the Magic until the notes hurt you, and the Music becomes noise too.
If someone comes in to your life and says awful things about others, they will say awful things about you to others, too.
If they say you are so special and wonderful and unique and amazing, over and over, this is a sign to step away, to get away as you would get away from a rabid dog.
It is dark and evil magic that they carry. It is anti-life, and not only that, it can be as powerful as your beauty. It can destroy beauty. No one can do this if you are courageous and brave. They can scream and yell and talk about you...they can even hit you or try to kill you. But they will NOT be able to steal your SOUL.
When you play, you are doing an act that is the mortal equivalent of a Sacred Spirit on earth. It's an act of GRACE. It has been with you since before you were born. It is the roots of the tree that is visible to others: it is the roots of your life, invisible to others, that goes down into the soil of your soul. And up out of the top of your head and into the universe, like a beacon. It's light.
Carrying this is a TRUST. Will you defend a trust, or will you allow others to define it, defile it, use it, disrespect it, crush it, dirty it, and destroy it? Some will, and the more powerful your Magic is, the more people will gather to try. They are jealous, but they are also drawn to the LIGHT. They want it. Not being able to possess and control it makes them dangerous and violent.
This is a law, and like any TRUE law, it must be respected.
True ART and MUSIC and LIFE = BEAUTY and TRUTH and MAGIC.
They can NOT be bought or learned or developed or stolen. Only with your permission can they be taken from you and used against you.
Some say that I ramble when I talk. One man shouted during a concert "shut up and play the &^%$*&^ piano!" I believe that when I talk during a concert of mine, it is part of the Music. I may not know what I have to say. I never know what I have to PLAY! I find it out by playing, and I find out what I have to say by talking. I wander when I play. People who LISTEN wander with me. If I say too much, I have not committed a crime. I have been annoying, at the most. If I play too much, I may become tiresome. But not often. It doesn't matter.
I always do the best I can, no more or less. If I tried to top myself, I'd be trying. And when you TRY, you defeat yourself. It's like having a contest with yourself.
All of this is a part of playing for me. But I never think of it.
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March 17th, my birthday
Having been born on March 17th, the date best known as the holiday of green beer, most folks will just assume I'm Irish. And it's half true. On my daddy's side, I'm Irish as a Shamrock, green as a Leprechaun, and as prone to alcoholism as anyone alive today, given the need for anesthesia just to read ones' monthly phone bill. Being sober for a decade has been great for me, as my liver was about to give up the ghost anyway. I never liked the green beer. But even with my life of sobriety, I miss the Guinness. They say that pregnant women in Ireland drink Guinness for the iron. It's like liquid bread. I certainly liked Guinness. In Ireland, it's different. It's the real thing. They keep the best for themselves.
I can't say I blame them.
On my mother's side I'm Jewish. Not that she was having any of that. As anti-Semitic as any repressed German housfrau, she figured that being Jewish was just one more thing to cause trouble for her in life. And it's true. After the big war (the big 20th century war, there being a bigger one in store for us in the 21st), I'm told there was quite a bit of anti-Semitic feelings in America. Seems to me now as if there always has been. I've never seen a more maligned and misunderstood group of people (of which I'm one) and I've never been able to get a grip on the why and the wherefore of it. I know it's partially about killing our Lord and Savior, but I didn't do it, honest.
And when that little wrinkled and leathery old woman on Alaska Air flight 375 to Seattle said to me, the very first time I wore my beautiful new gold-and-silver Star and Shim around my neck, "you killed Christ", all I could think of to say was "sorry".
And then I thought of what I should have said...we all do that.
I should have said "thank you, Mel Gibson."
Of course, Mel Gibson had just released his big blockbuster The Passion of Christ and it had all the rabid fundamentalists frothing and foaming.
I always thought Mel Gibson looked like Pat Metheny. (Or vice-versa).
Incidentally, Pat Metheny can really play the guitar. He's a genius. He's just not a diplomat.
And, equally incidentally, the scientists in the UK reconstructed, from skeletal remains found at old archeological digs, a model of what the real Christ probably looked like.
