tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-748488036403050352024-02-20T13:15:01.704-08:00Jessica Williams, pianist: The ZoneJessica Williams, pianist and composer, writer and thinkerJessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-638942429401193392008-08-11T04:24:00.000-07:002008-08-11T04:29:57.108-07:00HypothyroidismAs 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.<br /><br />For the past five 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.<br /><br />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. It was like being trapped in a black hole where the event-horizon was threatening to just swallow me up. I felt like I was living on a drab, sunless, joyless, heavy-gravity planet.<br /><br />I'm a trooper! 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 surely been sued by the promoters. But I was getting to the point where I didn't much care. I was THAT tired.<br /><br />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. At one point, a good friend whom I'd not seen in years knocked at the hotel door. I opened the door and told her to "please go away." About all that I saw of Wales was the inside of the concert hall, the keys of the piano, and the ducks outside of my hotel room. At least that's all that I clearly remember.<br /><br />(Proving that Murphy knew something about law, BBC TV decided to do a profile of me on the day of my concert, which was seen by millions of folks all over the world. You can watch that here ... I suppose it turned out OK for a lady that felt as old as Methuselah.)<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Hypothyroid treatment started Feb 19, 08<br /><br />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... it was as near to mexedema coma as I ever want to get... my partner literally saved my life, expending an incredible amount of time and energy just getting me to respond and finally reach a state of semi-consciousness. Everything had gone WHITE for me! All around me, as far as I could "see", there was nothing but white.<br /><br />The next morning my doctor called, telling me to have someone go to the pharmacy for me immediately; that he'd called in a drug that I needed to start taking as soon as possible.<br /><br />It turns out that I have hypothyroidism. Mine is not not a mild form. My thyroid is dead as a door-nail. And that means that my pituitary gland has been working overtime, trying to "wake up" my dead thyroid gland, without success.<br /><br />It turns out that I've been walking around for almost five 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. And my doctor FOUND it, just in time.<br /><br />(I should mention that my doctor never really missed it. He lived and worked in a state in which I didn't live, so he'd call in the blood panel to a lab in my area. I had my testing done by lab technicians in California. THEY missed it, several times over.)<br /><br />So now, every day for the rest of my life, I have to take a synthetic "bio-identical" 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.<br /><br />Hello, Levothyroxin, goodbye, thyroid gland.<br /><br />I've now been on Levothyroxin for fourteen days [2.29.08]. I sleep again. I wake up feeling rested. I answer the phone and people ask for Jessica because I sound so GOOD. I laugh again. I feel life in my body again. My hair has stopped falling out. I can taste food again. I can walk around without gloves on. My body is WARM. I'm losing the edema (water retention) and I'm walking the dog again.<br /><br />I had been dealing with a whole laundry list of symptoms:<br /><br />Weakness<br />Fatigue<br />Cold intolerance<br />Constipation or Diarrhea<br />Weight gain<br />Depression<br />Joint and muscle pain<br />Thin, brittle fingernails<br />Thin brittle hair<br />Yellow skin on palms of hands, around eyes<br />Paleness<br />Slow speech<br />Dry flaky skin<br />Puffy face, hands and feet<br />Decreased taste and smell<br />Thinning of outer third of eyebrows<br />Hoarseness<br />Overall swelling<br />Muscle spasms and cramps<br />Muscle atrophy<br />Uncoordinated movement<br />Joint stiffness<br />Hair loss<br />Drowsiness<br />Appetite loss<br />The inability to deal with record producers<br /><br />(That last may not respond to drug therapy, I am told)<br /><br />What a horrible five 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, and thyroid shutdown is a horrible experience.<br /><br />As one friend wrote:<br /><br />"Jessica! What a story! My heart aches to hear what you went through - and then the enormous discovery of what truly was the root of so much trouble. I was diagnosed as hypothyroid after my second child was born and have been taking Levothyroxin for 22 years. My case was detected very early and has been easy to manage. To hear your story not only makes my heart ache; I feel an ache in the marrow of my bones. No thyroid. You have been through hell. What a powerhouse you are to have survived these years. Hallelujah that you are on the way out of such a deep, dark hole, headed for the light. Love, B ___ "<br /><br />And she is so right about that. The deep dark hole. It was that way, exactly. And I made it somehow, and I played really well most of the time. 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 hundred or a thousand people and play your heart out. But I did nothing else well. And I didn't know what was wrong, for five long years. That was the hell, not knowing. Just dying inside.<br /><br />I wanted to write a little about this, because HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED AFTER I STARTED TO FEEL A LITTLE BIT BETTER:<br /><br />I composed a letter, and I sent it to maybe forty or fifty of my best friends. I have a mailing list of thousands... you may be on it... but I sent this letter to only my dear friends. I may have missed a few, because this disease makes the neurons in your brain fire more slowly, it makes you forget things, and it makes you stumble and slur and feel dizzy and move slowly.<br /><br />And, as their answers came back (and nearly everyone answered me almost immediately) I made a discovery. I found that out of the fifty emails I sent, maybe 80 percent were women, mostly in their forties, fifties, and sixties, and GET THIS, almost EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM (with two or three exceptions) were either on Levothyroxin for ZERO thyroid function, or were on a similar therapy for hypothyroidism of a milder form, where their thyroid hormone was really LOW!<br /><br />So it's been going on all week, and it's like I'm running a clinic around here. I'm getting calls and emails, and we're all sharing experiences and we're all saying "wow, you too, huh?" Many of us were diagnosed only after years of misdiagnosis and tons of unnecessary tests.<br /><br />Most of us were diagnosed late to one degree or another, and most of us consider those years of darkness and tiredness and misery our "lost years."<br /><br />So the message here, the reason for this virtual orgy of personal self-disclosure is:<br /><br />Get tested, and ask for a blood panel SPECIFICALLY directed at monitoring your T3, T4, and TSH levels. An elevated TSH (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone) level means that your pituitary gland (which controls your thyroid gland, which in turn controls every other organ in your body) is sending out stronger-than-usual messages to your thyroid, which, for reasons known only to it, is not doing the job. The pituitary gland is "flogging" your thyroid to please work, and your thyroid is just sitting there like a bump on a pickle.<br /><br />So when the TSH is way up, the T3 and T4 (the thyroid hormone itself) is way low. Maybe it's not even there. And that's BAD NEWS for all systems in the body. That's why you can sleep through three alarm clocks and two wake-up calls, which I did on the road once, not too long ago.<br /><br />The TSH panel is the most important part of the test, but knowing the T4 levels makes a diagnosis more concise.<br /><br />This disease strikes mostly women, but guys can get it too. The ratio is 15 (maybe even 20) to 1, but it's still worth doing a panel. Do a "google". And here are a few links to get you started if you think you may have suspiciously similar symptoms that bear checking out:<br /><br />The Mayo Clinic<br />Medline Plus<br />Wikipedia<br />Hashimoto's Disease<br />Towards the end of the tunnel, which I took to be the approaching end of my life, it got so dark and I got so tired that I was spending most days entirely in bed. I made music in my home studio, but the pace of my creativity had slowed to a crawl. An example of this is in how long it took me to make an album. Back in '96 I had made Higher Standards for Candid Records, and did the entire album in 3 hours of studio time. The budget (as for all jazz records) was abysmal, and studio time is expensive. My most recent album is so beautiful, and very fast in places! But it took me two months.<br /><br />The up-side is that the music came out very clear and focused. I thought it was slow, but I just heard it slow. Now that I listen to it, it's faster in certain passages than I would have believed. I'm not a fan of speed for its own sake, but I am amazed that my art remained virtually unaffected. I believe it even benefited. This will take lots more self-assessment.<br /><br />I can only say that, at this point, I believe it to be some of my best music. But it's very transparent and honest music, and I hear the broken places, the pain, and the darkness, in places that others will not notice.<br /><br />Do I feel better now? Let's just say that the difference is beyond words. Anyone who has spoken with me in this last week knows it. Everyone's very happy for me. I'm just thrilled to have my life back and humbled to have such lovely, steadfast friends waiting for me, at the end of that long dark tunnel. Life is good again.<br /><br />And today, only fourteen days into a new chapter of my life, I recorded my old composition "Little Dog Blues"... I waited and waited for my dog Angel to bark (as she sometimes does in the middle of some of my more-perfect creations) but no. Not a peep. So I recorded her and pasted her bark in, exactly where I wanted it. It's a simply raucous, hilarious recording, with time like a rock and some serious foot-stomping stride going on. At 3'05" it could be a hit! I sure could NOT have pulled that off just a few weeks ago!<br /><br />And, if it sounds as good to me next week as it did today, it'll be on my NEXT album!<br /><br /><br /><br />Now, at 3 months later, I know more. I know that while it's a manageable condition, it's a bear to live with sometimes. Some drugs work for some of us but not for others. Dosage levels are extrememly difficult to balance. Different doctors bring their own strong and often destructive prejudices to the table, by relying solely on TSH panels and T4 levels.<br /><br />"T4 is automatically broken down into T3 by the body." Whose body, anyway? Anybody and everybody's body? What hubris.<br /><br />"The TSH panel is the only panel worth taking." Wrong. It gives the doctor a great picture of what the pituitary is up to, but no idea at all of what the T3 and T4 levels in the blood might be.<br /><br />"Other hormones have little to no effect on thyroid hormones." Utter bunk. Estrogen can bind with T4 and render it inert, useless.<br /><br />"The best way to treat thyroid disease is to either kill the gland with radioactive iodine or remove it surgically; that way the dosage can be clearly monitored and stabilized." The worst of the worst. Often, the thyroid that decides to lie dormant suddenly kicks in and begins to work again.<br /><br />It's not a cake walk. I am so much better. Gee, it's 5am and I'm still writing.<br /><br />But it's never "over". I am so glad to have a good doctor, lots of love and support, and a job that isn't a 9 to 5 deal. Now THAT would be hell for me!<br /><br /> <br /><br />The following entry posted June 17, 08, well into treatment<br /><br />Hypothyroidism isn't as simple as I thought. There's more to it than being bone-tired all of the time. And the miracle drug called levothyroxine isn't such a miracle after all. I'm on Armour Thyroid now, as of today, and it's too soon to say what effect that will have, but I switched because I wasn't getting better and I wasn't staying better.<br /><br />The first few weeks were good for me on levothyroxine. But the evenness of mood and the energy levels "wore off". Finally, I was pretty much back to where I had started. My "numbers" were OK (that is, the blood panels) but I felt very poorly, and my memory had big gaps in it. Words kept eluding me, and they still are doing so. Sadly, it's affected my ability to write well. Hopefully the new drug will restore my long-practiced writing style which, if given a chance to flourish again, could become as witty and revelatory as it once was.<br /><br />[I'm saved by my piano, the glorious, miraculous, completely and utterly PERFECT instrument for me. I could never have chosen a better instrument, one so responsive and sonorous. Everyday I amble downstairs and play for hours. It's the first thing I do every day, and, on some days, it's very nearly the ONLY thing I do.]<br /><br />So. Armour Thyroid contains not just T4, but T3 also. This is closer to what the human body should produce on its own. Some doctors have read the latest literature on Medscape, which indicates that Armour actually had the right idea all along. There was a time, not too long ago, when doctors were very reluctant to prescribe Armour (it's made from porcine thyroid glands) because it was felt that the batch consistency was wanting. Actually, this perception was the result of a multi-million dollar smear campaign by - who else - the main manufacturer of levothyroxine (Mylan Pharmaceuticals).<br /><br />Big Pharma won out over the smaller company (Forest Pharmaceuticals) as the campaign was aimed at the physicians themselves. Most doctors are so busy trying to fit patients in and make the proper diagnoses that they have little time to read articles on Medscape. Mylan knew this and targeted their ads accordingly.<br /><br />But... it turns out that evil Mylan was subject to an multi-million-dollar lawsuit, which it settled out of court. The lawsuit was brought as a class-action by many people whose lives and health were devastated by - get this - batch inconsistency.<br /><br />So that drug did not work for me, and obviously hasn't worked out for a lot of other folks, too. Armour has a good record for consistency, and can hopefully stay on the right side of the FDA, which increasingly makes its decisions based on lobbying interests, and not hard science.<br /><br />I'll keep you updated on this issue. I am amazed at how many page hits this article received, and how many folks share my condition. It's beautiful how much people care about each other when there's some common ground, and I continue to receive enormous support and advice from fans, friends, and acquaintances.<br /><br />Writing used to fly for me. Now it's a chore. Hopefully my quick wit and typing speed will return with full force, very soon. Meanwhile, I play, every day. This disease has, thankfully, NOT aversely affected my ability to play the piano. In fact, it seems to have increased my focus, my dynamic range, and my imagination. Ideas spring forth unbidden, and I am somehow ready and able to express them.<br /><br />If the Armour impedes THAT ability, I'll go cold-turkey on everything!<br /><br />More soon. JW, June 17, 08<br /><br /><br />The following entry posted June 23, 08: more about Armour Thyroid and my response to it:<br /><br />It's been a good six days. I feel more present. My friends tell me, "Jessica, you're more present!" They say I smell better too. I sure feel better.<br /><br />Synthroid (Levothyroxine) seemed to be a "sharp, edgy drug", kind of like doing cocaine. The energy had a false sense to it, as if it were empty. I felt empty after being on it for awhile. I'm praying that this won't happen with Armour. I am realizing that this is a serious health issue, and that I am very lucky to have such support... and such and amenable doctor.<br /><br />I am having a little trouble with sleeping, and I sometimes seem to just purr with energy, but it's been years since I've purred, so that's a good thing. My playing is definitely benefiting.<br /><br />At a recent small concert in Portland, I had quite a few folks tell me how healthy and well I looked. This was quite a change from the usual "gee, you look tired" refrain. And I played well, too. A few weird clunkers. As my friend Diane says, "you're not perfect, and that's why people love you so much." I hope she's right. I definitely am not perfect.<br /><br />It'll be a few more weeks before I really know anything for sure, and five weeks until my next blood panel. I'm feeling optimistic about this. I've had quite a few friends who are on Armour tell me that I'll start to get better now. They were right about the drug itself; at least that's my perception so far. It's softer, more real. I feel more like ME. That's a good thing, too. - JW, June 23, 08<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-63356591891218487922008-07-31T15:43:00.001-07:002008-07-31T15:43:58.461-07:00[These are the Liners for a new solo album, Deep Monk]<br /><br />I just finished what I think will be a major release. It'll be everything I said I'd never do. Firstly, it's a tribute album, a nearly unforgivable grievance to me, as I am as iconoclastic as one can get when it comes to originality ...there's only one me. And, to exacerbate matters, it's a tribute album dedicated to the legacy and the music and the person whom I would, at other times, least likely choose to honor, Thelonious Sphere Monk, because his music seems beyond the reach of a tribute. His music is so monumental, so strikingly original, so intimate and personal, that I had promised myself to steer clear of even playing an occasional composition by him.<br /><br />Not too many years ago, critics had "accused" me of sounding too much like him. I suppose my insecurity was showing in those days: I responded to the accusations by not playing his music very often, if at all. But that didn't stop the critics, those "experts" who had somehow decided that I either sounded like this or that female pianist (because, after all, female pianists must all sound alike for some reason known only to male critics) or that I sounded like Thelonious Sphere Monk because I liked the sound of inverted and flatted tenths or sharp ninths or whatever they're called (I don't know what to call any of those things ...I just play them.)<br /><br />In retrospect, the critics were probably right, up to a point. About three decades ago I got so lost in his music that, at times, I started to sound like his spirit-sister. It's all I could hear for years, and I think it cost me time in the developing my own personal style. My compositions from that period are remarkably similar in structure and (a)tonality to his. And recordings of mine from that period still remind me of him. He was one of my most powerful teachers when it came to jazz - a word I've come to avoid whenever possible, a word that I'm starting to realize is as unavoidable for me as breathing - and this was long before the massive searing fire-brand of John Coltrane settled in my soul, to be later tempered by the equally colossal but gentler Glenn Gould.<br /><br />That I should be torn, influence-wise, between the triple-threat described above is, in retrospect, just like me. At sixty, I can see through the veil now, or at least my own. I can understand that I wasn't looking for anything or anyone but myself. But there were questions: how do I maintain the talent I have for genuine musical wit, loving Erroll Garner as I do, while being as serious as a heart-attack (which I suppose explains my fascination and incorporation of the viscerally mind-boggling sheets of sound and soul-reaching quest of a true Seeker of God, like 'Trane) and still stay as recklessly fearless as Evil Knievel in my improvisations? After all, playing the piano perfectly is akin to living perfectly ...practically impossible when doing so at maximum potential with all the stops out and the pedal to the metal. These and other elements of personality and character helped form, over many years, my own style. It's recognizable to anyone that has an ear for music. Most people know it's me on the radio after just a few notes. It's an amalgamation of everyone I love and everyone I've been musically touched by.<br /><br />Whether I like it or not, I am influenced by a trinity of three giants: John Coltrane, Glenn Gould, and yes, Thelonious Sphere Monk. Imagine finding three more disparate and dissimilar influences to absorb and synthesize.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Many years have passed since I've seen myself as a part of the "jazz world". I and it never saw eye to eye on a wide range of things, and, as I grew older and stopped participating in the "universal hang" necessary to "get gigs", I fell off the map. I stopped drinking, gave up smoking. I wrote more essays and poetry, I learned Internet protocols including HTML, and I became healthier and healthier, both mentally and physically. At the piano, I played better and better, faster and faster, and deeper than I had ever thought possible. Still the incurable optimist, I had thought that jazz was about MUSIC and that life was about GROWTH and DISCOVERY and achieving one's own highest POTENTIAL.<br /><br />I still believe that, but I am continually disappointed at the reality of the "jazz world" and it's inability to organize, communicate, and stand up for a set, any set, of core values.<br /><br />So, disconnected from the center of jazz by the exclusionary policies of too many of its participants (mainly the promoters and recording executives, as opposed to the musicians themselves), I followed my own very clear inner muse. I wrote hundreds of pieces and recorded nearly as many discs. In my spare time I wrote articles on my Internet blog, articles with names like The Jazz Cartels and The Discriminating Gatekeepers, and watched (and listened) in muted amazement as poorly equipped, marginally talented technicians became well-known (sic) jazz stars, propelled by the money of investment bankers and bureaucratic administrators who would occasionally decide to make a CD or put on a "jazz festival", their equivalent of an alcohol-drenched barbeque, replete with scantily-clad groupies and an inner circle of politically-correct participants. Having stopped drinking and smoking so many years ago, I just didn't "fit in". The old adage "most deals are cut at the bar" may be true still, but it's an unsavory truth, and one I won't bend to.<br /><br />So, when I heard people say, "I hate jazz", I'd say, "I can't blame you", because every time I turned on a jazz radio station, I was very very sorry. You can't just up and listen to Coltrane's A Love Supreme or Monk's CrissCross or Gould's Goldberg Variations and then expect to bear the play-lists concocted by radio program directors with degrees in business administration.<br /><br />For awhile, "jazz" was a bad word altogether for me. The word's most obvious derivations (jis, jism, jissom) alone are off-putting. And it came, over the years of its undeniable decline, to represent discrimination, androcentric peer-bonding, cliques, and fashionable, mean-spirited "hipness", all things that make me mildly ill. Its pervasive and stubbornly persistent unwelcoming attitude towards women has always deeply disturbed me, and I had no time for any kind of prejudice, having played with Philly Joe Jones and having watched him enter venues - where he played his royal music - through their kitchen or rear service entrance. I always went in with him, through whatever door he had to go through. I loathe prejudice, and the "jazz world" allows too much of it to flourish, unchallenged. If the jazz business were Microsoft, Apple would have had a 97 percent market-share years ago.