Jazz and violence, People!
It’s difficult to wrap my head around what is going on in Israel other than that I know hundreds of people are being killed. My feelings about Israel aside, I’ve reached out to people who have family there to see if they are alright. There’s nothing I want to say other than the violence of war and the death of civilians is horrendous.
Sometimes, just living my day-to-day life in the world feels like an act of denial. Many acts.
I don’t believe there is anything I can say or do that won’t make me the target of aggression no matter what I believe and I have lost faith that anything I do or say about almost anything will have any impact. The macro is. The micro is my life.
It’s not defeat, it's surrender. I can only sit with it and think about what my responsibility is and to whom and what I can do. No virtue signaling. No acts of aggression. No food for trolls on either side. Fuck off.
Hope is the public facing pitch of the denial grift.
I want to engage in the life I have left. I want to feel like that’s okay. If I don’t, I feel like I’m avoiding something. I feel like I’m wasting time if I do anything that doesn’t have a productive outcome. That’s a framing issue. It all goes into the me grinder.
Yesterday I worked out, then decided jazz was the day. I listened to Pharaoh, the ‘77 Luaka Bop reissue of the Pharaoh Sanders album with Harvest Time on it. I don’t really know how to contextualize jazz in my brain intellectually. I’m mostly uninformed. I do enjoy listening to it although I always feel like I’m missing the background that would make it deeper for me. Which is true. This is a very melodic Sanders album. It transported me like most jazz. My brain is good receptor for most jazz. Not fusion so much, but most of the rest. Even the noise skronk freestyle riffing. I can dig it.
So, I listened to the full album and the bonus live recordings. Then I decided to watch the newish Wayne Shorter doc on Prime Video. I have little patience for docs that are filled with animation, re-enactments and stock footage montages but there was enough interview and information in it about his life and the history of jazz that I was able to watch two parts. I’ll watch the rest later. The story of his compositional genius, playing style, tragic life, how he directly affected and changed jazz and his Buddhism was all new to me and opened up a portal of understanding on a musical, spiritual and psychological level. Understanding genius.
I realized sometimes genius, being on the spectrum and Buddhism can seem similar and his ultimate pursuit to find an ‘indestructible happiness’ through the faith of being entirely without fear was something I am so far away from and perhaps incapable of that it made me a bit hopeless in seeing my own art and my understanding of myself.
It is in the music though. That is how he was working it out. So, I listened to his Speak No Evil with new ears that were conscious of the journey and informed of some intent. It took me there. It’s in the silences. Almost always.
I have to decide what else I need to learn so I have a context for my feelings. I can choose. Yesterday I chose art. It seems manageable and possible.
The rest seems futile.
I don’t know how much longer I can help people feel better about anything. I do know I can keep pursuing my personal expression but it is limited to words and laughs. Music is magic.
Today I talk to Tom Papa. He’s a nice guy and very funny. It’s a good comic talk. On Thursday I talk to Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s Arnold Schwarzenegger. Good week.
Enjoy!
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!
Love,
Maron