They say he looked like Mel Brooks.
(I think that that's just grand. I think it's a perfect look for the Savior of Humanity.)
I always thought that Pat Metheny was way out of line by coming down so hard in his blog and in interviews on Kenny G. I always said that Kenny G made me cry once, at Christmas-time, in an antique store with my honey. He was playing Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire. I think it's really called the Christmas Song; I said to my honey that if 'Trane would have heard that, he would've said that Kenny G had a great control of the soprano sax, and that his tone production was wonderful. And that he was right in tune.
He also has a "cool crib" in Beverley Hills, which is probably why the jazz musicians hate him so much. Pure jealousy. "Sour grapes", it's called.
So I didn't like Mel Gibson because he looked like Pat Metheny (or vice-versa). And because he (Mel Gibson) seemed to be blaming the Jews for killing Jesus Christ. I'm not sure which carried greater weight with me. I certainly didn't think his Lethal Weapon movies went very far to dispelling his guilt in the matter. Danny Glover I love, but even he couldn't save Mel from himself. And I don't think that 'Trane would've particularly liked what Pat Metheny had to say about Kenny G, or what Mel Gibson had to say about the Jews, either.
My birthday has thus been a source of discouragement for me. Being Jewish and being born on Saint Patrick's Day (I won't even investigate his credentials) seems slightly uncomfortable, somehow, as if I should be wearing Shamrocks instead of Stars of David. But it's not something one can control.
It's just my own Irish guilt at work.
And we all know about Irish guilt.
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Thank you, Wikipedia, for the info below
Births on MARCH 17th
1948 - Jessica Williams Citizen of the World (d. not yet)
1231 - Emperor Shigeo of Japan (d. 1242)
1473 - King James IV of Scotland (d. 1513)
1628 - François Girardon, French sculptor (d. 1715)
1676 - Thomas Boston, Scottish church leader (d. 1732)
1725 - Lachlan McIntosh, Scottish-born American military and political leader (d. 1806)
1777 - Roger Taney, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (d. 1864)
1780 - Thomas Chalmers, Scottish pastor, social reformer, author, and scientist (d. 1847)
1804 - Jim Bridger, American trapper and explorer (d. 1881)
1820 - Jean Ingelow, English poet (d. 1897)
1834 - Gottlieb Daimler, German engineer and inventor (d. 1900)
1846 - Kate Greenaway, English children's author and illustrator (d. 1901)
1862 - Silvio Gesell, Belgian economist (d. 1930)
1866 - Pierce Butler, Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (d. 1939)
1870 - Horace Donisthorpe, British entomologist (d. 1951)
1880 - Sir Patrick Hastings, British barrister (d. 1952)
1881 - Walter Rudolf Hess, Swiss physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
1883 - Urmuz, Romanian writer (d. 1923)
1884 - Alcide Nunez, American jazz clarinetist (d. 1934)
1892 - Benjamin Drake Van Wissen, Australian Engineer.
1894 - Paul Green, American writer (d. 1981)
1901 - Alfred Newman, American film composer (d. 1970)
1902 - Bobby Jones, American golfer (d. 1971)
1908 - Brigitte Helm, German actress (d. 1996)
1912 - Bayard Rustin, American civil rights activist (d. 1987)
1914 - Sammy Baugh, American football player
1916 - Ray Ellington, British singer (d. 1985)
1919 - Nat King Cole, American singer (d. 1965) (a true favorite of mine)
1920 - Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Prime Minister of Bangladesh (d. 1975)
1926 - Siegfried Lenz, German writer
1930 - James Irwin, astronaut (d. 1991)
1936 - Ladislav Kupkovic, Slovakian composer
1936 - Ken Mattingly, astronaut
1938 - Rudolf Nureyev, Russian-born dancer and choreographer (d. 1993)
1938 - Keith Michael Patrick Cardinal O'Brien, Northern Irish clergyman
1940 - Mark White, American politician
1941 - Paul Kantner, American musician (Jefferson Airplane)
1942 - John Wayne Gacy, American serial killer (d. 1994) (boooo!!!)