<br /><br />And then, recently, there came a day when I started to play, alone, in my house, on my concert grand. I played a lot that day, maybe 12 or 14 hours. I didn't eat. It was very late by the time I got around to playing some Monk tunes. And I'll say this without ego: no one on earth plays Monk as I do. It is all too true. Not only his compositions, which anyone with sufficient pianistic skill can do, but his style, his take on things, his view, his ear, his rhythmic lope, his train of thought, his immersion in idea, his fixation, his perplexity, his audacity, his wry (or dry) humor, his homespun blues underpinnings, his way of pausing to fall into a chord, his flat-fingering (which isn't so flat when you get to know it), his refusal to bow to sets of rules, his way of making the wrong notes right, and making the right notes sound wrong, his way of bending a note, his full and arguably over-use of whole-tone scales, his time density and mastery (you can set your watch to him), and his distaste for "perfection".<br /><br />We had just moved, and the piano was just a little bit "out of tune" ...but this would not have stopped Monk from playing, nor did it stop me. This was not about the perfect sound on the perfectly tuned piano with the perfect microphone placement and the perfect pollen count. This was about finding my way back home again. This was about the music in my blood, the blood that carried the strains of The Monk, like the genetic markers of some biologically shared familial characteristic.<br /><br />The first tune here, his rustic waltz "Ugly Beauty", is a good example of all that follows. It's all in the reading, all in the way you play it. It's not what you play; it's what you don't play, and the way you play what you do play. It's not all these words, that's for sure.<br /><br />I don't know why it's so easy for me to do this. I never studied his - or anyone's - music. I never sat down and figured it out. I heard his chords while others couldn't. They made sense to me and I heard them. And what I can hear, I can play.<br /><br />After playing his tunes for awhile, what happens to me is this: I start to apply his approach to other tunes not written by him. I can take his approach and make it mine. I think he runs deeply through everything I've played or written for the past three decades. "The Monk runs deep..." That's what someone said once. They were right. I caught a case of The Monk and I still have it. It mutates, as do all powerful viruses. It withstands time and it resists treatment. It won't go away. It's my legacy.<br /><br />It's like being bitten by one of those vampires. You're his forever. You live your own life, but sometimes, when the moon is full and it's just you and that piano, you drink the blood, you do what's natural for you.<br /><br />"Ah ...listen to them. Children of the Night. What beautiful music they make."<br /><br />They were the Count Dracula's words, delivered with magnificent aplomb by the great Bela Lugosi. Somehow they fit here. Monk is the Count. He is thousands of years old. He is indestructible, undeniable. He is in my blood. His malarial presence is unfathomably deep in my living tissue. He runs really deep. He is Monk, and I can't deny his influence. His music is my music. Ours, all of us, but mine especially. When you have a gift like this, it can't be terminated by a thought or a word or a whole campaign. It's just time to play some Monk, whenever the time is right, whenever he beckons.<br /><br />He is timeless. he lives on in me and in many others. In me, he takes on clearly audible form. He inhabits me. His blood is my blood. I will play his music 'round midnight. I am a Child of the Night.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Let it be noted that I'm fully aware that Monk is dead. Long live Monk. I am not Monk, I am me, Jessica Williams. I am one of the last of my kind as Monk was the last of his. Only those of us who lived those years and those nights know what horrible sadness and brilliant, terrible joy was in the air. We walked through fire, we breathed the intoxicating acid of our times, we - those of us who survived - will never ever be the same. We are one. Whether some virulently racist and sexist critics - or even musicians - deny the possibility, there is that Truth among us who have lived it: it was truly the Music of Freedom. There were no barriers.<br /><br />It must become so again.<br /><br />Years after Monk had passed away, I played a concert in San Francisco with his tenor sax player, the great Charlie Rouse (to whom my composition The House That Rouse Built was dedicated). On the resultant album, Epistrophy (on Landmark-Fantasy), I can be heard playing Blue Monk with Charlie. Weeks later, Charlie would be dead, and that album would be released as a memorial concert. I can't remember the year, nor do I want to. But I remember the day. October 10th. The day Monk was born.<br /><br />And, when I joined the band of saxophone innovator Eddie Harris for awhile, our bass player just happened to be the incredible Larry Gales. He had been Monk's bassist for years! Monk and I seemed to be members of the same karass (a term coined by writer Kurt Vonnegut, meaning "an unintentional but unavoidable extended family") or at least distant relatives of some non-terrestrial sort, beyond ancestry and beyond the limits of mundane lineage.<br /><br />On Deep Monk, you'll hear me sound a lot like Monk at times. It's not me trying to sound like Monk. I'm not thinking here at all. It's death to music when you think. I never once tried to "sound like Monk". It's not possible to do that. It's me being inside of Monk and of Monk being inside of me. It's that way with all of the spirits inside of me. We inhabit each other, we grow together, we share the universal song of earth; the song of life itself. It is of no concern to me whether this or that "expert" takes exception with my words here or my music there. Where there is no gift, where there is no experience, where there is no blood, where there is no love, there will always be "experts".<br /><br />A friend, upon hearing Deep Monk for the first time, exclaimed, "Wow! It sounds like a 1950 Prestige recording of Monk!"<br /><br />There could be no higher compliment.<br /><br />This is simply my highest, most immaculate compliment to one of my greatest teachers, the true teller of tales, the man whose musical spirit will flow through my veins until I die, his blood and my blood conjoined, the one and only Thelonious Sphere Monk.<br /><br />JW, 08<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-30892365212270012602008-06-10T03:53:00.000-07:002008-06-12T13:19:06.498-07:00 John Coltrane"I want to be a force for good. I know there are bad forces here that bring suffering to others and misery to the world, but I want to be the force which is truly good." - John Coltrane<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-36094216268601641142008-05-24T17:43:00.000-07:002008-05-27T17:47:05.369-07:00My new pianoI bought my new piano from Classic Pianos in Portland, Oregon. I'll be playing a concert there on the 21st of June, 2008. My new piano is a 7'6" Conservatory Concert Grand, refitted with Renner Blue Hammers, and is a 1984 Yamaha, adjusted to my specifications. My conservatory chair, cut to spec, is 14" off the floor. <br /><br />Not a Steinway, you may whisper. Sorry, folks, Steinway has been a lot sloppy lately, but I'll say no more about their fine company and their wonderful instruments. Let's not forget that Gould himself chose a Yamaha over all other models and makes of pianos to 'replace' his irreplaceable CD318. And the great pianist Chick Corea plays a Yamaha, as does the piano genius Alan Broadbent<br /><br />I played it all day today and there is nothing I can say right now. It is my love, my lost love. It is come home to me. It is mine forever. I have never loved a piano. This one I fell in love with almost the minute I played it. It took about four minutes, actually. I notice that already my playing is changing. My lines are cleaner and speedier. I raised the chair one inch. I want that machine-gun like clarity that can only come when the dampers seat immediately and the hammers and action are even and regulated. Even now, without a tuning or a touch-up, having just been moved 150 miles, it sounds so wonderful, and feels like that too.<br /><br />It was my search for the Grail, for my own CD318.<br /><br />Every few years I would start looking again. I was never satisfied with the instruments I wound up with. I'm lucky in that they seem to come to me, brand new, at little or no cost. This is not because I have any arrangement with a piano maker. Indeed, most manufacturers eschew having pianists represent their brands, as far as I know. I don't think that any but the most famous artists are supplied with pianos, and I'm not so sure that Steinway does that at all anymore, after the indignities heaped upon them (and rightly so) by Gould.<br /><br />It's always made me a bit crazy, knowing that Monk, and Bud Powell, and so many other great musicians went for years without instruments in their house. Many of these masters also went without houses. I was years without an instrument, myself, as were many of my esteemed associates. But quite a few years ago, my life took a turn. Rather, I turned it, by getting out of clubs, by becoming clean and free of alcohol and tobacco, by rediscovering my passion for GREAT music as opposed to pedestrian jazz music, and by nurturing my natural, innate ability to make audiences weep with joy as opposed to providing them with nearly free and usually recognizable (if unusually inventive) "jazz party music" - to the strains of which they might get loaded and lucky.<br /><br />So it's no surprise to me or anyone else that discovering how a piano's action affects my creative process is quite a new interest for me. Suddenly, in my sixth decade, I'm concerned with fall-boards, and key velocity, and touch, and "the ledge". Where I would play any instrument without complaint in my youth, now I'm very hard to please when it comes to pianos.<br /><br />I've written down a few things that I like:<br /><br />I like a swift, soft, sure action, even from bottom to top. I don't like pianos that feel like Ford trucks. "Like a rock". Or is that Chevy? Whatever it is, it should never apply to pianos. I shouldn't have to be an athlete to play a swift passage. I shouldn't have to exert much physical energy to accomplish ANY task at a piano, other than to clean it or move it. It needs to be without discernable resistance. I know this goes against all the theories that one can get more dynamics if one has a wider range of "striking power"...<br /><br />A piano, like a little dog, should never be struck. It should be caressed and teased and held and played with and trained, and, like a little dog, it should be full of life and able to get around just fine on its own power.<br /><br />I also hate pianos that growl and scream. Steinway is known for its "growling bass".<br /><br />Growling should be reserved for circus animals and professional wrestlers. I don't want a piano that growls at me or anyone else. Screaming is equally upsetting. The glassy tinkle of the high treble of some Steinways makes my brain hurt. Yamahas used to be guilty of that but the company is learning. The high end should be bell-like, even thin. Thin like clear, clean air at an elevation, not thin like aluminum foil.<br /><br />At many concerts, I play with the lid fully closed. Lots of attendees and - more specifically - most promoters are horrified at this "break" from tradition. To have spent all of that money for something so big, and then, to have little me just amble in, and close the lid, as if the concert were over and I not yet having played a note. It's the metaphorical equivalent of having cold water dashed in their face.<br /><br />Which brings me to a major gripe about pianos. All of them.<br /><br />They should all be played, at all times, even during "thunderous" passages, with the soft pedal down, depressed, nailed to the floor.<br /><br />The single most annoying thing about pianos is the inability for all of those strings to stay in tune all of the time, much less through a performance. Two strings per note, from lower treble to the absolute top of the register, is enough.<br /><br />By depressing the soft pedal, the keyboard of a grand piano will - should - shift, and the hammer should hit only TWO strings. It sounds more sonorous, more pure. It has a clarity and a singing quality and a purity that three strings drown out. Three strings rarely can be tuned to produce such beauty, such lovely clear singing.<br /><br />Three strings per note on the middle and upper register of any piano is a superfluous and nefarious roadblock, serving only to detract from the beautiful sounds that might emerge, were the instrument allowed to bypass all of the conflicting transient overtones created by three strings per note. One too many.<br /><br />I am waiting for someone to make a piano with one string throughout the bass for each note, and two for each other note on the lower-mid, mid, and upper end. That will be a piano. With an action as fast as light, and less strings, the piano would become a truer, more playable, and more tunable instrument. More adjustable to the player.<br /><br />Why should the player have to adjust to the piano, especially when you consider the cost of a decent one?<br /><br />There was historical precedence for the madness of stuffing so many strings into such a small space. One imagines that some idiot tried four, and yes, probably five strings at once. Thinking on this for a moment, I'm sure of that, having lived long enough to understand the excesses that over-zealous, power-mad, self-appointed experts are capable of and given to.<br /><br />The historical precedence was a) the use of the triceps and biceps, along with the quadriceps and other angular anatomical anomalies, usually ending in "ceps", that some men seem so fond of, to create great storms of sound, literal crashing cascades of notes played at the highest volume possible: think of the word thunderous - think of the concept of sturm und drang - think of the pouring forth of the passion of a tormented soul - all very noisy affairs... and b) the decision to put one orchestra (the piano) in front of another orchestra (the orchestra) and call it piano and orchestra.<br /><br />"Also Sprach Zarathustra", and thus spoke history. It had nothing to do with music as we would have known it, had cooler heads (such as Bach's, or mine) prevailed.<br /><br />The power of the symphony is a beautiful thing when it is used in its own setting, namely, as a solo entity. Nothing can touch the violin for sounding out above an out-of-control symphony orchestra's most mortally offensive din.<br /><br />Take Rimski-Korsakoff's Sheherazade. Give me Yasha Heifitz playing it with the New York Philharmonic, conducted, at a snail's pace - which is its correct pace - by Lenny Bernstein. Put a nine-foot Steinway-D out in front and you've just put training-wheels on a freight train.<br /><br />And I feel that way about jazz, too.<br /><br />If only Bill Evans had been left to his own devices, sans the "interplay of his great trio" that, at times, became a hash of egotistical BS approaching the calamity of ten accordions improvising at once, in different keys!<br /><br />When he played solo, it was about touch and song and drama and pain and joy. It was about romance and sorrow and longing. It was music from his heart. Introspective, quiet, simple, tragic, mellifluous, delicately lovely beyond any words.<br /><br />When he played with that one cursed trio (you know, the one that the critics revere most highly; the one with the tragedy and the dying early and the miserable breakup) it was enough to wake Davy Jones and send him paddling frantically up to the surface to see what the hell was making that awful rattling.<br /><br />So there you have it. Pianists trying to play as loudly as bassists with amplifiers that go up to eleven (just like in Spinal Tap) and drummers who, like practiced skeet-shooters, are adept at blowing every single important note that a pianist may play clean out of the air. Pull! Pull!<br /><br />Pianists<br /><br />I said once, years ago, on the notes to an album of mine, that "I was a musician first, and as much of a pianist as I needed to be to express myself adequately."<br /><br />Gould said it better (no surprise there): "I have no great love for the piano. But since it is the instrument with which I am most familiar, it is the one I choose to play to express my music."<br /><br />I couldn't agree more. With the near-infinite shortcomings of the piano (the mere size and weight is daunting enough) who wouldn't long for the wonder, the sheer joy, of playing the same instrument that you learned on as a child? Particularly if it was a good instrument?<br /><br />I learned on a Kimball upright. My daddy bought it for me in 1954 or '55. I was six or seven. I had been playing piano at my grandma's house since I was an early four (or a late three) and was addicted already. Abducted is a more fitting term. Every day I begged him for a piano. He got drunk one night and came home proudly brandishing an accordion. Of course, I wanted him to die, slowly and painfully (which he did, in due course, but not right then.) He broke down eventually, being the sentimental, music-loving, weekend-alcoholic, essentially good-natured man that I convinced myself he was (by the time I was thirty) and bought me the Kimball. A thousand dollars! In 1954!!! It WAS a fine instrument. At least it seemed so to me!<br /><br />It was mahogany. It was a bit less than five feet high. It had three pedals. Yes, it had a soft pedal, but that soft pedal moved the hammers closer to the strings. On a grand, the soft pedal would mute the cursed third string. But I was too young and stupid to know about third strings or my looming distaste for them. The middle pedal sustained bass notes only. A weird affair. But I found that, by using it instead of the sustain for fast passages, it created a reverb-like effect. It was like playing in a hall.<br /><br />And I disassembled that piano, as I have done to all pianos since. I took the top and front off to gain access to the strings. I took the lower front off (that part UNDER the keys, on an upright) and laid it on the floor under my left foot. I needed a drummer, and that left foot became the hi-hat foot. Even in 5/4 time, that left foot was going on 2 and 4 and 6 and 8 and 10. All by itself.<br /><br />That little Kimball held up until I left home, at the age of - was it sixteen? Yes, I suppose it was. I played it to death, and I always pretended that I was playing to a full house. Off to my right, where the living room was, there were at least a thousand people, listening to every note. And, by the time I was twelve, I was burning up the road.<br /><br />I would put on recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet, and play along with Philly Joe Jones and Paul Chambers. (I might've died right then and there had someone told me that, in less than 20 years, I'd actually be playing on a real stage in front of real people with Philly Joe Jones (!) and his band, of which I had become a member!)<br /><br />But back then, there I was, alone, in my house, playing the piano, at the age of eleven or twelve.<br /><br />Of course, no one was there to hear me. But my dreams all came true, and, years later, I played for the Crowned Heads of England and the Bald Heads of Charles Street ( a very, very old joke, at least where I'm from) ... but the England part came true, too. The last time I was there, at Brecon, I was invited into the country by the Home Office. I think the Queen may have some pull there. It was an honor to be expected and greeted at Heathrow as "Ms Williams, the prominent pianist from America."<br /><br />(Now we simply need to impress that upon the Americans.)<br /><br />My European audiences have been large, devoted, and enthusiastic. I never wanted to be famous, and am not capable of being delusional enough to believe myself so. Musicians, particularly serious musicians, are rarely famous in the traditional sense. Princess Di was famous. Any American President is famous. Elvis Presley and the Beatles were famous. There are also serial killers that are made famous by the press. But you have to be crazy to want to be famous!<br /><br />And rich does not necessarily go with famous. Matter-of-fact, most times, the two words are not attached even remotely. In reality, the world's most creative people are very often NOT terribly well-to-do, and sometimes, they're even living in poverty. Lots of Americans seem utterly amazed to hear about this.<br /><br />If you hear a person's music on the radio, don't assume that they live in a mansion and have a butler and a maid and sixteen bathrooms. I have to muddle along with one (bathroom, that is) and (gasp) no servants at all! The up-side to all of this is that it's tremendously fulfilling to do what you love. And you can only use one bathroom at a time.<br /><br />Anyway, if you run into a jazz musician who tells you that they're famous, look at them askew. Do you really think that anyone down at your local Safeway or WalMart will know who they are? Do they? If they do, run.<br /><br />We do not become musicians to make money or to be famous. We become musicians to make MUSIC. Perhaps this is why so MANY musicians make so LITTLE music.<br /><br />The pianists that move me in deep ways are usually the ones who don't TRY to be pianists. (Alan Broadbent is one great musician.) Trying to be a great pianist is ridiculous. Trying to be ANYTHING is ridiculous. We are or we aren't. I am a musician. It is the thing my body does in its sleep, at rest.<br /><br />I play in my dreams, or I am always trying to get to the performance on time. This may not be a good thing as viewed by a specialist in dream symbolism, but to me it usually indicates that I'm not working nearly enough. Which I never am, because I refuse to grovel, and I refuse to compromise, and, the older I get, the less time I have for games. I've devoted my life to exploring solo playing. If a promoter calls me and TELLS me I must play with a band, I am usually not amenable to that sort of thing (and that's putting it mildly). I'll play with others when I want to, not when I'm told to. That's in my music, that kind of obstinacy that refuses compromise.<br /><br />That's why I am seduced by Monk. That's why I positively adore Gould. That's why I don't care much for many of the younger "cult" pianists who are more concerned with speed and appearance than with substance and moral courage.<br /><br />That's why I find the music of Keith Jarrett so hard to write about. Music SHOULD BE hard to write about, by the way. Jarrett is at times the greatest pianist in the world, and at others he may be among the worst. THAT, I find enthralling and captivating. USEFUL. I find nothing useful in billions of notes spun out by millions of tiny flying fingers, in thousands of universities and institutions and halls of academia, not to mention concert halls, all over the planet, on any given average day.<br /><br />The state of art and music - both being roughly the same thing - is deplorable, and has never been what one would deem acceptable by any but the most base standards. Mediocrity is everywhere, and it is the rule.