I wasn’t planning on writing until next Monday, but I can’t seem to get away from this.
With the falling temperatures come late mornings. Stepping outside earlier, the sky was still dimmed with the street lamps on from the previous night. It felt like the sun had already set, and it was only going to get darker. I was in the mood for some jazz, so I fidgeted on my iPod until I found a Duke Ellington collection. Unfortunately, most of it is comprised of big band swing songs, fast moving, major keys, a sound that didn’t quite match the mood. I settled on Going Up, a calm progressive jazz piece featuring brushes instead of drum sticks, harmon mutes in the trumpets, and Les Spann on flute. Four years of private lessons, with four different bands in high-school, have made me appreciate the polished, roundness of his sound. He travels chromatically with utter smoothness on the woodwind, and unlike on the piano, which the fingers can move across in one sweeping motion, each note is played with a seemingly random combination of fingers. In his head, he’s four bars ahead of his fingers, allowing his intonation remain precise with each purposeful note.
Sometimes it feels like music is the only thing that can bring out my emotions again. Most of them have been replaced by simple determination. Everything is business business business because the world is cold cold cold.
I’m going home for the Thanksgiving long-weekend. A much needed break that I’ve been planning for a while now. Funny that I still call it home when it’s a five hour drive away, and I own my own house in this city. Home isn’t where you grew up, it isn’t where you live now, home is where the parents are.
I don’t know how much of a jazz lover you are, but it’s pretty much all I’ve listened to for a couple of years now. I definitely agree that you’ve got to be in a certain kind of mood to hear big band stuff.
Do you have any Miles Davis on your ipod? Like ‘So What’ or ‘Blue In Green’ ?
I do have one Miles Davis song, which is Stella By Starlight. I also have a copy of the album Tutu, but it was a little too experimental for my taste.
I’ll have to look for those two songs.
Jeff, let me know if you find them and please tell me what you think. I’m curious.