1944 - Pattie Boyd, British photographer and model
1944 - Cito Gaston, baseball player and coach
1944 - John Sebastian, American singer and songwriter
1945 - Elis Regina, Brazilian singer (d. 1982)
1945 - Katri Helena, Finnish singer
1947 - James Morrow, author
1948 - William Gibson, American-born writer
1949 - Patrick Duffy, American actor
1949 - Pat Rice, Northern Irish footballer and football manager
1950 - Patrick Adams, American record producer and songwriter
1951 - Kurt Russell, American actor (Wasn't he great as Snake Pliskin?)
1953 - Filemon Lagman, Filipino communist revolutionary (d. 2001)
1954 - Lesley-Anne Down, English actress
1955 - Gary Sinise, American actor
1956 - Patrick McDonnell, American cartoonist
1957 - Mal Donaghy, Northern Irish footballer
1957 - Michael Kelly, American journalist (d. 2003)
1959 - Danny Ainge, American basketball player and coach
1961 - Casey Siemaszko, American actor
1962 - Clare Grogan, Scottish actress-singer
1963 - Nick Peros, Canadian composer
1964 - Rob Lowe, American actor
1967 - Billy Corgan, American musician
1967 - Barry Minkow, American businessman
1969 - Mathew St. Patrick, American actor
1971 - Bill Mueller, US baseball player
1972 - Mia Hamm, American soccer player
1972 - Melissa Auf der Maur, Canadian rock musician
1973 - Caroline Corr, Irish singer and musician
1973 - Rico Blanco, Filipino singer (Rivermaya)
1975 - Justin Hawkins, British singer (The Darkness)
1975 - Andrew "Test" Martin, Canadian professional wrestler
1976 - Stephen Gately, Irish singer, musician, and actor (Boyzone)
1979 - Andrew Ference, Canadian hockey player
1983 - Alfred "A.C.E." Jones, Hip Hop Star, Producer
1990 - Katie Zenner, Queen of the Galaxy
(Queen of the Galaxy???)
Deaths on MARCH 17th
45 BC - Titus Labienus, Roman leader (in battle)
45 BC - Gnaeus Pompeius, the Younger, Roman general (executed) (ouch)
180 - Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor (b. 121)
493 - Saint Patrick, patron saint of Ireland
1040 - Harold Harefoot, King of England
1058 - King Lulach I of Scotland
1272 - Emperor Go-Saga of Japan (b. 1220)
1425 - Ashikaga Yoshikazu, Japanese shogun (b. 1407)
1516 - Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici, ruler of Florence (b. 1478)
1565 - Alexander Ales, Scottish theologian (b. 1500)
1620 - St. John Sarkander, Moravian priest, died of injuries caused by torturing (oh no)
1640 - Philip Massinger, English dramatist (b. 1583)
1680 - François de La Rochefoucauld, French writer (b. 1613)
1704 - Menno van Coehoorn, Dutch military engineer (b. 1641)
1715 - Gilbert Burnet, Scottish Bishop of Salisbury (b. 1643)
1741 - Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, French poet (b. 1671)
1764 - George Parker, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield, English astronomer
1782 - Daniel Bernoulli, Dutch-born mathematician (b. 1700)
1830 - Laurent, Marquis de Gouvion Saint-Cyr, French marshal (b. 1764)
1846 - Friedrich Bessel, German mathematician and astronomer (b. 1784)
1849 - William II of the Netherlands (b. 1792)
1853 - Christian Doppler, Austrian physician and mathematician (b. 1803)
1893 - Jules Ferry, French statesman (b. 1832)
1917 - Franz Brentano, German philosopher and psychologist (b. 1838)
1937 - Austen Chamberlain, English statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1863)
1956 - Fred Allen, American actor and comedian (b. 1894)
1956 - Irene Joliot-Curie, French physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (b. 1897)
1957 - Ramon Magsaysay, President of the Philippines (b. 1907)
1965 - Amos Alonzo Stagg, baseball, basketball, and football coach and player (b. 1862)
1976 - Luchino Visconti, Italian director (b. 1906)
1983 - Haldan Keffer Hartline, American physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1903)
1987 - Santo Trafficante, Jr., American gangster (b. 1914)
1989 - Merritt Butrick, American actor (b. 1959)
1990 - Capucine, French actress (b. 1931)