<br /><br />To be mediocre, one needs do nothing except to do what everyone else is doing. I think that's just fine, and it's why you won't find me around anywhere, not in a jazz bar, drinking and smoking and taking drugs and acting hip, trying to look 39 when I know I'm 60. I won't dye my hair. I won't wear silly, constricting garments that are impediments to movement. I won't try to look happy when I'm sad, and I won't try to act healthy when I'm ill. I will not try to act interested when I'm bored, and I won't say I like something when I actually abhor it.<br /><br />Consequently, I am attracted to those artists, those very few artists, whose art offends. I am attracted to musicians who are controversial and not well-liked or universally loved. They must be magnificent. More than competent, and more than great. They must be profound. They must cross and effectively traverse, and even erase the line between life and death. That is the line between art and life. I won't settle for good or even great. It must be pure TRUTH I am hearing. For me, a few of the well-known musicians who have most often accomplished this are Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Keith Jarrett, and Glenn Gould.<br /><br />I have been near death for so many years, and I have lived so close to it and crossed the line so often in my dreams AND in my waking state that it is now impossible for me to bend to the pressure of other human beings to be a certain way, to look or act or play or think or believe or behave a certain way. I can not be friends with just anyone, and I can not play with just anyone. And I can NOT just listen to anyone.<br /><br />I am now re-crafting my music so that I may listen to it again. It is hard to call myself a pianist, because there is so much I can NOT do and so much I DO NOT know. I DO know that I am a musician, and I am that always.<br /><br />I am now working at becoming a pianist, preferably one that I'll enjoy listening to.<br /><br />Hypothyroidism for Dummies:<br /><br />Being so sick for so long is not something I easily put behind me. It's left marks all over my consciousness, and changed me drastically. I won't be doing things that I did, and I will be doing things that I never did. It gave me perspective, and I have good days and bad days and some days that are just "blah" days, but I never have days that are cluttered with indecision about my art. Not any more. There's only one direction for me to take now, and it is like those lines that Trudell writes about. "Straight ahead and strive for tone." as my favorite bassist Ray Drummond always says.<br /><br />[postscript: for all of their faults, six cds of mine that I made while I was ill all seem to stand up very well to my repeated listening of them. Songs for a New Century, Prophets, Deep Monk, and Tatum's Ultimatum are some favorites. I particularly have a soft spot for Songs for a New Century, as it is almost a see-through entity, as transparent as glass, as delicate as an exotic jellyfish. Every note is not right, but every note is revealing. It's probably the most revealing album I've ever made, almost embarrassingly so, and so I must love it the most. The other two have similar properties. Blood Music, being mostly electronic and very modern, is one of my favorites, but I'm wild about technology and know that it won't have appeal to a "purist" of any camp. It also seems to be an anti-war statement somehow, but it became that without any conscious help from me. Finally, Vital Signs, my way of challenging myself to a duel, was and is a success, except that we shall never know who won.]<br /><br />I'm now happy. The new piano is wonder, a charm. A magnificent sweep of wood and cloth and iron, built by Japanese craftsmen before the advent of out-sourcing and price-gouging.<br /><br />As Gould remarked to his technician, "Verne, I have never played a piano with such even touch and clarity of line." He was speaking of a Yamaha Grand. He played so fast that, at times, no piano could keep up with him. Only his Steinway CD318 and the Yamaha (almost the exact same model as mine, Renner hammers and all) that he bought later in life, came close.<br /><br />I think I have found my beloved CD318.<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-6527132483687850662008-02-16T01:08:00.001-08:002008-02-16T04:12:34.719-08:00Playing the PianoWhen 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I could not ever use a bench or stool again.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />It is the single biggest and best thing that I have ever done to improve my piano playing.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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".<br /><br />I use all three pedals, and the middle pedal is as important as the sustain pedal is.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.]<br /><br />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.<br /><br />-<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Putting the piano in a straight line, parallel to the stage, is the right way, the formal, and correct way.<br /><br />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?<br /><br />About Travel<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Boardroom passes are expensive (usually 3-400 dollars a year) but they are worth every penny. Particularly when your flight is delayed or canceled.<br /><br />When you get to flying a lot, you'll find that certain things become very important. One is hydration.<br /><br />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:<br /><br />"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.<br /><br />So hydration after a long haul is very important, as is sleep.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.]<br /><br />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.<br /><br />No aspersions on the great city of Birmingham.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />The performance<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Sometimes I'll just play. Improvise, make things up. Sometimes those are the best segments.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />And I try to never put two pieces together that are in the same key. That's an obvious one.<br /><br />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!<br /><br />[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.]<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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)<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />The Courage to die, onstage and otherwise<br /><br />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:<br /><br />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.<br /><br />In Tales of Power by Carlos Castenada, Don Juan admonishes Carlos:<br /><br />"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."<br /><br />So I work without a net now, and more and more people want to see and hear me do that.<br /><br />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".<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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 <a href="http://www.jessicawilliams.com/shop.html">here</a>.<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-85620077048046201082008-02-16T01:06:00.002-08:002008-02-16T01:07:41.261-08:00Songs for a New CenturyMy new CD for Origin Arts, street date around Apr 22, 2008<br /><br />"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!"<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />These observations are generalizations, but I mention them here because they comprise the primary colors and keys of "Songs for a New Century".<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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!<br /><br />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!<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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!<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Intention:<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />And of popcorn.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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:<br /><br />"And, in the end, the love you take<br />is equal to the love you make."<br /><br />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!<br /><br />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.<br /><br />It's my way to finally start off this Century.<br /><br /> -<br /><br />Press Release:<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />"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!<br /><br />"Songs for a New Century"<br />1 Empathy (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)<br />2 Toshiko (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)<br />3 Fantasia (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)<br />4 Song for a Baby (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)<br />5 Blessing in Disguise (Sonny Rollins)<br />6 Lament (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)<br />7 Dear Oscar (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)<br />8 Spoken Softly (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)<br />9 If Only (Jessica WIlliams, JJW MUSIC ASCAP)<br />Total time: 1:00:57<br />ALL TRACKS recorded during the last 2 weeks of Jan 2008, direct to disc, 2-track stereo<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-81719524995016252922008-02-16T01:06:00.001-08:002008-02-16T01:20:40.584-08:00Glenn GouldLately 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<br /><br />Prepare to be mesmerized.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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".<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I have either moved away from it or it has moved away from me.<br /><br />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...<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />It was beauty pure and untarnished. To me.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I should insert here that I have always lowered the bench to it's absolute lowest position.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />I have found that this position is breaking up old playing patterns and creating new ones.<br /><br />It not only enhances touch and accuracy: it causes one to be very close to the keys without slouching.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />The WAY in which I touch the piano changed immediately. It's like a different instrument.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />I never know where it will take me. We never know that, do we?<br /><br />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.<br /><br />All I can say with any certainty is that listening to Glenn Gould has changed me in some fundamental way, at least for now.<br /><br />And I need to let that happen.<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-76390465290503835302008-02-16T01:04:00.000-08:002008-02-16T01:21:46.318-08:00About my dog Watson and his passingThis has been the most difficult, most painful, and most instructive holiday season of my life.<br /><br />And it has been the happiest.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Sometimes it really is time to die.<br /><br />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).<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />He also did a blood panel.<br /><br />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).<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I had been playing the piano and chanting for Watson's health.<br /><br />I discovered the call at 11:30 am, and called Dr Miller immediately.<br /><br />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?<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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!)<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />We were elated.<br /><br />-<br /><br />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!<br /><br />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)...<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I am amazed at many many things, and I am also humbled, inspired, overcome, enraged, awed.<br /><br />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'.<br /><br />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?<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Life is a treasure beyond price, and Watson has taught me that it is worth the fight.<br /><br />The squirrels are not sleeping quite so soundly tonight, I think.<br /><br />To Dr Miller<br />This is an expression<br />of gratitude<br />for such a valiant man<br />who would give his<br />greatest effort<br />and use his blessed gift<br />to preserve this life-<br />to value this life-<br />to understand the<br />importance of a soul<br />so guileless and innocent<br />as our noblest and most<br />revered friend, Watson.<br />With our deepest<br />appreciation.<br /><br />12.30.04<br /><br />The Little Dog Update:<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Meanwhile, even the kitty is relieved. Kayla really loves her dog; she just feigns disgust and disapproval, because he's... well... a dog!<br /><br />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.<br /><br />-<br /><br />And today (1.10.05) was so sad.<br /><br />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:<br /><br />'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.<br /><br />'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.<br /><br />'Shalom and bless you - Jessica'<br /><br />-<br /><br />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:<br /><br />'GO, Watson!'<br /><br />-<br /><br />Update 1.21.05<br /><br />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.<br /><br /><br /><br />Update 2.2.05<br /><br />Watson passes quietly in our arms (with the vets assistance). We grieve.<br /><br />b 7-17-91, d 2-2-05<br /><br />(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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />This is not about love. Watson was about love. We need to strive for that in our lives.<br /><br />Being driven by love, there can be no fear.<br /><br />-<br /><br />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.'<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I just miss him.<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-56536371363407882462008-02-16T01:03:00.000-08:002008-02-16T01:22:36.716-08:00The healer got sickThe healer got sick. The healer got tired.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Andi said this:<br /><br />"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."<br /><br />-<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />My tiredness was more profound than I may ever be able to describe.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Unbelievable fatigue.<br /><br />And the really scary stuff isn't so scary, because, when you're this tired, not much scares you!<br /><br />It turns out that I have hypothyroidism. Mine is not not a mild form. My thyroid is dead as a door-nail.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Hello, Levothyroxin.<br /><br />Goodbye, thyroid gland.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I've been dealing with a whole laundry list of symptoms:<br /><br />Weakness<br />Fatigue<br />Cold intolerance<br />Constipation or diahrea<br />Weight gain<br />Depression<br />Joint and muscle pain<br />Thin, brittle fingernails<br />Thin brittle hair<br />Paleness<br />Slow speech<br />Dry flaky skin<br />Puffy face, hands and feet<br />Decreased taste and smell<br />Thinning of eyebrows<br />Hoarseness<br />Overall swelling<br />Muscle spasms and cramps<br />Muscle atrophy<br />Uncoordinated movement<br />Joint stiffness<br />Hair loss<br />Drowsiness<br />Appetite loss<br />Ankle, feet, and leg swelling<br />The inability to deal with record producers<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Here's an excerpt from an interview that Keith Jarrett did with Terry Gross on Fresh Air (my interview with her is here):<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Ms Gross: What about the mental focus, though, to figure out what the skeleton is--where it is?<br /><br />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.<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-14550942491513848462008-02-16T00:59:00.002-08:002008-02-16T01:23:02.109-08:00...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.)<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />-<br /><br />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?<br /><br />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?<br /><br />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.<br /><br />And somewhere between the sobs, you start to understand.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Later you think of the shooting star that you and your mate saw streaming across the sky, the night after the morning he died.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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:<br /><br />There is no value in anything if there is no love.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />You've learned this, all of this, from a Little Dog. And yes, there really was a shooting star. - JW 2.16.05<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-45166184154110180262008-02-16T00:59:00.001-08:002008-02-16T01:25:09.683-08:00Stream of ConsciousnessWhere does the Music I play come from?<br /><br />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.<br /><br />But it's not really responsible for my clarity of expression.<br /><br />Yes, I practice. But I never do it too much.<br /><br />Sometimes I play 14 or 16 hours straight at home. Then there are days I don't play at all. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I wonder about the desert sometimes, though. A different kind of beauty. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />I don't rush that beat. THE TIME IS SACROSANCT.<br /><br />It's the bedrock of jazz, of all great music.<br /><br />Am I afraid to go out in front of a thousand people and play poorly?<br /><br />No.<br /><br />Everyone has 'one of those days.'<br /><br />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.'<br /><br />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. <br /><br />It's also called the 'luminous ground'. <br /><br />It's worth the wait and it's worth the risk.<br /><br />It gets old just playing what you KNOW. I get old playing what I know. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />People are really way nicer than the media would have us believe.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />If you have 19 BMW's, you are probably NOT as OK as you might think.<br /><br />I don't think too much of those Bosendorfers with the 97 keys. It's like owning two swimming pools. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />-<br /><br />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.<br /><br />No harm done. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />One such lie is that of racial superiority.<br /><br />It's pretty obvious that our country has a long way to go before anything like racial parity and equality is reached.<br /><br />Martin Luther King's great speech<br /><br />He speaks of Jews and Gentiles, White and Black, ALL of the world's people. Getting together. Loving one another. <br /><br />His dream is MY dream. It is the dream of billions of people.<br /><br />When I play, I'm told that lots of people can HEAR what I believe. Just by listening.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />I hear it in Beethoven.<br /><br />I think the Music is my way of working for FREEDOM.<br /><br />MY MUSIC IS MY MINISTRY, I said recently to a packed house in Yakima, Washington. I said that again in Seattle.<br /><br />I said it last year at the Kennedy Center, and I'll probably say it this year when I'm there.<br /><br />-<br /><br />Cannonball Adderley said this. He said:<br /><br />"I don't much like crowds 'less they came to see old Cannonball."<br /><br />I am DOWN with that!<br /><br />-<br /><br />I found out that George Clooney has back problems. he said so on a talk show.<br /><br />I like him for that.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Take it from someone who knows (about L5-S1 and lamenectomies and paralysis and sciatica...)<br /><br />You can't just take a Vicodin and act normal. It messes with your movements and your balance.<br /><br />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!<br /><br />George Clooney is OK.<br /><br />-<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Good riddance to bad luggage.<br /><br />-<br /><br />I miss The Beatles. I miss Strawberry Fields Forever! <br /><br />"Living is easy with eyes closed,<br />Misunderstanding all you see...<br />it's getting hard to be someone but it all works out...<br />it doesn't matter much to me.<br /><br />Let me take you down, 'cause we're going to...<br />Strawberry Fields...<br />Nothing is real...<br />And there's nothing to get hung about...<br /><br />Strawberry Fields Forever!"<br /><br />Rapper G just doesn't get it for me. No aspersions. <br /><br />-<br /><br />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.<br /><br />His line was, "Les' go rob a bank or suppem'. Ah'm sicka listenin' to these here waves flopping."<br /><br />Flopping. <br /><br />Imagine that. A cinematic moment to remember.<br /><br />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."<br /><br />Worthy of Woody Allen. Great flick. <br /><br />-<br /><br />And I saw The Big Sleep with Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart a few nights ago. It was wonderful.<br /><br />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." <br /><br />They don't write lines like that any more. Nobody would believe them.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />-<br /><br />War is wrong. Torture is wrong. Killing is wrong.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.)<br /><br />Now, at this moment in our history, these words would be considered treasonous.<br /><br />Now, at this moment in our history, these words are considered wrong. <br /><br />So NOW, at this moment in our history, these words are NECESSARY. <br /><br />-<br /><br />I will always play the Music that is in my heart, with all of my heart, and never veer from that course.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.)<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I just let it flow.<br /><br />-<br /><br />Beautiful things everyone should know about: <br /><br />• How cute bulldogs and terriers are when you get to know them.<br /><br />• 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.<br /><br />• 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. <br /><br />• Like a Rolling Stone from 40 years ago, sung by it's writer, singer and poet Bob Dylan, and accompanied by "The Band"...<br /><br />Now you don't talk so loud<br />Now you don't feel so proud<br />After havin' to scrounge up...your last meal...<br /><br />How does it feel?<br />How does it feel?<br />To be on your own?<br />With no direction shown?<br />A complete unknown?<br /><br />Just like a rollin' stone? <br /><br />...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.<br /><br />• That CD Mingus Plays Piano on Impulse <br /><br />• How great it feels to play solo piano for a beautiful, quiet audience, especially if the instrument is one of excellence.<br /><br />• 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. <br /><br />• 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.<br /><br />• Listening to Miles or Coltrane and hearing the intent, seeing the ghosts, feeling the haint (the haunting). Sorcerers.<br /><br />• The Fourth Symphony by Pyotr IlyichTchaikovsky<br /><br />• Sheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov<br /><br />• Any painting by Odd Nerdrum<br /><br />-<br /><br />Do your best<br /><br />When you do something, anything, do your best. Or don't do it.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />You'll fizzle out.<br /><br />I know. I've fizzled more than once. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />The secret to playing? One is don't try. Just do what you do and it will do you back.<br /><br />That's doing your best, no more, no less.<br /><br />And don't eat anything that writhes. <br /><br />-<br /><br />Ghouls<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Hands? We don't play Music with our hands. We play Music with our heart.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Mingus would sing the parts. The musicians would embellish the parts to make a whole. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />A good speaker, a good storyteller will pause for effect, for drama, for reflection. A fool will talk incessantly. And never learn a thing.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />You make noise with other noisemakers.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />If someone comes in to your life and says awful things about others, they will say awful things about you to others, too.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />This is a law, and like any TRUE law, it must be respected. <br /><br />True ART and MUSIC and LIFE = BEAUTY and TRUTH and MAGIC.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />All of this is a part of playing for me. But I never think of it. <br /><br />-<br /><br />March 17th, my birthday<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I can't say I blame them. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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".<br /><br />And then I thought of what I should have said...we all do that.<br /><br />I should have said "thank you, Mel Gibson."<br /><br />Of course, Mel Gibson had just released his big blockbuster The Passion of Christ and it had all the rabid fundamentalists frothing and foaming.<br /><br />I always thought Mel Gibson looked like Pat Metheny. (Or vice-versa).<br /><br />Incidentally, Pat Metheny can really play the guitar. He's a genius. He's just not a diplomat. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />They say he looked like Mel Brooks.<br /><br />(I think that that's just grand. I think it's a perfect look for the Savior of Humanity.)<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />It's just my own Irish guilt at work.<br /><br />And we all know about Irish guilt.<br /><br />-<br /><br />Thank you, Wikipedia, for the info below <br /><br />Births on MARCH 17th<br /><br />1948 - Jessica Williams Citizen of the World (d. not yet) <br /><br />1231 - Emperor Shigeo of Japan (d. 1242)<br /><br />1473 - King James IV of Scotland (d. 1513) <br /><br />1628 - François Girardon, French sculptor (d. 1715)<br /><br />1676 - Thomas Boston, Scottish church leader (d. 1732)<br /><br />1725 - Lachlan McIntosh, Scottish-born American military and political leader (d. 1806)<br /><br />1777 - Roger Taney, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (d. 1864)<br /><br />1780 - Thomas Chalmers, Scottish pastor, social reformer, author, and scientist (d. 1847)<br /><br />1804 - Jim Bridger, American trapper and explorer (d. 1881)<br /><br />1820 - Jean Ingelow, English poet (d. 1897)<br /><br />1834 - Gottlieb Daimler, German engineer and inventor (d. 1900)<br /><br />1846 - Kate Greenaway, English children's author and illustrator (d. 1901)<br /><br />1862 - Silvio Gesell, Belgian economist (d. 1930)<br /><br />1866 - Pierce Butler, Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (d. 1939)<br /><br />1870 - Horace Donisthorpe, British entomologist (d. 1951)<br /><br />1880 - Sir Patrick Hastings, British barrister (d. 1952)<br /><br />1881 - Walter Rudolf Hess, Swiss physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)<br /><br />1883 - Urmuz, Romanian writer (d. 1923)<br /><br />1884 - Alcide Nunez, American jazz clarinetist (d. 1934)<br /><br />1892 - Benjamin Drake Van Wissen, Australian Engineer.<br /><br />1894 - Paul Green, American writer (d. 1981)<br /><br />1901 - Alfred Newman, American film composer (d. 1970)<br /><br />1902 - Bobby Jones, American golfer (d. 1971)<br /><br />1908 - Brigitte Helm, German actress (d. 1996)<br /><br />1912 - Bayard Rustin, American civil rights activist (d. 1987)<br /><br />1914 - Sammy Baugh, American football player<br /><br />1916 - Ray Ellington, British singer (d. 1985)<br /><br />1919 - Nat King Cole, American singer (d. 1965) (a true favorite of mine) <br /><br />1920 - Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Prime Minister of Bangladesh (d. 1975)<br /><br />1926 - Siegfried Lenz, German writer<br /><br />1930 - James Irwin, astronaut (d. 1991)<br /><br />1936 - Ladislav Kupkovic, Slovakian composer<br /><br />1936 - Ken Mattingly, astronaut<br /><br />1938 - Rudolf Nureyev, Russian-born dancer and choreographer (d. 1993)<br /><br />1938 - Keith Michael Patrick Cardinal O'Brien, Northern Irish clergyman<br /><br />1940 - Mark White, American politician<br /><br />1941 - Paul Kantner, American musician (Jefferson Airplane)<br /><br />1942 - John Wayne Gacy, American serial killer (d. 1994) (boooo!!!) <br /><br />1944 - Pattie Boyd, British photographer and model<br /><br />1944 - Cito Gaston, baseball player and coach<br /><br />1944 - John Sebastian, American singer and songwriter<br /><br />1945 - Elis Regina, Brazilian singer (d. 1982)<br /><br />1945 - Katri Helena, Finnish singer<br /><br />1947 - James Morrow, author<br /><br />1948 - William Gibson, American-born writer<br /><br />1949 - Patrick Duffy, American actor<br /><br />1949 - Pat Rice, Northern Irish footballer and football manager<br /><br />1950 - Patrick Adams, American record producer and songwriter<br /><br />1951 - Kurt Russell, American actor (Wasn't he great as Snake Pliskin?)<br /><br />1953 - Filemon Lagman, Filipino communist revolutionary (d. 2001)<br /><br />1954 - Lesley-Anne Down, English actress<br /><br />1955 - Gary Sinise, American actor<br /><br />1956 - Patrick McDonnell, American cartoonist<br /><br />1957 - Mal Donaghy, Northern Irish footballer<br /><br />1957 - Michael Kelly, American journalist (d. 2003)<br /><br />1959 - Danny Ainge, American basketball player and coach<br /><br />1961 - Casey Siemaszko, American actor<br /><br />1962 - Clare Grogan, Scottish actress-singer<br /><br />1963 - Nick Peros, Canadian composer<br /><br />1964 - Rob Lowe, American actor<br /><br />1967 - Billy Corgan, American musician<br /><br />1967 - Barry Minkow, American businessman<br /><br />1969 - Mathew St. Patrick, American actor<br /><br />1971 - Bill Mueller, US baseball player<br /><br />1972 - Mia Hamm, American soccer player<br /><br />1972 - Melissa Auf der Maur, Canadian rock musician<br /><br />1973 - Caroline Corr, Irish singer and musician<br /><br />1973 - Rico Blanco, Filipino singer (Rivermaya)<br /><br />1975 - Justin Hawkins, British singer (The Darkness)<br /><br />1975 - Andrew "Test" Martin, Canadian professional wrestler<br /><br />1976 - Stephen Gately, Irish singer, musician, and actor (Boyzone)<br /><br />1979 - Andrew Ference, Canadian hockey player<br /><br />1983 - Alfred "A.C.E." Jones, Hip Hop Star, Producer<br /><br />1990 - Katie Zenner, Queen of the Galaxy<br /><br />(Queen of the Galaxy???)<br /><br />Deaths on MARCH 17th<br /><br />45 BC - Titus Labienus, Roman leader (in battle)<br /><br />45 BC - Gnaeus Pompeius, the Younger, Roman general (executed) (ouch) <br /><br />180 - Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor (b. 121)<br /><br />493 - Saint Patrick, patron saint of Ireland<br /><br />1040 - Harold Harefoot, King of England<br /><br />1058 - King Lulach I of Scotland<br /><br />1272 - Emperor Go-Saga of Japan (b. 1220)<br /><br />1425 - Ashikaga Yoshikazu, Japanese shogun (b. 1407)<br /><br />1516 - Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici, ruler of Florence (b. 1478)<br /><br />1565 - Alexander Ales, Scottish theologian (b. 1500)<br /><br />1620 - St. John Sarkander, Moravian priest, died of injuries caused by torturing (oh no) <br /><br />1640 - Philip Massinger, English dramatist (b. 1583)<br /><br />1680 - François de La Rochefoucauld, French writer (b. 1613)<br /><br />1704 - Menno van Coehoorn, Dutch military engineer (b. 1641)<br /><br />1715 - Gilbert Burnet, Scottish Bishop of Salisbury (b. 1643)<br /><br />1741 - Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, French poet (b. 1671)<br /><br />1764 - George Parker, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield, English astronomer<br /><br />1782 - Daniel Bernoulli, Dutch-born mathematician (b. 1700)<br /><br />1830 - Laurent, Marquis de Gouvion Saint-Cyr, French marshal (b. 1764)<br /><br />1846 - Friedrich Bessel, German mathematician and astronomer (b. 1784)<br /><br />1849 - William II of the Netherlands (b. 1792)<br /><br />1853 - Christian Doppler, Austrian physician and mathematician (b. 1803)<br /><br />1893 - Jules Ferry, French statesman (b. 1832)<br /><br />1917 - Franz Brentano, German philosopher and psychologist (b. 1838)<br /><br />1937 - Austen Chamberlain, English statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1863)<br /><br />1956 - Fred Allen, American actor and comedian (b. 1894)<br /><br />1956 - Irene Joliot-Curie, French physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (b. 1897)<br /><br />1957 - Ramon Magsaysay, President of the Philippines (b. 1907)<br /><br />1965 - Amos Alonzo Stagg, baseball, basketball, and football coach and player (b. 1862)<br /><br />1976 - Luchino Visconti, Italian director (b. 1906)<br /><br />1983 - Haldan Keffer Hartline, American physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1903)<br /><br />1987 - Santo Trafficante, Jr., American gangster (b. 1914)<br /><br />1989 - Merritt Butrick, American actor (b. 1959)<br /><br />1990 - Capucine, French actress (b. 1931)<br /><br />1993 - Helen Hayes, American actress (b. 1900)<br /><br />1995 - Ronnie Kray, British gangster (b. 1933)<br /><br />1999 - Ernest Gold, Austrian composer (b. 1921)<br /><br />1999 - Rod Hull, British comedian (b. 1936)<br /><br />2002 - Rosetta LeNoire, American actress and producer (b. 1911)<br /><br />2002 - Pat Weaver, American broadcast executive (b. 1908)<br /><br />2004 - J.J. Jackson, American television personality (b. 1941)<br /><br />2005 - George F. Kennan, American Cold War strategist and historian (b. 1904)<br /><br />2005 - Andre Norton, American writer (b. 1912)<br /><br />2006 - Bob Blue, American singer-songwriter<br /><br />2006 - Oleg Cassini, American fashion designer (b. 1913)<br /><br />2006 - Ray Meyer, American basketball coach (b. 1913)<br /><br />Holidays and observances on MARCH 17th<br /><br />Ancient Latvia - Kustonu Diena (return of the larks) observed (ah! I knew they'd come back someday!) <br /><br />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!) <br /><br />Boston, Massachusetts - Evacuation Day (in what sense?) <br /><br />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) <br /><br />Ancient Rome - the Liberalia in honor of Liber<br /><br />Other Stuff on MARCH 17th<br /><br />1577 - The Cathay Company is formed to send Martin Frobisher back to the New World for more gold (Martin never returned) <br /><br />1673 - Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet begin their exploration of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi river<br /><br />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???) <br /><br />1776 - American Revolution: British forces evacuate Boston, Massachusetts after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery overlooking the city<br /><br />1805 - The Italian Republic, with Napoleon as president, becomes the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon as King (sounds like big fun) <br /><br />1845 - The rubber band is invented (now THERE'S a cause for celebration) <br /><br />1861 - The Kingdom of Italy is proclaimed (And lasts a whole WEEK!) <br /><br />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) <br /><br />1910 - Luther Gulick and his wife Charlotte found Camp Fire Girls (now Camp Fire USA) (formally announced in 1912) (Cookies abound!) <br /><br />1917 - Delta Phi Epsilon was founded at New York University Law School<br /><br />1921 - The Second Republic of Poland adopts the March Constitution<br /><br />1931 - Nevada legalizes gambling (and Wayne Newton) <br /><br />1939 - Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945): The Battle of Nanchang between the Kuomintang and the Japanese break out (Kuomintang?)<br /><br />1941 - In Washington, DC, the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt<br /><br />1948 - Benelux, France, and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Brussels, a precursor to the NATO Agreement<br /><br />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)<br /><br />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!)<br /><br />1959 - Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, flees Tibet and travels to India (my hero) <br /><br />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...) <br /><br />1969 - Golda Meir of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, becomes Prime Minister of Israel (Please let us have a woman prez soon) <br /><br />1985 - Serial killer Richard Ramirez, the "Night Stalker", commits his first two murders in Los Angeles, California murder spree (Not cool, Rich)<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-2628908035003653152008-02-16T00:58:00.002-08:002008-02-16T00:59:04.110-08:00BeginningsIt's all from the same source.<br /><br />I will work to be a force for good.<br /><br />Life is to give away freely.<br /><br />Acts of kindness are Karma in action.<br /><br />Love is the most potent force in the Universe.<br /><br />Doing what we love keeps us young.<br /><br />Making love makes us younger.<br /><br />Making music makes us more beautiful.<br /><br />There can be no happiness without freedom.<br /><br />Happiness cannot be achieved by avoiding suffering.<br /><br />Death is a part of the cycle of life.<br /><br />We are immortal in our works and our deeds.<br /><br />Our words can heal or hurt.<br /><br />Words are powerful things.<br /><br />Some belief systems can kill.<br /><br />Wrong ideas can cause illness and death.<br /><br />Good thoughts and actions can cure disease.<br /><br />Without love, healing cannot occur.<br /><br />With love, life is a continuous stream of miracles.<br /><br />Music has the power to heal.<br /><br />Freedom is worth dying for.<br /><br />Peace can only be won through wisdom.<br /><br />Wisdom can only be achieved through experience.<br /><br />Experience cannot be gained without suffering.<br /><br />All life is sacred.<br /><br />Not all good battles should be fought.<br /><br />Not all truths should be told.<br /><br />Not all myths should be dispelled.<br /><br />Not all magic should be understood.<br /><br />Not all mysteries should be explained.<br /><br />We are made of starstuff.<br /><br />We are intergalactic beings.<br /><br />We are not alone in the Universe.<br /><br />We are not superior to nature.<br /><br />We should not conquer nature.<br /><br />We are part of nature.<br /><br />The earth is a living organism.<br /><br />The earth is our native home.<br /><br />We need to love and honor the earth.<br /><br />We need to revere our older people.<br /><br />We need to nurture and protect our young people.<br /><br />We need to love and protect our planet.<br /><br />We need to love and honor and cherish each other.<br /><br />We need to accept and celebrate each other.<br /><br />This can end at any second.<br /><br />Do not waste any more of these seconds.<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-66794215299807511812008-02-16T00:58:00.001-08:002008-02-16T00:58:36.902-08:00Poetry, NewerElvin's drum!<br /><br />When the music in my head is louder than the music in my body, I put on Elvin.<br /><br />You know how the water feels when you throw your head back in the shower and you feel your hair down your back, heavy with the running water, you feel the silver tingling and then the wild rush of that energy -<br /><br />(that energy that has caused so many wars and so much death because it has been given so many names, all of the nine billion names of God; that same energy that has created so much life, because it is the river of love and birth and renewal and healing, and it created these words and all the galaxies like grains of sand)<br /><br />- falling through you like the dust of angel's wings!<br /><br />You feel your body, and you feel your life-force from your crown to your pelvic floor,<br /><br />and you feel your feet planted on the spinning, shining, singing orb that is your warm and welcoming mother in this vast, cold, lonely, dangerous darkness,<br /><br />and you shout your animal shout and you smile at the smell of your sweet animal skin and you shake and purr at the sound of the drum -<br /><br />(primal as the big bang! deep as thunder on the plain! familiar as a child's laughter!)<br /><br />- Elvin's drum!<br /><br /><br /><br />One more poem for Mr Jones.<br /><br />These notes are our diamonds-<br /><br />These notes are our diamonds-<br />They smolder,<br />burn,<br />cut.<br /><br />They're carboniferous fire,<br />consuming the pages of your complacency,<br />curling the edges of your diplomacy,<br />vivisecting the carcass of your supremacy.<br />You are dying, and we are being born,<br />torn from the pages of your most esteemed booklets,<br />your most revered pamphlets and training manuals,<br />but artfully rearranged into the single word<br />of living, breathing,<br />naked fire,<br /><br />finally and fully<br />alive.<br /><br /><br /><br />Is there a place<br /><br />Is there a place that I really belong, a 'home place' that is really my home, a place that I should go to be whole and finished?<br /><br />Isn't there something called astro-cartography, and you just go to an astrologer who specializes in it and they'll tell you where your lines of force converge, where you really belong?<br /><br />If I pay enough, could someone really good at this narrow it down to a zip code, a street, a house number?<br /><br />Once I'm there, which room do I sleep in? Should I put the piano against the east wall or the west wall?<br /><br />When I get a new phone, should it have 5's in it, and, if so, how many?<br /><br />I'm starting to think that maybe I'm home. Right here.<br /><br />Right now, with you.<br /><br /><br /><br />coulda-shoulda-woulda<br /><br />don't think i don't do it too<br /><br />'i was gonna, and then so-and-so did such-and-such, and i couldn't do what i was gonna do' or 'this woulda worked out fine but then you went and did this-and-that' or 'i was doing so well and then what's-his-face went and blew the whole thing for me' and i 'coulda-shoulda-woulda' but i have an 'excuse' and just listen to me while i explain it to myself again<br /><br />and again<br /><br /><br /><br />The damned project<br /><br />We wondered what a small person like yourself would do if confronted with the enormity of your crimes against humanity (if it were possible to lay them out on a single, large document or 'spread-sheet') so that you could examine and ponder them at your leisure. Like unfolding a detailed road-map of Anaheim, you'd be able to see exactly where this wayward street led and unto which broad thoroughfare it emptied or into which blind alley or dead end it brought your young, guilless victims up against. As I said, we wondered what a small person like yourself would do if this were possible, but when we realized, quite abrubtly, that it would improperly fill you up with pride and glee to see such effort spent in the execution of such a project (not to mention the joy it would bring you to re-live your despicable acts via our accounting of them), we decided against the whole damned project (as it would invert itself into a sinister enjoyment for you, something we find hideous in the extreme.)<br /><br />We have lately gone whole days without thinking once of you. Unfortunately, we still have an occasional nightmare starring you. Your appearances are less frequent. Like Newman in Seinfeld, you have only a bit-part.<br /><br />You are never the hero.<br /><br /><br /><br />You were a Trappist Monk<br /><br />You were a Trappist Monk and you looked like Donald Pleasance.<br /><br />I think it was you; they say in dreams who you think is someone else could easily be you, and they also say that everybody in your dream is you. Or Donald Pleasance.<br /><br />There were these guys with guns (aren't there ALWAYS guys with guns) and they wanted to kill you, and I was flying above you without a plane (was I an angel? or was I dead like you would be soon?) and I wanted to save you but<br /><br />the guys with guns were on you and (you can see it can't you Donald Pleasance in a shapeless brown burlap you know the rope around the bloated waist him with his wire-rim glasses shaved head all flustered glasses slipping sandals tripping as he ran falling down getting up falling down like an HBO made-for-TV special and seeing it from above like from a helicopter or through the eyes of god or from a Harrier Jet) there was no where to go but down down you went down and<br /><br />you were dead.<br /><br />I made it to the ground too late, and, as you died, I noticed a bird fall from the sky, dead too. Birds mean freedom in a dream, they say (the they that say stuff like that say so, at least) so freedom died too, and then a sweet little black dog who'd been hit by the flying bullets friendly fire the military would say I guess because they weren't after the dog but the dog didn't seem to consider it too friendly, this little dog comes crawling, bleeding and yelping with pain to your already dead-out-of-this-world body and licks your face and I find I have a gun too (we all have guns now, it's that kind of world now)<br /><br />and I shoot the dog to end its suffering<br /><br />and I wake up whimpering.<br /><br />I get most of it.<br /><br />Except, why Donald Pleasance?<br /><br /><br /><br />I bet on a good day you're OK<br /><br />I bet on a good day you're OK.<br />Even with the tick and the limp, you don't attract a lot of attention, I'll bet.<br />Maybe people just want to GET HOME.<br />They could care less if you drool just not on them.<br />So don't expect sympathy from me.<br />I'm working on my accent.<br />Trying to forget watching the dwarves out to gut each other with machetes.<br />Why were they doing that? Are they still? I'll bet they are.<br /><br /><br /><br />It's always either 3.25 pm or 5.59 am<br /><br />It's always either 3.25 PM or 5.59 am. It's occasionally 11.44 PM, and once it was even 2.39 PM (!) but usually it's one of two; either 3.25 PM or 4.59 am.<br /><br />2 minutes per day is all I get.<br />(when will I attend a dog show, see the tulips in Holland, admire the work of Odd Nerdrum?)<br /><br />Is this how it is when you get (shh) old?<br /><br />Is this how life feels just before you die? Does it get down to just one minute a day?<br /><br />If it does, let it be 5.59 am.<br /><br />Least I'll see a sunrise.