1993 - Helen Hayes, American actress (b. 1900)
1995 - Ronnie Kray, British gangster (b. 1933)
1999 - Ernest Gold, Austrian composer (b. 1921)
1999 - Rod Hull, British comedian (b. 1936)
2002 - Rosetta LeNoire, American actress and producer (b. 1911)
2002 - Pat Weaver, American broadcast executive (b. 1908)
2004 - J.J. Jackson, American television personality (b. 1941)
2005 - George F. Kennan, American Cold War strategist and historian (b. 1904)
2005 - Andre Norton, American writer (b. 1912)
2006 - Bob Blue, American singer-songwriter
2006 - Oleg Cassini, American fashion designer (b. 1913)
2006 - Ray Meyer, American basketball coach (b. 1913)
Holidays and observances on MARCH 17th
Ancient Latvia - Kustonu Diena (return of the larks) observed (ah! I knew they'd come back someday!)
Feast day of St Patrick: a public holiday in Ireland (National feast) and Montserrat, widely celebrated in North America (see St. Patrick's Day) (I've seen quite a few and would rather forget most of them!)
Boston, Massachusetts - Evacuation Day (in what sense?)
Ancient Rome - the second day of the Bacchanalia in honor of Bacchus (I honored him for years, and my liver's still on the mend)
Ancient Rome - the Liberalia in honor of Liber
Other Stuff on MARCH 17th
1577 - The Cathay Company is formed to send Martin Frobisher back to the New World for more gold (Martin never returned)
1673 - Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet begin their exploration of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi river
1756 - St. Patrick's Day is celebrated in New York City for the first time (at the Crown and Thistle Tavern) (It took them until 1756???)
1776 - American Revolution: British forces evacuate Boston, Massachusetts after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery overlooking the city
1805 - The Italian Republic, with Napoleon as president, becomes the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon as King (sounds like big fun)
1845 - The rubber band is invented (now THERE'S a cause for celebration)
1861 - The Kingdom of Italy is proclaimed (And lasts a whole WEEK!)
1901 - A showing of 71 Vincent van Gogh paintings in Paris, 11 years after his death, creates a sensation (I hope this doesn't happen to me)
1910 - Luther Gulick and his wife Charlotte found Camp Fire Girls (now Camp Fire USA) (formally announced in 1912) (Cookies abound!)
1917 - Delta Phi Epsilon was founded at New York University Law School
1921 - The Second Republic of Poland adopts the March Constitution
1931 - Nevada legalizes gambling (and Wayne Newton)
1939 - Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945): The Battle of Nanchang between the Kuomintang and the Japanese break out (Kuomintang?)
1941 - In Washington, DC, the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt
1948 - Benelux, France, and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Brussels, a precursor to the NATO Agreement
1950 - University of California, Berkeley researchers announce the creation of element 98, which they name "Californium" (Soon afterward, Arnold Schwartzenegger becomes Governor, and all scientific researchers are given pink slips)
1958 - The United States launches the Vanguard 1 satellite (YES! My daddy WORKED on the Vanguard Rocket. Yes, at the Glenn L Martin Company! And yes, the Russians beat us into space with Sputnik, anyway!)
1959 - Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, flees Tibet and travels to India (my hero)
1966 - Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb (Old "Nucular Ed" Teller was always misplacing stuff...his keys, his car, cadmium control rods...)
1969 - Golda Meir of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, becomes Prime Minister of Israel (Please let us have a woman prez soon)
1985 - Serial killer Richard Ramirez, the "Night Stalker", commits his first two murders in Los Angeles, California murder spree (Not cool, Rich)
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