<br /><br /><br /><br />It's only after it's all over<br /><br />It's only after it's all over<br />you really get it<br />how you almost were killed by it all<br />why you felt so tired and dead<br />when you were really close to death<br />you just wouldn't have believed it if<br />someone had said<br />it's killing you<br /><br />now you look back and<br />see it like you see the ceiling<br />if you look up<br />and then they wonder why<br />you didn't even call to say<br /><br />good-bye<br /><br /><br /><br />All poetry Jessica Williams, JJW Publishing ©1975-2006<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-49127438652695126412008-02-16T00:57:00.001-08:002008-02-16T00:57:57.900-08:00Poetry, Olderwhen poeting<br /><br />when poeting,<br /><br />I'm blown<br />by the wind<br />of the words;<br /><br />everything I do<br />does me, too<br /><br /><br /><br />between the earth<br /><br />between the earth and the sky and the sea<br />there are many beings that call themselves me;<br />they're the children of my birth<br />and vie for my total affection-<br />each one is precious and pure,<br />and each one is totally, completely me<br /><br /><br /><br />remembering that life<br /><br />remembering that life is a series of moments, all at once and each for all eternity, i hear harmony in the stillness and singing in the silence. i hear water...<br /><br />the water is always in the same place, and yet always it moves, always it seeks, always it sounds and shapes its own passage; and tomorrows are washed ashore borne on the waves of every yesterday<br /><br />remembering that we are water,<br /><br />and that we are always in the same place yet always in motion, and that we are eternal, then nothing can break our inner knowing or separate our end from our beginning;<br /><br />and life can end, and begin again, and the music can keep playing, and the sea can keep singing, and the world can keep becoming, and infinite tomorrows can continue to be borne on the tides of unending yesterdays<br /><br /><br /><br />a kitten's purr<br /><br />a kitten's purr<br />an ocean's roar<br />rustling branches<br />/in a soft spring breeze<br />the buzzing of an insect<br />a frog at 4 am<br /><br />/i want to stay here<br />and hear the<br />song of earth<br /><br />/forever<br /><br /><br /><br />falling<br /><br />somewhere in the lotus sutra,<br />buried amid thickets of eastern scrabble,<br />a reference is made to a<br />leaf falling,<br />all the leaves that have fallen,<br />all the leaves that will fall,<br />falling<br />falling<br />falling<br />/<br />all the falling gives me vertigo.<br />yet,<br />of that peaceful canopy of<br />grace and quiet power<br />that held me rapt and silent<br />for what seemed like<br />half an hour,<br />i begin to suspect that it has<br />just changed my life<br />forever<br /><br /><br /><br />the end came while<br /><br />the end came while<br />everyone slept<br />millions of different<br />life-forms<br />gave up the ghost and<br />just plain went away<br />neat periodic-table-stuff like<br />cesium and strontium 90<br />got snuck into our H20 and<br />we didn't even have to pay<br />extra<br />a dividend for dreamers as <br />everyone slept<br />forests fell like rain<br />and holes were torn in the<br />brown and broken sky<br />air stuck to windowpanes<br />and the whole place<br />prepared to die<br />but at least<br />we were asleep<br /><br /><br /><br />these are the thundering skies<br /><br />these are the thundering skies of america;<br />bound to her soul by pillar and post,<br />locked in the soil by the blood of her hosts,<br />etched in her granite by fears and by hates<br />reaching down to her bedrock and tectonic plates,<br />screaming for future on destiny's shore<br />writhes FREEDOM;<br />st a gge r in g, standing and falling,<br />whining and winning, crying and calling-<br />aged imperfection can easily die,<br />under the blighted and sprawling american sky.<br /><br /><br /><br />bend a note like monk<br /><br />bend a note like monk<br />make the sound of a gong (there's a way)<br />play a seamless 2-octave chromatic scale in less than a second<br />submit<br />this is a dare<br /><br /><br /><br />sometimes my words<br /><br />sometimes my words fill the page<br />like little rabbits fill a cage<br />easily<br />more often they hit the fan<br />like birdshit hitting the<br />windshield -<br /><br />shamelessly<br /><br /><br /><br />waiting for hope<br /><br />'Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.' - George Bernard Shaw<br /><br />I'm waiting for the easy smiles on busy city streets again/<br /><br />I'm waiting for the leering to stop and the flirting to begin again/<br /><br />I'm waiting for the sound of someone practicing the saxophone down the street/<br /><br />Not really all that good yet, but with a dream in mind/<br /><br />And you can hear the belief, the faith, that aspiring to a far-off goal is not some idle waste of time, time better spent playing the stock market or selling real estate/<br /><br />I'm waiting for some of the ozone layer to come back/<br /><br />I'm waiting to hear some good news about space/<br />We're going to Mars again? Good/ It's about time/<br /><br />I'm waiting to hear that people are being fed again, that war is over for good, and that the children of the future won't have to use oxygen tanks and radiation suits to go outside to play/ And<br /><br />Every time I turn on the TV, I see a red-faced, angry, shouting white man, accusing someone of doing something or of not doing something or of being alive or of not yet being dead yet or something/<br /><br />And a team of blonde white women agreeing with him/<br />I keep seeing men with no lips and no love in their eyes/<br />Women/ lipless/ loathing behind their eyes/<br /><br />I hear a shrill wail, a continuous thready rant that runs behind every word and every gesture and every shifty-eyed nuance, behind every lie or accusation or call to justice or appeal for harsher punishment/<br /><br />I see quiet priests behind blind dead eyes who are not going to jail for crimes that are unspeakable, while others get 25 to life for being sick and poor/<br /><br />I sense a presence/<br />It's like smoke/<br />It's more than a chimera, though/<br />It reeks/<br />It casts shadows/<br /><br />It's fear/<br /><br />Women with no lips, no love, but fear moves like smoke behind their eyes/<br /><br />So I am waiting for hope to come back/<br />Music helps me hold it my own/<br />My friends help me keep it, and my family is the best reason not to let it get away/<br /><br />But you might know what I mean/<br />I am actually waiting now, for hope to come back to the world/<br /><br /><br /><br />all of us fall back<br /><br />all of us fall back into the background noise<br />that is really the echo of the<br />big<br />bad<br />bang<br />but once we start we can't stop going<br />up and down the entropy slope/<br />...see, you and i are monopoles<br />(synchronous)<br />beacons in the dark<br />communicating across parsecs;<br />(star stuff speaks if given time and the proper conditions;<br />given enough time, it speaks of love)<br />so now, at least we'll slip back into the<br />quiet roar of creation <br />knowing each other<br />holding each other/<br />giving each other<br />another reason<br />to<br />live<br />again!<br /><br /><br /><br />being old doesn't make you automatically wise; it just makes you old<br /><br />Over the years, one says or writes a very few lines that might be considered as worth remembering, if only to be used as canon-fodder to fire a needed salvo across a deserving miscreant's port bow.<br /><br />I've uttered or written a few memorable one-liners in my time here, and the only problem with that is trying to remember a few of them!<br /><br />I'm sure the best of them are gone forever.<br /><br />Here's a few that I do remember.<br /><br />1 Part of getting older is knowing what to do when the pharmacies are closed.<br /><br />2 Women are expected to have 'alibis' for being creative.<br /><br />3 Big gigs are concerts; little gigs are gigglings. Having no gigs is being gigless.<br /><br />4 When I play I give people 'surcharge amnesia'. If there's any one reason I'm a successful musician it is this: I play music simply and to the point and it hypnotizes people and makes them forget about surcharges.<br /><br />5 Jazz poodles say 'wow, this player is FAST'. Yes, and they said that about Doc Holiday just before his head exploded, an event triggered by someone else being slightly FASTER.<br /><br />6 As for any jazz musicians who think that they are 'famous' (God, what an incredible leap for a mind to make!) and think that playing an instrument really really fast makes you a MUSICIAN (!): Get stuffed! Save up and get a LIFE!<br /><br />7 My duty (as defined by me) is to bring that sacred act (playing my piano) unscarred and unsullied through to the last day of my life, in pristine condition, ready for trade-in.<br /><br />8 I think that what distinguishes us from other primates is our inherent ability to play a few wailing choruses of 12-bar, B flat blues.<br /><br />9 Getting older is like always having a mild case of the flu; that's what it feels like to me.<br /><br />10 I think that's it's a myth that we all have jobs to do, all of the time. I think it's perfectly OK to do nothing at all.<br /><br />11 I think It's more important to be a musician than to be a pianist.<br /><br />12 Your dreams are your sacred truth.<br /><br />13 Anything that gives one an opportunity to experience Sartre's 'nausea' without actually reading Sartre is probably a good thing.<br /><br />14 An individual can sacrifice for the good of others; they must never compromise for the good of others. The moral dilemma of altruistic thought is that it makes no distinction between the two.<br /><br />15 It is unavoidable to be sometimes beaten down by others; it is never ok to be beaten down by yourself.<br /><br />16 Genius does what it must; talent does what it damned-well pleases.<br /><br />17 Everything I do does me, too.<br /><br /><br /><br />All poetry ©1975-2007, Jessica Williams, JJW Publishing<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-82498852505771402722008-02-16T00:56:00.001-08:002008-02-16T00:56:51.822-08:00My Life WorkEvery so often, I'll have a conversation (or a confrontation) that reminds me of what my values really are, and how important and intransigent they are to me. I've written various articles: Beliefs, Codes of Conduct, As close as I get to a mission statement, Truth and Lies, Taking Responsibility for your Music, People ask me, The light and the dark, Intimacy, Following the Lines, Dreams, Healing, and Magic, Life as 'contest', and many more listed <a href="http://www.jessicawilliams.com/currents/">here</a>, about my need to follow a "code" of sorts.<br /><br />It's not a religion, and it's not a book of rules. It runs through everything I write, play, think, or do. It's my SELF, the virtual distillation of that which I call ME. It's what makes me Jessica Jennifer Williams, and it's not up for compromise or debate or sale or evaluation by committee. The refusal to "bend" may not be seen by all as a good thing. It's may be too "individualistic" for some folks' tastes. But we're here to do our jobs, not to please everyone. It's not a popularity contest. <br /><br />We live in an age of black vs white, up vs down, straight vs gay, good vs evil, us vs them. It's not presently popular to take positions that might be controversial or "subversive." A universally understood method for the suppression of free thought is to make stark distinctions between "polarities". This makes it easier to manipulate whole populations into hatred and fear of any group or individual one chooses. The very real threat of being "disappeared" makes the choice of free thought even less attractive. <br /><br />I wrote, in an article about Dr Wilhelm Reich, how the "emotional plague of mankind" (the EP, as he called it) had badgered and degraded and vilified him, and eventually had his very life terminated. In his case, the EP was incarnated in the form of the FDA and FBI during the McCarthy years.<br /><br />The EP is very real, no matter what you call it. Some call it the mass psychology of fascism. Some call it a police state. Some call it collectivism. At the time of this writing, 2006, it may be called American Patriotic Neo-conservative Theocratic Corporatized Nationalism.<br /><br /><br /><br />Whatever it calls itself, or whatever anyone chooses to call it, it is always anti-individual, anti-art, anti-creativity, and anti-free will. In other words, anti-life.<br /><br />Human life, to me, is in itself the very essence of individuality, creativity, and free will.<br /><br />I've said this elsewhere: Without Freedom there can be no Happiness. <br /><br />To be human is to be a unique, one-of-a-kind, free-thinking individual. All collectivist thinking leads to an emotional and spiritual deadness. All extremist religions stifle free and independent thought. They work against the life-force itself and kill the need or the will to create (Rollo May)<br /><br />What we make with our hands is what we believe in our hearts. We create because it feels GOOD to be alive, and have ideas, and be able to acquire skills to embody our ideas into a reality that we essentially CREATE with our will. Our hands, heart, soul, and will are what we use to make our world real.<br /><br />If we make our dreams from the un-blocked purity of the passions in our hearts, we will live in our constructed realities and they will be "heaven". <br /><br />If we build our world from the stuff of our consensual nightmares, using as our motivations the stifled, blocked, wounded, desperate, and hateful "belief systems" of others, we will make "hell", and we will live in it.<br /><br /><br /><br />What I know is that I play piano to live and that I live to play the piano. I use the piano to make Music, which in turn heals and renews and causes good things to happen in healthy people's lives.<br /><br />I know that it also causes pain and conflict in those whose lives are driven by agenda: greed, envy, jealousy, bigotry, fear. Their negative opinions of me and my art are amply documented all over the Internet in pathetic chat-rooms and newsgroups - nests of parasitic humans whose disdain of life is shared by like-minded people who love to feel superior to others and do so by trying to tear them down by the use of gossip, rumor, innuendo, and character-assasination.<br /><br />Cruelty is the rule of the day for these small people, and I have no time to think of them, much less write about them. They are superfluous.<br /><br />The Music in me is swift and strong, and "falls from me like water over stones" as easily as breathing. It is not something I practice, and it is not something I prepare for. My concerts are exercises in experimentation and discovery. Sometimes (rarely) they fail, but most times they are like golden stories to me in retrospect: treacherous moments of nearly falling, moments of terrible beauty and stark danger, periods of suspension and drama followed by release and joy ... hazardous crossings across deeply perilous ravines (slices cut in the fabric of time) and that split-second decision to JUMP and make the other side and land (not always perfectly) in some precarious but vitally safe position, ready to move forward again, upward, always upward.<br /><br />When I play, those who truly listen must follow. In the words of Riddick, "if you can't keep up, don't step up."<br /><br />There is only my self, and the people with me, and the Music.<br /><br /><br /><br />I am so happy to see more women playing jazz. We've been (and, alas, are still) minority. Being minority doesn't always mean you're out-numbered. It means (to the alpha-thinkers) that you're something less than 100 percent human. (Before the Emancipation Proclamation, and for a good while after it, African Americans were considered three-fifths human! Incredible!) Women were not allowed to vote, as men had deemed women to be insufficiently equipped intellectually to make informed choices on matters of national and world import. And I would point to our lack of women in politically powerful positions as one of the primary reasons we are in such global trouble now.<br /><br />The making of art and music, the building of things, the writing of words, the changing of the world, the peaceful way forward in science and technology: these are things that women DO. It is WHO WE ARE as much as WHY WE LIVE.<br /><br />To have this disregarded as frivolous and "cute" is an offense to my senses and to my person. It is one MORE reason that I keep going.<br /><br /><br /><br />When no one can buy you, you are your own. You're also ON your own. Get this straight. You are alone. This is good. It is the only way that you can fully love another human being.<br /><br /><br /><br />I AM A SUCCESS. I HAVE NOT SOLD OUT. THE WORLD HAS BOUGHT IN.<br /><br />If my Music is accesible, it is because it speaks in no "slang", it follows no formula, it has no aspirations to be "hip", it supports no agendas, it speaks only viscerally, directly to the heart and soul and gut of the human being. If my Music is loved by people that "don't like jazz" it's because I don't see or hear jazz as being a music of self-destruction and booze and drugs and dark smoke-filled nightclubs, played only by dark-skinned men with addictions and androcentric attitudes and early 20th century ideals and ideas. I see and hear jazz as being THE MUSIC OF FREEDOM, distinctly American, free of all "isms", free of all bigotry, and free of all self-destruction. I see it as a Music of worship, the worship of the human spirit. <br /><br />Under all of the baggage of our belief systems and socially sanctioned constructs of "reality", the TRUTH of our lives persists, even if it's just in our dream states. The TRUTH is not what your neighbor believes or what your Priest or Rabbi tells you to believe. It is not the words of another, whether it is a guru or a monk or a financial advisor.<br /><br />Only WE know our singular, special TRUTH. <br /><br />I like to say "Dogs Know". <br /><br />They know a healthy person from a sick one, a loving one from a dangerous one, a genuine one from a phony one. Dogs know, and so do we. Our powers of ratiocination might be dulled by our culture, but they're still there. I always felt it was my duty, my job, to tear down the wall whenever it started to build up around me.<br /><br />"Close that window and nothing gets in. True. But nothing gets OUT, either." I said that too, long ago, to a bass player friend. I said it about creativity, and about how you can't shut down powerful parts of yourself without sacrificing your ability to MAKE powerful things. <br /><br />So you can't just be walking around being something that other people make up for you to be.<br /><br /><br /><br />No one speaks for me, ever. No one has the right. Music promoters, producers, and record executives may pay me money for my services, but my services are provided only on my own terms.<br /><br />It's a common practice for festival directors and record executives to pick various musicians and put them together (they always call the band the same thing... "the ALL-STARS!") - it happened to me a few times because I doubted the power of my will and the sanctity of my own judgment. Those times were disasters.<br /><br />This won't ever happen again. <br /><br />There were a few cases that I let things slip by... cases where I compromised for the good of the group.<br /><br />This won't ever happen again. <br /><br />If I have a group, it is MY group, playing MY Music, in My way. I'm a leader, not a follower. It is one reason I play solo. I want to hear the silence, too. So do my audiences.<br /><br />And my audiences, in the end, are the most important people in the world to me.<br /><br />I want them to be on that voyage with me. I'm with them, too. If I cause pain, I am in pain. If I create joy, I am in JOY.<br /><br />I am capable of this because I believe in the TRUTH in my heart. I know who I am, and I know why I'm here. The things that I don't know (and these things would fill a LaCie 500 Gigabyte super-drive) I'll leave to the know-it-alls. <br /><br />It feels GOOD and RIGHT to make beautiful things. I am aware that those who read this journal are often like-minded people that make beautiful things too.<br /><br />Let's keep it up, you and I.<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-75691286856517757722008-02-16T00:54:00.002-08:002008-02-16T00:55:24.954-08:00Jessica Reviews HerselfA UK tour, July '00<br /><br />I arrive in the UK on July 7th, at Heathrow, around 10 am, and must take the shuttle to Manchester, as my first concert is near there.<br /><br />Then to the Travel Lodge where I sleep the sleep that only world travellers get to experience: the 'little death'. I sleep like two rocks for 14 hours. I am not yet on 'UK Time'; I have merely fooled my body into a sense of somnambulistic confidence. Ill advised, as it deserts me half-way through the second (solo) set at Gateshead.<br /><br />I cry the tears of the utterly dispossessed, am told later that everyone loved the concert, so I castigate myself further for being such a baby in public.<br /><br />I am truly my mother's daughter, and more truly the worst enemy I could possibly ask for in this or any lifetime. Thus the first night passes as fortuitously as a squall amid jury-rigged fishing boats; no masts are damaged, no one lost at sea, no one forced to walk the plank. There's always tomorrow, even if it's slightly water-logged from the previous evening.<br /><br />Tomorrow turns out to be a concert in Wales. They have thiss language ttherre thattttt lookkksss like this and sounds equally other-worldly.<br /><br />This is what makes Earth an interesting place to live!<br /><br />The hotel we stay at wins the Douglas Adams Mexamegalon Museum for Diseased Imaginings Award. The phrase 'higgledy-piggledy' applies here. It is the nearest thing we will ever experience in the macro-universe to pure, unabashed chaos theory.<br /><br />A six-by-six inch framed drawing of a spreckled titmouse is hanging, perfectly centered, on a wall covered in at least sixteen different kinds of wallpaper.<br /><br />This gives one an opportunity to experience Sartre's 'nausea' without actually reading Sartre. This is probably a good thing.<br /><br />I am pleased with my performance there, as is the audience. Thank you, Wales...I'll be backkkkk. I loved it!<br /><br />The Purcell Room in London is one of my favorite British venues. It turns out to be a full house and I spin gold. This is terrific fun, this neuromancing. I'm wending and weaving and the piano is a 9-foot Steinway (can't do this stuff on just ANY piano) and so I'm high as a kite and disgustingly full of myself for a few minutes...OK, a few hours.<br /><br />Then I'm in the hotel room (no smoking, remember...) watching a Benny Hill rerun and then I sleep and dream of my dog Watson.<br /><br />My next performance is in Cheltenham. I love these people. I can't seem to breathe properly, so I say 'I've quit smoking after 40 years of it. And my doctor tells me that I'm not gonna die anytime soon. I'm FULL of oxygen and other combustibles, and do not have emphysema.'<br /><br />They understand this. They've all had this experience with the killer weed, and they can relate to panic attacks. So I'm home free, and I learn another important lesson; don't try to hide your pain. It will stand out like a billboard with flashing lime-green letters against a magenta background.<br /><br />Be yourself, and most folks will understand you. They're as human as you. So I have a really human night with the beautiful people of Cheltenham.<br /><br />I can breathe again.<br /><br />And Wigan is just so great! By this time I've hit my stride and I'm ready to do ten more concerts. I'm full of notes. And this is the last tour date! So I make this one count. And I ask for requests, which is always kind of dangerous, except that someone asks for Summertime (not a tune I would've otherwise considered playing) and that turns out to be THE perfect vehicle for me.<br /><br />Wigan wraps it up. I hug Cedar Walton, listen to him play his beautiful brand of piano for awhile, with the great Peter Washington on bass, and a cool guy named Terrell Stafford on trumpet who KNOWS the music and respects it and treats it right.<br /><br />Before I know it, I'm back on British Air 287 from LHR to SFO, trying to understand what kind of deranged misanthrope decided that a Boeing 747-400 could carry the entire cast of 'Ben-Hur'.<br /><br /><br /><br />Seattle Art Museum, Jan, '01<br /><br />I have never seen so many people at one of my American performances! NEVER.<br /><br />In Europe or Japan, it's not unusual to see; but here! Hundreds upon hundreds. A veritable sea of people, and all of them listening intently, blending into the experience in a way that I can only describe as tribal.<br /><br />All of the recent political insanity, the economic instability, the hostilities all over our planet: every dark corner seemed to brighten, every difficulty seemed to resolve for just a few moments as this music happened to all of us, as we met at a single place in space and time for a single purpose and completely lost our egos and our sadnesses in the passion and the unity of that meeting. An event horizon... it felt to me like spiraling in to a quiet center (even though the music was impassioned and vigorous) and coming out on the other side of a singularity, a billion light-years from where we were just seconds before.<br /><br />From the living of day-to-day life to the living of a noble and somehow fundamentally profound dream-state. Of course, I was caught in the slip-stream of the emotive music that somehow lately just pours out of my hands like water.<br /><br />And I'm playing with one of the most gifted drummers I have ever known: Jose Martinez. He plays all around and in and out and up and down the time, and he makes me laugh and makes me feel young(er) and makes me want to dance.<br /><br />Geoff Cooke on bass was the perfect choice! I had never played with him before and was surprised at his calm, sure, steady approach to each (to him) unfamiliar piece. His tone and intonation were great, and his time was so happening that I didn't think of it once. This band worked together well, and I had a total blast playing with them.<br /><br />For a moment, though, I'd like to get back to the singularity...<br /><br />At moments like the ones I describe above, I am full of awe and wonder at the simplicity and purity of the human heart. Beauty is usually (perhaps always) simple, and when things start to get really complex, I start to get weirded out. I think we all do.<br /><br />Our lives are getting so complex and expensive and cluttered and misdirected that if we don't stop it (STOP IT) we are in great danger of losing our true place in the universe. I'm not sure what that place is, but I do know what it isn't ...it isn't about every single minute devoted to making another dollar.<br /><br />It isn't about getting more stuff or owning more land or being more attractive or winning more games (or wars) or figuring out more ways to separate people from their money, their passions, their dreams. It isn't about dumping tons of garbage into the air and water of the earth or about making one more deal to get more barrels of liquid fossil-fuel for one less penny so that one more child gets asthma from breathing the burn-off.<br /><br />I know you know all this. I just wonder what we're going to do about it, and I know with a certainty that WHEN WE DECIDE, we will be privy to many, many moments like the one I describe above.<br /><br />The music is in me still because I have fought my entire life to preserve my own internal ecology. This is the bioenergetic meaning of truth. It is built into every human being from birth. Some of us pay dearly to hold on to it. The ones who lose it pay even more dearly, if unknowingly. When I touch the translator of my language (the piano) and speak with it, I am doing a pure and simple act, an act that is all bound up in the beauty and preservation and valuation and consecration of the human spirit and the place where we live. I am unaware of this when I'm doing it (as I should be) as it is an act of biological love, and such acts are beyond self-observation and self-consciousness.<br /><br />I came away from the singularity ('gig' is a weak and silly word to describe this magic) with a firmer belief in the possibility of peace and reason. This may just be a passing euphoria caused by really cool music and really cool people... it may just be brain chemicals. I think it is probably all of that, but that the underlying emotion, no matter what the trigger, is valid and sound.<br /><br />The music is a vehicle of the soul.<br /><br />And our souls hold the answer to the problems we've posed ourselves here.<br /><br />When the music plays through me, I am healed, and so are others.<br /><br />This is a beginning, and not just for me. When we see that all of our pain is about learning, and all of our anger and angst is just fear, we can start to heal, heal each other, heal the world.<br /><br />Let's get busy. Not a lot of time to waste!<br /><br /><br /><br />The Jazz Store, Dec '00, Carmel CA<br /><br />It's a day she begins by feeling not so great. Allergies are always a problem on the Central Coast... everything is in bloom all the time. Perhaps post-nasal drip never killed anyone but she muses that there's a first for everything.<br /><br />But around 3 pm the day sort of turns itself around. She's just seen a bunch of Woody Allen movies in the past several days, and she decides to approach life with a more existential air. Not much is worth getting too upset about (actually, plenty is worth getting upset about, and I'll tell you, she WILL be really upset about something, really SOON. I know her, but for now...) so she might as well not take herself too seriously. Go. Have fun. Make nice music. Play the old tunes why don't you. Don't be a genius... geniuses aren't fun.<br /><br />And she just plays. And has fun. Even plays Misty, and does a cross between Erroll Garner and Dexter Gordon. Plays requests (someone asks for Autumn Leaves and it turns golden halfway through) and just enjoys every minute. (I like her when she's like this. No sturm und drang...) just good old creativity playing good old tunes.<br /><br />Gil and Alan, owners of the venue and the hosts of KRML, Carmel's jazz radio station, seem to be enjoying themselves. Jessica made a cd there a while back (Joyful Sorrow) and it's playing as she gathers up her stuff to leave. She thinks now that it's a very beautiful record, and reflects that just a few hours ago she wasn't feeling too great; now she's feeling warm and wonderful, having an attack of that old jazz-magic that happens sometimes after a good gig. Satiation, satisfaction, an intuitive vibe that everything might turn out ok. <br /><br />The sun is definitely going to go nova (in about 9 billion years) and the earth will lose most of it's atmosphere way before then. Matter is breaking down as we speak...entropy is turning our whole Universe into cream-of-wheat and there's not much we can do to stop it. Soon, even photons won't go very fast, at least not as fast as commuters on Route 17. She knows all this and figures it's ok with her.<br /><br />As long as she can play this music and see and feel people respond with joy and affection, she's got entropy at bay. She's got the world on a string, what with the friends she's got and the gifts she sometimes takes for granted. She promises herself not to forget. (She will. I know her. But for now...)<br /><br />String Theory suggests that we'll all wind up as cosmic pasta, and the Theory of Relativity really scares her, as she never cared much for any of her relatives. But it's nice to see her happy. And she feels good that she helped others feel good too.<br /><br />She decides, at 3 am, that the sun might make it through the night.<br /><br />She sleeps and dreams.<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-21540167004623331682008-02-16T00:54:00.001-08:002008-02-16T00:54:44.240-08:00Leroy Vinnegar, a EulogyThere was Jimmy Blanton. There was Paul Chambers. There was Jimmy Garrison. And there was Leroy Vinnegar.<br /><br />He occupies a very special place in the jazz world; his 'walking' style, full of subtle turns and rhythmic skips, had a solidity and assertiveness that was uniquely his own.<br /><br />We made three albums together (Encounters I and II, and Boss of the Walking Bass on the Jazz Focus label), and they're CDs that I listen to with great frequency, mainly because they swing so hard , and because his lines snake around and through my improvisations in such a fascinating and unpredictable fashion. We had the world's finest drummer, Mel Brown; together, we formed a gestalt that swung like mad.<br /><br />Leroy valued simplicity and groove. You never heard any superfluous adornments or decorations in his playing.<br /><br />He was an essentialist. And this quality permeates the work of all great artists and musicians; a profound underlying focus, a purity of purpose that never seems studied or insincere.It's there in Miles and Trane and Monk. It was all through Leroy's music. <br /><br />As a man and a spirit, he shines as an example of integrity, courage, and dedication. He was reserved in his praise of others; and when he gave clear approval of your work, it really meant something!<br /><br />His valuation of his own work was equally stringent: his critical assessments always included himself as their foremost recipient.<br /><br />Leroy had deep convictions concerning freedom and civil liberties. He gave his respect to those who earned it, and always had a kind word and a smile for you if he felt you were doing your job in life. Life really is about doing our jobs. Not just our work but our journey.<br /><br />We can make the journey kicking and complaining and gnashing our teeth; or, like Leroy Vinnegar, we can realize that life is the supreme gift. With the gift comes huge responsibility, and a vast array of possibilities. The achievement of a 'life well-lived' leaves us all richer and fuller.<br /><br />When I heard that Leroy had 'graduated' I was sad. Sad for myself, sad for us. For Leroy himself, I just felt love. And a great sense of satisfaction at having been his friend, at having played so often with him, at having seen his wonderful smile, of being hugged by him and respected by him.<br /><br />I will always feel that deep love for him. <br /><br />Leroy 'walked the walk'. He is alive within each of us that knew and loved him. <br /><br />That kind of immortality is rare, and precious.<br /><br />The Leroy Vinnegar Room <br /><br />At the McMenamins Grand Hotel in Portland, OR: my friend Suzanne stayed in the Leroy Vinnegar room with Jessica Williams quotes all over the walls! I had no idea there was such a room. <br /><br />The narrative was from my Eulogy for him.<br /><br />Leroy Vinnegar was a great man.<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-75636163632952230702008-02-16T00:53:00.001-08:002008-02-16T00:53:58.525-08:00Interview Number OneI like this Interview. It was in California. I don't remember his name. I have it somewhere.<br /><br /><br /><br />Q What pianists do you like to listen to?<br /><br /><br /><br />A I like pianists who are musicians first. One of my favorites is Charles Mingus. His album Mingus Plays Piano on Impulse! is one of my favorite piano albums, period. And when I lived in Oakland, CA, I'd go down and hear Buddy Montgomery play piano. He was a vibist, but I loved his piano playing too. He played music. He didn't just play piano.<br /><br />I'd rather hear Sonny Rollins or Miles or Trane or Monk. Monk was a great pianist and a great musician. A composer too. All these musicians had substantive ideas about what constitutes music. The "greatest pianists" today somehow leave me totally bored. The faster they go, the more numb I become. If it's a live concert, I watch the people. They get bored too. They fidget. Bill Evans never did that to audiences. He had great technique but he followed his internal song. He was never in competition with the other musicians or the audience or himself. And he didn't care about critics.<br /><br />You can't care about whether you're being profound or not. That's hype. You have to be yourself all the time. You don't put on airs and affectations and try to be heavy. You're just there, and you're there because you love it, and you react. Your reaction is the music. And it's real if you're real. You can wear your bunny slippers and your bathrobe and be yourself, and the truly hip people will be fine with that. The others can deal with it or not. Mostly not, because hype rules this age. Shrink-wrap and phrygian scales and Berklee grads and analytical thinkers. Mathematicians. Math is NOT Music. Math is Math. Math may be an Art to some. Music should be an Art, period.<br /><br />And, like most activities of this age, Music, particularly jazz, has become hyper-competitive, and therefor fear-driven. So it's an Alpha-male pursuit, with pro-sports rules, and the attendant locker-room mentality on and off the playing field. All they need is a ball. <br /><br /><br /><br />Q Was Bill Evans a nice guy?<br /><br /><br /><br />A He was beautiful. I opened for him at the Great American Music Hall (in San Francisco) and I played for him at the Keystone. He was dying those last two weeks. He was swollen and his hands hurt as they were so puffy from the anemia. When you get to that stage, it's a systemic thing; all your organs start to shut down slowly. It's no longer a liver or a lung or a heart or a kidney problem... everything stops working, or at least it stops working right.<br /><br />He didn't want to be recorded. The club owner recorded him anyway. I don't think that was what he wanted. Marc Johnson certainly did NOT want that recording to happen. <br /><br />He was always decent and open and warm with me. I held his hand many times and we hugged many times. This is the man that had paid me the highest compliment of my whole career (by saying, upon first hearing me at the Great American, 'where the f%$# did YOU come from?')<br /><br />But he was so sick, and it broke my heart because I knew, he knew, we all knew it was his time to go. He didn't feel that he could play very well those last weeks. He told me that in the hallway behind the stage at the Keystone.<br /><br /><br /><br />Q How do you prepare for a concert?<br /><br /><br /><br />A I don't. I try not to think about it. I don't make any lists anymore. I don't practice the day of the concert. (I don't want to 'let all the notes out')... I try to look nice but I don't trip if my hair is flat or I'm tired. Sometimes I play great when I'm tired.<br /><br />I try to be just like I am at home in my studio. I just sit down and play and whatever comes, comes from a real place. I have no self-consciousness anymore. When I was at the Mello Center and I had to set up the whole piano, the whole stage by myself, in front of the audience, which you said was an insult and an embarrassment, I didn't feel embarrassed one little bit. I just did it, and I took my time. When I took the music stand off the piano and said quietly 'they're gonna love me for this' and the audience laughed, I think most people knew I was not one bit ruffled. And I pushed that heavy stool with my foot and it made that terrible scraping noise on the stage floor and I said 'I refuse to hurt my back by lifting this thing', well, lots of folks have bad backs and can really relate to that!<br /><br />And then, the bench height was wrong and I got on the microphone (which didn't work, of course) and said 'get me a lower bench' and a guy brought it up on stage and then I lowered it even more... it was all just funny to me. It was like moving furniture in my house. The audience got that. Yes, it's insulting that jazz music isn't taken as seriously as classical music. Earlier that day a classical pianist was there. I wonder if he had to set his stage up and open the piano lid himself. <br /><br />But that night was mine, and I had a really nice, beautiful crowd. I made good money, too. Mainly, though, I made people so happy, and I gave them (and myself) a night to remember. No bad vibes. So if the presenters were fixing to mess me up by not even introducing me, and then shutting the piano up and turning the sound system off, they didn't succeed. I asked the man that had gone through ten years of fighting to buy this great piano for the school up to play, and he played a lovely Spanish piece, very still and quiet and graceful. That was wonderful.<br /><br />The guy that worked the stage, Pat, was such a nice cat, too. And he helped so much when he started to really dig what was happening. And West was this young cat that was so nice with the money, taking care of all of that for me. And we all liked each other. That's the power of Truth and love and being at peace. that's what Tinzen teaches me, and that's why I always seem to come away smiling. So how do you prepare for a concert? How do you prepare for THAT? You react, and you do it with grace.<br /><br />Everything must have GRACE. The music, your life, your soul, your intent, your interactions, your being. Thusly prepared, you are no longer operating by anyone's rules or agendas. You are FREE.<br /><br />But you can never prepare.<br /><br />Same with pianos. Not too long ago, if a pedal got stuck or a key stuck or a string broke, I'd make a fuss. What does that get you? You're a prima donna. You are immediately a victim. Now, when a piano string breaks or a key sticks, I hide it. And if I can't hide it, I make it part of the music. If the broken key sounds like a drum, I use it as a drum. If things get REALLY bad, there is always humor. Pianos are machines; machines break down. So do people. You can only be brave, and try to hide it, or laugh at it. It's ENTROPY. It's the way the universe works. <br /><br />As far as preparing to play when on stage, I sit there for maybe 20 seconds. NEVER start to play immediately, ever. Also, attention all who play an instrument (any instrument): when you play a ballad, and it ends, do NOT remove your hands from the keyboard or the fret board or whatever until the tone fades away completely. Moving your hands away tells the audience you are done; they will applaud and cover up all those beautiful ringing overtones that make endings so glorious. Pianists: try lifting that pedal ever so slightly, gradually, and sometimes a note will sing out unexpectedly. A beautiful and unpredictable thing! Never remove hands until sound stops. Law.<br /><br />So, I sometimes start out with a musical meditation (lately Wise One or Crescent by Trane) and then I might play a stride piece to 'meet and make peace with the piano'. And then I play the music that is already in the air waiting to be born. I can't ever tell you what it will be. It's always different. More and more (to me) I sound like a guitarist from Argentina or Venezuela. But next week I could play and sound like a saxophonist from Teaneck, New Jersey. But I think there's a lot of Spanish influence in the world right now, and the flatted seconds and sixths also remind me of Middle Eastern music, from India, Iran, Pakistan, Israel. Drones, and meditation music, with eighth note beats (less swing all the time) and I like this. I dig this now because I use the piano differently.<br /><br />I use the middle pedal to set up bottoms over which I play with both hands free (as I would with a bass player); and I use that even in tunes with lots of changes. Ballads, too. And I've taken that 'sheets of sound' thing of Trane's and adopted it for two hands and a wide spread chord in the low end (I have an eleventh in the left hand, a tenth in the right). This all leads to a new way of playing. It can be really really fast, but it's motionless and still too... like a solo guitarist strumming and plucking, but having one or two underlying notes that sustain.<br /><br />Hypnosis and music are combining. They reach a part of the brain and the soul that just playing changes can't access. All great music is hypnotic, and startling, and tragic, and deeply moving. It should change your life upon hearing it. A good concert should make you weep at least once.<br /><br />So that's the thing: good music should change your life upon hearing it.<br /><br /><br /><br />Q Change it how?<br /><br /><br /><br />A Change it in a way it needs changing. Fixing it. And if it can't be fixed, then breaking it so that it can be restructured.<br /><br />I watched a video of Miles with one of his late bands, all new players, young and fierce and trained well by the Prince of Darkness, Nosferatu himself, Miles Dewey Davis. And the band was good, coached and prepared like Black Ops Special Forces by the Sorcerer. So he's playing, it's almost the end of his time here on earth, he's cracking notes and not hitting what he's aiming at, but it's MILES, and all that power and courage and pain and love in his life just rises up and makes it all secondary, and I got chills and I started to cry like a baby because this man had EXISTED, had LIVED, and I had benefited. I played with BOTH his drummers; I never met Miles but they had told me enough to know who and how and what kind of man he was... just a man, but a very special, brave, tortured and enchanted man. I just cried, the music was so HOT. Miles changed my LIFE! <br /><br />I don't know how music got to be all divided up into this and that category and box. And some people aren't allowed to play some music because it's not 'real' if the 'wrong' kind of person plays it. That's just awful. Miles hired everybody, if they could play and looked good. Miles had this thing that you had to have PRESENCE. And the only way to do that is to BE YOURSELF. So Bill Evans wasn't a handsome guy. He looked bookish. Today we'd say nerdy. That doesn't and shouldn't matter, and to Miles it was an asset. This man that didn't change to 'look like a jazz musician'. That's presence.<br /><br />And the music is number ONE. It has to be original and new and unique. <br /><br />Duke Ellington said this:<br /><br />'There's two kinds of music; the good kind, and that other kind.'<br /><br />We all know good music down deep. It changes our life. It's like a flower that makes us stop to smell it. And in stopping, we break the cycle of habit and census. We actually FEEL. That is scary for some. That is good. Feeling is good.<br /><br /><br /><br />Q Is jazz dying?<br /><br /><br /><br />A A loaded question! If nobody plays it, it's dead. But it's ALSO dead if everyone plays the same old same old forever and ever. There's merit in the roots. You have to know how to really paint to paint like Jackson Pollack. And that isn't a good example, because people need healing now, not this incredible tension.<br /><br />So music (my Music, at least) needs to heal people. There are too many silly, stupid, upsetting things in the world for me to expect someone to pay to hear me and me come out there and play ugliness and rage. I'm past all that in my heart, anyway. I see the pain and I don't feel rage. I feel sorrow, and when I see happiness, I feel joy. So I play about the basic, timeless, universal emotions of love and pain and loss and longing and joy and beauty and Truth. They're all there. It's easy to play inside of each one. Music is a house or a garden or a forest, I enter it, and I encounter things and events. I react. You hear my reactions.<br /><br />Jazz is in its infancy. When women and men of every type and stripe are working together to change the planet for the better, to move civilization forward, they are making sweet music. Jazz is one strain of that vast symphony. <br /><br />I want to use more color. I want to use my FantomX8 and my piano, and I want to sound like a Spaniard one night and a Gypsy the next... we are all each other anyway. I do this a lot now very successfully. It isn't Spanish music or any specific KIND of music. It just feels like it has a tinge of that sky, that Spanish Sky. Then there's the Japanese influence. Very strong, as I'm a Nichiren Daishonin Buddhist, whatever that is.<br /><br /><br /><br />Q What Japanese music do you like?<br /><br /><br /><br />A Shakuhachi, of course... Burning Castles and all. Tomita. But Japanese NOW means everything; the anime characters with big eyes, all done with incredible detail and high tech HD graphics, and the synth music is just amazing. It's like nothing heard before on earth. It's Japanese but it's world music too. And I love Kitaro.<br /><br />Kitaro is passionate and profoundly gifted. He is utter simplicity. He has tech gear for days and yet he uses that one lonely flutey sine wave with a bit of breath mixed in, a mono patch that can slide up an octave with complete precision. It's great because it's SIMPLE. All the laser light shows, and the Taiko drums, and the headbands, and the lady on the red violin... that's all so wonderful. But Kitaro is mastery. He is like Pai Mei in Quentin Tarrantino's Kill Bill. Don't mess with Kitaro. He lives at the base of Mt. Fuji in Japan and is greatly honored by the people of his country. His melodies are simple and stark reminders of the beauty many of us lost in childhood. He's still a kid. He's having a ball! And the huge power of that majestic mountain is there in his music and his person. <br /><br />Same with Sir Elton John. What a real person. He was sick but now he's well and there's work to be done (Kilgore Trout). He radiates beauty and warmth. His music is SIMPLE. His message is clear. PEACE. HARMONY. EQUALITY.<br /><br />Not tolerance. Celebration!<br /><br />This man had broken in two. It took years and years for him to heal. Now he has no fear. Only love. Nothing about him is wrong or out of place; he's himself, and his music is him too.<br /><br />And I will always love Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, James Brown, Paul Simon, and Sting. I don't have to apologize for my taste. I'm old enough to know what I like.<br /><br /><br /><br />Q What about classical music? <br /><br /><br /><br />A People today have not heard 'classical music'. All those little curlicues and ppp's and fff's were stuck in there by British scholars in the nineteenth century. Bach isn't supposed to sound like a mathematical theory.<br /><br />People say it all the time: MUSIC IS MATH.<br /><br />NO. It's MUSIC. Math and music are not the same.<br /><br />Listen to Glenn Gould play the Goldberg Variations. Case closed.<br /><br />As far as real 'historical music' I have always loved the Romantic composers; Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Rimski-Korsakoff, Borodin, Beethoven, and Chopin. I think Beethoven is very romantic and lyrical. I'm turned off by the atonal music. Just tastes. <br /><br /><br /><br />Q Do you need big hands to play great piano?<br /><br /><br /><br />A NO NO NO! The music is in the heart and the soul, not the hands. But next time we talk I'll tell you about how the keyboard was much smaller in the early 1800's. And women were burning up the keys because they were staying home, practicing, writing symphonies that never ever get played. So the builders made the keyboards larger so that women couldn't stretch as far.<br /><br />This didn't stop Toshiko Akiyoshi. <br /><br /><br /><br />Q How has your outlook changed about jazz music over the years? <br /><br /><br /><br />A There was a time that I'd jump at any old g-i-g (a word I hate) that came along. We all went through that. One time, I was in Bern and it had taken me 40 hours to get there, I hadn't slept or eaten... and I had to play in 3 hours. I fell asleep and woke up ten minutes later totally FREAKED; I didn't know where I was. And they gave me 8 minutes to play; there were 9 other pianists on the bill. It was a dog and pony show. Play as fast as you can, impress the Swiss (all smoking like fiends, laughing, talking, screaming) and maybe you'll be the winner. Win what? 8 minutes. For what? These kinds of experiences make you realize how silly it is to compete, just so you can brown-nose it with some fat cat who may or may not hire you next year.<br /><br />I played for fifteen minutes, and ended abruptly, and stood, and they were silent, and I waved to them: good-bye. A smattering of applause erupted and I cut it off with a finger to my lips and a loud 's-h-h-h-h'... <br /><br />And I left.<br /><br />And I just stopped going halfway around the world to do what I can do here for five times the money. Our culture is full of holes, but it's also full of wonderful opportunities. It's what you make of it. You can achieve anything if you want it badly enough. I decided that, if I go to Spain, it will have to pay me at least twice as much as if I go to Wisconsin.<br /><br />No, this isn't all about money. But while we must create, we must eat. Those who so actively and viciously hate a certain (Smooth Jazz) soprano saxophone player betray their jealousy with their obstinate fanaticism.<br /><br />He made me cry in a store at Christmas with my honey, playing White Christmas on the overhead speakers. He was perfectly in tune, and every note was golden. I didn't need Albert Ayler then. It was perfect.<br /><br />Every good music has a place. Anything that makes the world better and more peaceful is a good thing. Anyone who gives their gift with love, and devotes their life to it, deserves respect and a good honest living wage.<br /><br /><br /><br />Q Do you smoke or drink?<br /><br /><br /><br />A I'm glad you asked that. recently someone said to me that someone had told someone else who told them that 'Jessica was drinking and smoking again'... truth is, I have emphysema, and if I take even a small taste of alcohol, I get nauseous. I'm a reformed alcoholic, and a reformed smoker:<br /><br />I HAVEN'T SMOKED ONE CIGARETTE OR HAD ONE ALCOHOLIC DRINK FOR TEN YEARS.<br /><br />Nor do I do any drugs. I am boring beyond words. I am getting well, and getting ready to make my next contribution to peace and sanity on earth through my music. It will be about others, not about me. I am a medium. You can NOT make love happen if you drink and smoke and destroy your body.<br /><br />The world heals as we heal. Each one of us who 'makes it through' brings the entire planet a tiny bit closer to being what it should be; a very hospitable, safe, and friendly place to live.<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-27700875329763458342008-02-16T00:52:00.002-08:002008-02-16T00:53:14.529-08:00Interview Number Two1 What's your favorite cd of the ones you've made? <br /><br /><br /><br />When I sell my cds at performances, people like to have them signed. I usually sit down behind a table. I often have a helper (in Oregon recently, Rita Beigh helped me a lot, taking the money and giving change, so I could focus on signing and personalizing cds).<br /><br />I like people, and there's a lot of smiling and touching going on, and good vibes seem to be everywhere. And someone always asks me 'What's your favorite cd?'<br /><br />I always say the same thing.<br /><br />I say that I never allow anyone to release something I hate, and that now that I have my own cd company (Red and Blue) my musical standards are such that the output is pretty even. I really don't have a favorite. I have a few that I listen to a lot, though, because they are calming and sweet and relaxing. Some Ballads Some Blues, Jessica Plays for Lovers, Solo Compositions, For John Coltrane, Offering, Blue Tuesday, Millennial Meditations, and Without Walls are way up on my list. I think Steps is the hippest, and Now is the swingingest.<br /><br />I'm too close to my work to judge it. I try not to judge too much anymore.<br /><br /><br /><br />2 How do you remember all of that music? You don't use sheet music!<br /><br /><br /><br />Most of what I play happens just once, when you hear it, and then it never happens again. It comes out of me and it never comes out twice the same way.<br /><br />Eric Dolphy said 'it's gone, in the air', and he was right.<br /><br />Increasingly (and excitingly) I'm moving away from 'tune-based playing' and getting into improvising out of nothing. No platform, no particular form. But it takes a form. And it's NOT FREE JAZZ. It's meditation music, sometimes very rhythmic and sometimes not; it could be called event-oriented improvisation as it works off of ideas that come and go like events in space and time. But no words can catch it.<br /><br />A new cd of mine, in the cooker as I write this (Dec 2005) is just this kind of thing. Inspired improvisational event-oriented music. My working title is 'Blood Music'. That could change but probably won't unless someone steals it from this web site and makes it before I do.<br /><br /><br /><br />3 How did you sleep? What did you eat today? <br /><br /><br /><br />Unfortunately, no one EVER asks me these questions. I live in a house, in a state, in a country. But most of my work is in another state, or another country. Yet everyone seems to think I just drove up and started playing.<br /><br />(I don't drive anymore. The last time I did was a trip between Santa Cruz and Sacramento, California. I was on 680, and a rock flew up and cracked the windshield. I was driving a Geo Prism. I decided to stop then. I was always terrified behind the wheel. My vision started to really get bad about 5 years ago, and now one eye is almost useless. It sees shapes and colors, and it's all very pretty and Monet-like. But to drive in America one must be awake, alert, with 20-20 vision and lightning reflexes. And at least a minor streak of aggression. I traded my driver's licence for something much better: a DMV identity card. To get to a concert that's near my home, my partner drives me there in style, in our big new behemoth Ford 4 door 150 truck, which gets 21 mpg in the city! But since we live very near everything we need, we walk everywhere and don't use it or think about it for days on end.)<br /><br />I usually haven't slept well at all because the flight in was very tiring, the hotel bed was lumpy, or the vagaries of air travel have left me unable to sleep; I sit up in bed all night watching HBO or Showtime. This way I get to see all the great and not so great movies. I've developed various weird affections for actors and actresses that I would normally have dismissed as horrid, simply because I've seen their best and worst work. Alan Sandler is not someone I would have thought I would enjoy. Or Ben Stiller. Or Uma Thurman. But Kill Bill, Volumes One AND Two, kept me up all night long! My own fault. <br /><br />And eat? Who has time to eat. And eat where? I'm a vegetarian who refuses to eat sugar or chemical-ridden junk. I usually get the person that picks me up at the airport to stop at a health food store on the way to the hotel, where I buy 5 or 6 BIG bottles of Evian Water. But there's no way to cook in a hotel room, and no refrigeration either. So I'm stuck with 'road food'. Sardines, bananas, chips, nuts, cereals (out of the box), crackers. Try finding sugarless food in a Safeway or QVC; there are about seven items in there without sugar. One of them is water. Soon, I am sure the government will want to put sugar in our water supply. Fluoride is certainly in it already (that's a whole OTHER topic... I won't go there) and sugar's probably next. Why sugar? It causes cancer. And that runs the billion dollar cancer industry with the gamma radiation and tamoxifen citrate and the 50/50 cure rate.<br /><br />So someone invite me to dinner. Please!<br /><br /><br /><br />4 Where are you going after the (ahem) gig? <br /><br /><br /><br />Oh do I so deplore the word 'gig'.<br /><br />gig 1 noun: <br /><br />1 chiefly historical a light two-wheeled carriage pulled by one horse<br /><br />2 a light, fast, narrow boat adapted for rowing or sailing<br /><br />verb [ intrans. ] travel in a gig. ORIGIN late 18th cent., apparently a transferred sense of obsolete gig [a flighty girl,] which was also applied to various objects or devices that whirled.<br /><br />gig 2 informal noun: (here it is, I love this one) <br /><br />a live performance by or engagement for a musician or group playing popular or jazz music; a job, esp. one that is temporary or that has an uncertain future<br /><br />gig 3 noun:<br /><br />a harpoon-like device used for catching fish or frogs. verb ( gigged , gigging ) [ intrans. ] catch fish or frogs using such a device. ORIGIN early 18th cent.: shortening of earlier (rarely used) fizgig, probably from Spanish fisga 'harpoon.' (FIZGIG is a word that really fits many jobs I played years ago!) <br /><br />gig 4 noun:<br /><br />informal computing short for gigabyte <br /><br />TAKE NOTE: a job, esp. one that is temporary or that has an uncertain future<br /><br />I personally prefer the harpoon-like device used for catching fish or frogs. It at least is not so transitory in nature and seems to serve some purpose. 'Gig'. As Dr Watson would say, 'Harumph.' If one has a gig, one is giggled. If one is without a gig, one is gigless. If one has many gigs, one has gaggles of gigs. And if one has a small gig, one has a giglet. A big gig is a ... BIG GIG. I used to have gaggles of giglets. Then I was gigless. Now I am so hostile to the word that it makes me work that much harder to NEVER, EVER have to play a concert that could in any way, shape, or form be considered a (gasp) gig. <br /><br />What was the question? Oh.<br /><br />No, I won't be going anywhere afterwards. I'll be going back to the boring old hotel straight away (as the Brits say). Since I neither drink nor smoke (nor hang out with any conviction), I'm not a whole lot of fun for the jazz crowd. I am more comfortable around software designers.<br /><br />I actually just really like NICE people. I can sit and talk for hours about stuff I know nothing about, like agriculture or dry-wall. The secret to this is to be silent. You'll never learn anything at all if you talk all the time.<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-75739170689251789042008-02-16T00:52:00.001-08:002008-02-16T00:52:22.263-08:00Truth and LiesI had written the piece below, and then removed it from this site... only to find it posted on someone else's web site! I reread it, and approved, so I brought it back home.<br /><br />Here it is, back in the old format. It says what I wanted to say then; and it says what I still believe, now.<br /><br />-<br /><br />Over a lifetime, we get used to being lied to... we just come to expect it. After a while, we figure 'what's the use?' and we feel dead inside. <br /><br />We get depressed and go on Prozac so as to live more easily with the lies. We figure if everyone else believes this, it must be true. We accept the consensual agreement in a false reality, because we're afraid to face the truth which lies within us. <br /><br />The justice and the wisdom of our native selves, the bioenergetic meaning of truth, runs counter to our teachings, our news broadcasts, our sitcoms, our group-think, our religions, our social engineers, our national leaders and our parental upbringing, not to mention our neighbors' opinion of us.<br /><br />So we evade, distort, reconcile, and obfuscate our selves. We compromise on the one thing that we should never compromise on: our natural, inborn, true selves. We stop worshipping the only thing that can ever truly be an object of worship:<br /><br />The truth.<br /><br />What is truth? Truth is what we biologically know is true. What is right? Right is what we instinctively know is right.<br /><br />How can it be that we believe our eyes or our ears or our brains when our senses and our bellies and our instincts tell us otherwise? Why do we want to believe the propaganda in a silly TV show when we know that real life is not a TV show? <br /><br />And who, then, is a hero or heroine?<br /><br />Simply someone who honors what they know in their bellies, relies on what they feel with their senses, trusts in what they believe with their instincts.<br /><br />I know that many people's truth is a consensual construct (a lie). It is none of my business what they believe about me or about anyone else. I have a job to do, and no time or need to explain myself. But lies have destructive capacity; they destroy lives.<br /><br />The lie of the Nazi was that the Jew was inferior*. It was a lie. And it was vile, and, to this day, many many people still believe this hideous distortion of their own diseased humanity. They are contaminated. They carry the emotional plague of mankind*.<br /><br />Group-think is far from benign.<br /><br />This is why I am not a joiner; not a good team-player.<br /><br />It is why slogans and patriotism are anathema to my personal, inner truth.<br /><br />It is why I never feel at home with agenda-driven groups and or organizations devoted to political or social reform: in my experience, the group always splinters into factions, cells, and categories.<br /><br />The group becomes a microcosm of the social system it was determined to change. In the end, the infighting and jealousy, the head-banging and name-calling, the labeling and prejudicial airs become no better than the macrocosm it emulates and duplicates.<br /><br />I am all alone, one within myself.<br /><br />This is what makes me totally human, original, and free. This is why I don't need Prozac, don't need alcohol, don't need drugs, and don't need groups. I do need friends, but only a few... and very truthful, and very faithful ones.<br /><br />This is why I can fly when I play; it is why so many people can fly with me when I play. It is why my CDs sell while other, faster, greater pianists' CDs don't sell half as well. I am in LOVE when I play, with my life, with my self, with my magical gift.<br /><br />This is why I am a jazz musician when I could be in any number of other much higher-paying occupations with much less discrimination. And it is why I won't ever conform to the way others play or think I should play. It is why I will never be a good little band-member.<br /><br />It is why I am a leader.<br /><br />It is why I choose to play only with musicians who are not driven by ego but by spirit, not by competition but by love.<br /><br />It is why I play alone, fearlessly.<br /><br />My truth is in front of me, behind me, around me, and within me. I am surrounded by the truth of my life. And it is good.<br /><br />Someone said of my playing, 'If you go to New York City and play a clichÈ or a quote, they won't let you play at all.' 'They' meaning the men in charge.<br /><br />Let me play? Why would I want to play for people who would stop me from being me and doing what I do? Why would I bother? And why is New York City the only place that this law applies? What about Seattle? Des Moines? Oakland? Is this law posted on signs in public places where quotes might be played? Is there a fine, or the risk of imprisonment?<br /><br />In truth, that person (a well-known jazz musician) believes that lie. He lives that lie every time he plays, and it cripples his self-expression, because he always has to edit every single phrase he plays to make sure that he never, ever quotes from another piece of music.<br /><br />What a cross to bear! Miles and 'Trane never had to be so terrified of breaking a law like that. If there were a law, Dexter broke it a thousand times a night. <br /><br />Lies are like that. They cripple free will. They invade a life and turn that life to stone. We wind up thinking of ourselves as victims.<br /><br />Life is about expression and movement and free will; about dynamism and flux and change and growth. About getting knocked down and getting back up. About doing the right thing.<br /><br />The right thing won't make you popular. Or famous. Or well-liked. It won't make you more money, and it might cost you everything. It might cost you your life.<br /><br />Some call that stupid. <br /><br />I call it truth. To me, that's the right thing.<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-82859536464029760022008-02-16T00:50:00.002-08:002008-02-16T00:51:35.237-08:00How I came to be in Philly Joe Jones' BandHere's how I met Philly Joe.<br /><br />Back then, I was married to a cab driver who thought he was a trumpet player. Actually, he was a cab driver. This was in Philadelphia, mid-seventies. Anyway, I didn't have a piano, but there was a great one on the University campus on Spruce Street, so my "driver" would drop me there on his way to work. He drove for Yellow. (We lived down the street from the A and A Steak House that made those Philadelphia Cheesesteaks, Hoagies, and we lived on them, it seems). Frank Rizzo ran the city. I had very few "gigs" and so I did a lot of playing alone, on that piano.<br /><br />It was a nine-footer, a Steinway. And it was summertime, and it was hot. And I had flung open these big windows that opened onto the inner square (the building had a big Liberty Bell in the foyer), so if you passed by these windows you could hear me playing.<br /><br />That day, I was playing Put Your Little Foot Out by Miles Davis, and this cat in short sleeves and a hat stuck his head in the window and said "I played that with Miles" and I knew it wasn't Paul Chambers or Red Garland, it had to be Philly Joe. He came inside and asked me to play Tadd's Delight (in Ab, which scared the hell out of me, as I had always played it in F for reasons of sheer laziness) and If I were a Bell, which was no problem, since I knew that one really well, and it was in F. That was my audition for the Philly Joe Jones Quintet (which usually turned out to be a quartet for some reason or other).<br /><br />Tyree Glenn was in that band, and a different bass player on every gig. We played the joints... in Camden, Trenton, Hoboken, all the seamy little holes-in-the-wall. I was terrified most of the time. I can't remember exactly why... probably just totally freaked that I was playing with THE Philly Joe Jones. I mean, gee whiz, kids!<br /><br />Then Philly Joe wanted me to go somewhere in Europe, and I chickened out and quit. I had just gotten married and figured I wanted to be like Barbara Billingsley (remember June Cleaver?) That was a very stupid move. Philly Joe understood, though. He knew I was very green and very unhip and very unready, and he was right. He was cool with that.<br /><br />Years later, right before he died, I met up with him at the Keystone Korner in San Francisco. He was just beautiful to me (as he always had been) and we laughed and talked and hugged.<br /><br />And that's how I remember him, how I saw him last. He seemed happy, and he looked beautiful.<br /><br />He was 54. I'm pretty sure of that, without going to Google to see if I'm right. I pretty sure he was only 54 when he left us.<br /><br />It scares me sometime. That somebody like that could die so soon, so young. He had so much vitality. He glowed.<br /><br />I guess I had better be very careful with my health! I haven't smoked or drank for many years now, and I know I'm not out of the woods yet! I wouldn't trade all these moments, though.<br /><br />They're not big, long moments. Most all of my memories from those days are like little frozen snapshots, short moments that have huge significance to me now. <br /><br />Like Dexter lighting a cigarette, waiting for that match to burn down so slowly, almost burning his fingers, keeping us all on edge.<br /><br />Or Philly Joe, that one eye (the left one, I believe) half-closed, cigarette hanging on his lip, stuck there somehow, smoke making his eyes tear up, just being hip by standing there looking like a king or a prince or some kind of royalty.<br /><br />To me, this was the Royal Family. These were the Leaders, the Chosen. Every place Philly Joe went, he looked like he owned the place. He was that present.<br /><br />I guess this is what happens as you get older. You can see those still pictures again, in full color. Just like you were there all over again.<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-58115547397379019072008-02-16T00:50:00.001-08:002008-02-16T00:50:42.067-08:00Inspired by Keith Jarrett playing Gershwin's I Loves You, PorgyThe vision of passion and enthralled attention,<br />the spiritual devotion and heart-breaking rendition,<br />newly risen from his mortal and infinite soul,<br />now present and visible and aurally in our midst.<br /><br />The vision of his enthralled attention,<br />his passionate denial of all that is banal and empty of blood,<br />rends our own broken hearts with a certain bitter sadness at our waste,<br />whether the waste of our gifts or the waste of our lives.<br /><br />For he has brought forth this gold,<br />this treasure of magnificent splendor,<br />and he is and always will be a part of our lives for this,<br />whether we witness the moment once or a million times.<br /><br />It is within me from the first whisper to the last breath of painful joy.<br />It cries and it sings and it soars and it sobs and it lives in all of us,<br />this thing he makes real here. It is not of him,<br />but because he is a strong warrior,<br />it is here because of him;<br />his endurance, his courage, his bravery, his love<br />and his infinite tenderness.<br /><br />If only once in his life he were to have been so moved,<br />it would very nearly be enough.<br /><br />These things we bring back from such journeys are the way<br />that we live until tomorrow.<br />Never-ending peace and light will only be ours when<br />we remember again who we are and why we are here.<br />While he makes this star-stuff in our presence,<br />to remind us, we must gaze upon this terribly brilliant wonderment<br />which this brave being of love and light can now manifest at will.<br />He calls to us all<br /><br />to remember who we are and<br />why<br />we're here.<br /><br />JW - Feb 08<br /><br /><br /><br />I noticed that my new CD for one of the last decent labels, Origin Arts, which was founded by one of the last decent producers, John Bishop, is on amazon already. The cover isn't even done yet. Titled Songs for a New Century, it proclaims quite clearly that it is time for me to say goodbye to the 1900's. I can not write as I used to write, and I can not play as I used to play. My art is taking me elsewhere and making me. I am incapable of taking it elsewhere or making it.<br /><br />I was the flame, I was the wind, I was the rain. Now I am the willow that must withstand the flame, the wind, and the rain. That is the prime difference between then and now. I was a musician, but now I am a pianist and so must learn about the piano again. I was a writer, but now I must become a poet - for if I am not, I will remain mute.<br /><br />I am less than what I was, less than what I will be. I am at a place of danger and also of potential. I embrace where I am, and I see my choices spread out before me.<br /><br />My choice is to sing the song through my piano that I have heard since I was a child. It was muted so fiercely by unthinking adversaries over the years, but I chose to be within it, this jazz. I chose it, it chose me, it doesn't matter. It's part of me always. Now I have to let the child play. I no longer can even imagine doing things like I did them just a year ago. It's THAT radical. The music I hear is so different from what's on my earlier recordings. I can't listen to them. They're mad, they're brilliant, they're coarse. I love them.<br /><br />I can't listen to them.<br /><br />Every day I wake up and every day I play my piano. I let the music play me. It's so very different. It happened all by itself. I did not go insane. I simply heard the music in my heart again. Not the stuff in my head, not all the people I learned from, not all the records I listened to and grew up with.<br /><br />I heard my OWN music, from six decades ago.<br /><br />That's what I'll be doing. Goodbye, 20th Century. Goodbye, lovers of noise and bass and drums and spang-a-lang. Goodbye, gigs.<br /><br />Hello, tomorrow. Vast, infinite, variable, promising, exciting, enchanting, challenging tomorrow!<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-71746032495414159082008-02-16T00:48:00.000-08:002008-02-16T00:49:59.720-08:00My Tribute To Billy TaylorI've written about musicians with whom I've had the opportunity to play with; Tony Williams, 'Philly Joe' Jones, Eddie Harris, Stan Getz, Big Nick... I was so lucky in my life in this regard that it seems like another lifetime. As of late 2005, we seem to have lost a lot of the vibrancy and immediacy that permeated 'those days'; and I know I must come off as sounding old and musty when I write with such enthusiasm about a time that is unquestionably over.<br /><br />Then I reflect that it's a good thing that it's over, at least that part of it, because, in truth, it was a rough time for all of us. The Civil Rights struggle was in full swing, a terrible war (Vietnam) had just 'ended', the Music we play was not the primary, secondary, or even tertiary music of our country (except outside of our country), we played for little money, and self-destructive behavior was the order of the day.<br /><br />Jazz hadn't grown up yet, and there were only a few who survived the growing pains.<br /><br />Early on, pianist Billy Taylor must have known this at some visceral level. Even in the 1950's, he was lecturing at educational institutions, giving lessons, and realizing how under-funded and under-appreciated jazz was in almost all societal strata. And he's devoted his entire 80-plus years on earth to putting it right; working with Arts Councils and governing bodies, working with government officials (even Nixon), foundations, and endowments to get the Music to the kids and to the people. He earned the title of Doctor and was not awarded that title, although he's received every honor I can think of. He's even started his own label (Soundpost Records). <br /><br />I can't do his biography justice here. If you want to read about Billy Taylor and learn about his incredibly rich contribution to jazz and to our country's wealth of genius and creativity, see his web site, billytaylorjazz.com<br /><br />What I CAN do here is just to write a few words about what this very sweet cat has meant to me, how he's touched my life, and how he's positively affected my musical and spiritual life.<br /><br />I finally met Dr Taylor for the very first time at an engagement I did in 2005 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. (pictured above). But his affect on me had started much earlier. I had heard "I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to be Free" and some of his work with Arkadia, but sometimes us jazz musicians can be less aware of the great contributions being made around us than our listeners! Lots of times, we're wrapped up in some project of our own, giving it our all to make a living in a less than hospitable environment for the arts.<br /><br />Mainly, it was Billy that was making some very nice things happen in my life. I'm not exactly sure what he did, nor will I probably ever ask him. I just know that, among other wonders, my dream of playing at the Kennedy Center came true, and I've played there quite often. In 2004 I played with my NYC trio (Ray Drummond and Victor Lewis) at the Women in Jazz Festival, dedicated to the magnificent trailblazer in women's rights and in jazz music, Mary Lou Williams. And I met Billy for the first time while playing at the Piano Summit (with Bruce Barth and Eric Reed). So it's not like I can say I know him well...<br /><br />But I know him well.<br /><br />His spirit was as clear as water. We met and we started to communicate, really communicate, about matters ranging from health and wellness to music to observations about the state of the art and where it was headed for both of us. I felt like I had known this great man for a long, long time.<br /><br />I've written a suite, dedicated to him, called "BILLY'S THEME" <br /><br />I played it for him, and many many others, at the Kennedy Center on May 11th, 2006. That's the only way I thank a great artist for all he's done, not just for me, but for all of us.<br /><br />Thank you, Dr Billy Taylor! <br /><br />At the Kennedy: Women in Jazz<br /><br />By Mike Joyce, Special to The Washington Post, Monday, May 15, 2006; Page C02<br /><br />If you're going to kick off the Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival alone, playing a pair of piano tributes - one to the event's namesake (Mary Lou Williams), the other to founder and guiding light Billy Taylor - isn't a bad way to go.<br /><br />Of course having Taylor, who recently said he was retiring from public performances, join you for a bluesy coda is probably too much to ask.<br /><br />Or is it?<br /><br />Although always careful to keep the spotlight on festival headliners, the 85-year-old jazz legend couldn't turn down an invitation to sit beside pianist and composer Jessica Williams when the 11th edition of the festival got underway Thursday night at the Kennedy Center.<br /><br />The opportunity came moments after Williams performed several imaginatively harmonized solo piano pieces from a new suite she wrote in Taylor's honor. Among them was "Taylor's Triumph," an apt description of the festival itself. The duo's four-handed finale quickly proved a delight, with Williams and Taylor trading parts (and places on the piano stool). Initially Williams took the high road, favoring treble-register trills and triplets, while Taylor sustained a walking bass line with his left hand.<br /><br />It's hard to recall the festival opening on a more fitting and crowd-pleasing note. The three consecutive nights of concerts were sold out, thanks in large part to the box office draw of renowned vocalists Dee Dee Bridgewater, Ernestine Anderson and Abbey Lincoln.<br /><br />The remaining headliners, festival newcomers and favorites alike, covered a wide swath of mainstream jazz styles. The moods ranged from pianist Daniela Schaechter's impressionistic balladry and guitarist Mimi Fox's elegantly embellished quartet and solo arrangements to the organ-driven grooves of bands led by trombonist Sarah Morrow and keyboardist Trudy Pitts. Among the festival's highlights was Morrow's distinctive take on Thelonious Monk's "Blue Monk" and Pitts's Hammond-powered rendition of Fats Waller's "Jitterbug Waltz."<br /><br />Saved for last was the biggest and brashest group - the Diva Jazz Orchestra. Led by drummer Sherrie Maricle and featuring several fine soloists, the 15-woman ensemble capped the festival with a series of surging, custom-tailored arrangements, including vibrant charts written by John McNeil ("The Claw") and Tommy Newsom ("Lady Be Good"). Particularly impressive was clarinetist Anat Cohen's virtuosic turn on "What a Little Moonlight Can Do."<br /><br />Two honors were announced during the event: Veteran pianist, singer and composer Patti Bown won the Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival Award, while Mayuko Katakura took top honors in the festival's second annual piano competition.<br /><br />- Review by Mike Joyce, Special to The Washington Post<br /><br /><br />The 11th Annual Women in Jazz Festival<br /><br />Posted: 2006-06-01, By Franz A. Matzner, All ABout Jazz <br /><br />Women have been involved in jazz since its beginning. They just never received due credit. This truism led Dr. Billy Taylor to found the Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival more than a decade ago. Though progress has been made, it is the persistent inequity facing women practitioners that continues to make the annual three-day concert series one of the Kennedy Center's most important and successful jazz events.<br /><br />It is important because one of the factors that keeps any prejudice firmly in place—even after it is officially unacceptable—is a lack of role models to serve as inspiration to subsequent generations. Thus, the less talked about, but equally important phenomena of the Women in Jazz Festival is its multi-generationalism. Dr. Taylor's dedication to bringing to the stage each night elder, ground breaking masters, established stars, and rising talents means that audiences and fellow musicians alike are exposed to the history of women in jazz and the younger talents have a chance to take part in the mentoring process that lies at the heart of the jazz tradition.<br /><br />The festival is successful, however, because of the great talent on display. After all, the best way to break the remaining insidious stereotypes about women in jazz is simply to give the women a chance to hit the stage and tear it up. Which is precisely what occurred during the 11th annual festival.<br /><br />The festival's first night brought to the stage pianist Jessica Williams, trombonist Sarah Morrow, and vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater. Williams began with a series of standards to warm up the audience, including a hypnotic rendition of Coltrane's "Wise One", before moving onto the set's highlight, the premier of several selections from a suite composed by Williams and dedicated to Dr. Taylor. An appropriately complex set of compositions taking full advantage of Williams' delicate touch and Bill Evans' inspired impressionism, the three tunes culminated in a blues duet between Taylor and Williams, both deftly delivered and inevitably touching to watch.<br /><br />Expertly shifting the mood, Morrow took the stage next with a big, loud, energetic bang and never relented until her final, raucous number had the audience on its feet calling for more. Showing great range on the trombone, especially when using a plunger mute, Marrow blasted through one blues-centered, Dixieland tinged tune after another, including a slow, almost corpulent blues so tongue in cheek it had audience members shaking their heads with both laughter and astonishment at the range of growls, groans, and grinding moans Marrow was able to call forth. In the end, Marrow's irresistible showmanship stole the night and proved one of the festival's distinct peaks.<br /><br />"The less talked about, but equally important phenomena of the Women in Jazz Festival is its multi-generationalism."<br /><br />If every event has its peaks, then by definition there must be a few valleys. The festival's second night opened with one of the only missed beats, a disappointingly directionless performance by the Daniela Schachter Quartet which could have been chalked down to mere inexperience if it hadn't been further marred by Schachter's indulgent forays into disastrous vocal self accompaniment. Fortunately, the subsequent two acts more than made up for the evening's initial stumble.<br /><br />Taking the stage next, guitarist extraordinaire Mimi Fox presented a stunning set of music that kept the audience riveted from the opening blues excursion to Fox's immaculately delivered solo rendition of "Alone Together". Effective solo guitar is never an easy feat, but holding the attention of a large concert hall adds a second level of challenge. Fox's firm control, clarity of concept, and emotional depth made this the most memorable moment of the festival and proved why Fox is one of the most recognized guitarists on the scene. (Check out Fox's recent double release for a taste of her solo playing.)<br /><br />NEA Jazz Master and vocal visionary Abbey Lincoln closed the festival's second night in powerful form. Arriving on stage to a warm ovation, Lincoln, clad in all black, proceeded to mesmerize the audience with her grace, stage presence, and a carefully constructed series of songs that delved intimately into questions of age, suffering, and memory. While Lincoln's voice may have betrayed her at times, her intensity and willingness to confront the realities of aging in her performance proved her strength as an artist. By incorporating this level of personal introspection into her music, Lincoln drew new layers of meaning from many of her signature songs, transforming the series of tunes into a dramatic existential meditation.<br /><br />The festival's final night followed the previous two with a similar diversity of musical styles and forms. First, pianist and educator Trudy Pitts got the crowd's blood flowing with a set of music split between her classically inflected, graceful piano and her more raucous, funky excursions on organ. Following this appealing schizophrenic display, veteran vocalist Ernestine Anderson took over for an almost cabaret-styled series of tunes ranging from the slow blues number, "Nightlife", to a deftly handled rendition of "Sunny Side of the Street", to a humorous and thoroughly entertaining delivery of "Never Make Your Move Too Soon"<br /><br />Appropriately, the festival then concluded with a hard-hitting, upbeat, and exuberant set of big-band music presented by the Diva Jazz Orchestra. Featuring an all-star cast, the Diva's proceeded to tear through one crowd-pleasing tune after another, each more impressive than the last. While none of the tunes may have been exceptionally avant-garde, each allowed the talented musicians ample space to showcase their skills as powerful soloists, many on multiple instruments. Competing for highlights of the set were a medley of Ella Fitzgerald tunes, including an expertly executed scat solo by Christine Fawson, and a scintillating rendition of "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" on which Anat Cohen captured the audience with a clever, virtuosic clarinet solo.<br /><br />One hopes that eventually the concept of a concert series specifically designed to highlight women in jazz will become less relevant. But we aren't there yet. After all, no one has ever seen a big-band titled the "All Male All Star Big-Band". Perhaps one day we'll need one of those. Until then, the Kennedy Center's Annual Women in Jazz festival is both a reminder that as many strides forward as jazz has taken, the path to gender equality remains a long one, and an excellent opportunity to hear fantastic music from some of today's greatest voices.<br /><br />- Franz Matzner has contributed interviews and coverage from the Kennedy Center since 2002<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74848803640305035.post-37035327258915847522008-02-16T00:46:00.000-08:002008-02-16T00:47:23.944-08:00My Three Nights with Tony WilliamsAnthony Tillman Williams played drums for Miles Davis in the '60s. The group also featured pianist Herbie Hancock, saxophonist Wayne Shorter and bassist Ron Carter. <br /><br />Tony went on to lead his own trio featuring John McLaughlin on guitar and B-3 organist Larry Young. <br /><br />He died in 1997 at the age of 51.<br /><br />I played with Tony for three nights at a club in San Francisco called 'Bajones'. It was in the Mission and I think it was on Valencia. Our bassist for those three nights was Wyatt 'Bull' Reuther, a fine musician.<br /><br />I think the bill was called something totally contrived and silly... 'Williams versus Williams' (how embarrassing). But that wasn't the band's idea.<br /><br />I was very blonde and very scared, but I think I did OK. It was certainly not my best work. I was physically too far away from him (and Bajones was not known for its great acoustics). Tony was clear across the stage from me, and I really couldn't hear myself at all, because he was, well, a bit loud. But he was 'good' loud, if that makes any sense. And, if my memory serves correctly, he was using a 22-inch bass drum, and pretty hefty sticks.<br /><br />I do remember that he was using a lot of 'matched-grip' techniques.<br /><br />Half the drummers in the Bay Area were gathered at his end of the stage. He was trying out new things on those nights, and some of the tempos fell. That usually drives me crazy, but it's sometimes hard to tell who (if anyone) is responsible. It could have been (and probably was) me. I just know it was a great honor and the thrill of a lifetime to play three entire nights of music with the great Tony Williams.<br /><br />He was such a fine man, a very soft-spoken gentleman. His work with Miles, for me, is pure genius. I have never heard drumming like that, ever.<br /><br />It'll never happen again. Tony was a supernova. A giant.<br /><br />One day shortly before we played together, he asked me to come to his house (in Marin County, CA, I think) for a short rehearsal.<br /><br />He told me he wanted to play Coltrane's Moment's Notice. He said he had always wanted to play that tune. I said that I'd do my best to accommodate him (it wasn't exactly my favorite type of tune). Fortunately, I had the Coltrane album Blue Trane, and I knew the tune and the changes. So we worked on that for a while on his upright. His silver pearl trap set was in his living room.<br /><br />At one point, I mentioned to him that I was fascinated by a particular effect he had gotten on the Miles Davis album Filles de Kilimanjaro.. I said it sounded (and somehow looked) like birds all flying together out of the bush on the plains of Africa (it was a very visual sound to me, achieved by the hi hat alone, and it was just brilliant... it had always left me stunned).<br /><br />He sat and showed me how he had done it, with his left hand. It wasn't a lick. Tony didn't play licks. He couldn't quite duplicate it because he wasn't playing. For him, playing was like it is to me; you can never tell others what it is you're doing because it's somehow not you doing it.<br /><br />In that living room, just him and I, a moment came into existence for me that would never ever leave me.<br /><br />It was late afternoon, the sun was coming through the leaves and dappling the walls and floor with a serene movement of light and shadow. Tony was relaxed totally, and he made me feel totally relaxed too.<br /><br />He carried all this Music in his soul and in his every movement, just like I do. I don't know if he knew how great his gift was. I sure didn't know back then how great my gift was, and I think most of us only 'get it' later in life. I just know I remember this one slice of sunlight and shadow, of Tony, sticks in hand, a smile on his beautiful face, sitting there in his house and just being.<br /><br />After we played that three night engagement, I only saw him once face to face before he passed away. He was with the great Bobby Hutcherson at Kimball's in San Francisco. He sent me Christmas cards every year, though.<br /><br />I wanted to make a CD with him when I was working for Jazz Focus Records, and Tony intervened during the negotiations with his agent, offering to do the date for half his usual fee, just because he 'wanted to play with Jessica'. The hotshot that headed up that (now defunct) company said that it was 'too much money' (it wasn't), and so the date never happened. Maybe it's just as well. I have nothing but the memories, and they are enough.<br /><br />(Said hotshot went on to get into serious trouble with the law, and was a criminal of the worst sort. My tenure with him is happily over, and my Music is healthier now that I'm away from such negativity. I'm glad that Tony wasn't exposed to that.)<br /><br />I loved Tony. I deeply loved him, and not a day goes by that I don't miss him and think of him.<br /><br />One more miracle in my life, a life full of miracles.<br /><br />There are moments like this and they are frozen forever in amber for me. These are the moments of my life, and I wonder at them sometimes; I have difficulty believing that they really happened.<br /><br />They did, though (thank goodness there were witnesses, or I'd doubt my own memories!) and I am eternally grateful for the opportunities.<div class="blogger-post-footer">See Jessica Williams' main web site at http://www.jessicawilliams.com/</div>Jessica Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03183670996782786477noreply@blogger.com0