A Dearth of Heroics

five am. brooklyn. bedroom. fan is swinging full-tilt boogie. got 40 bucks to my name. 10 times more beer than gingerale or water in my fridge. going to end the week about 40 bucks in the hole.

in the meantime, at least two new songs came out of the Mimetiks workshop on last night. because of the light, we’re moving the gig later. to like 8:30 to 11. so.

exhausted. tomorrow is the day off. will work all day. or smoke all day? cigar store will be open and i got them forty bucks. don’t i?

without a song

or generally, with out any specific song.  there are so many that could be used.  and so few chances to use any one of them.  is that true either?  it might as well be a lie.  there are songs.  innumerable, uncountable sounds.  and one might sing them at any point.  if one is willing to sing.  i try to be willing.  i strive to be willing.

my mother used to say i was willful.

D. J. Oh!
been in rehearsals the last couple of weeks with Daniel Jose Older (DJ Oh!… as i have begun to call him) for a gig coming up at the 169 Bar on thursday may 31st.  at 10pm.  his music is sort of latin pop style.  very digable stuff.  we’ve got two great singers (i’m just playing keys!), a drummer and a percussionist (i’ve met the perc. but have never play with him or the drummer), and trumpet player.  Besides Dan on bass and guitar.  Its part of a showcase and I think we’re only playing for like 20 minutes or so.  but we’re playing.  the flyer (i got Dan’s email yesterday) reads: Sad and Sexy Song about the Sea.
so…

jazz vespers
June 2.  6 – 7:30p.  Newark, NJ.  Bethany Baptist Church.

just now i am trying to figure out what tunes will go where in this program.  as i understand it the goal is not have jazz musicians come in and play church music but to use jazz as the medium of worship.  as the vehicle of prayer.  as the conduit of faith.  supposedly, “that like my whole angle, man!”  but when you really think about it, its a difficult thing to pull off effectively.  the music can’t just be “all of me” or “speak low.”  (though i am considering that new arrangement, just without vocals.  quietly considering it, just now…)  the music has to have a spiritual bent.  not in title, but in composition.  so i am mining my mind to find suitable music from the akieBermiss4tet canon.
i have some ideas…

on the train again.
still haven’t really had the chance to take care my car situation.  its going to start hurting soon.  i know.  but its pretty damned difficult to make it work when you’re working.  ah.. and they cost so much!  so here i am on the train again.  this time: to Hudson.  where i’ll hot foot it on over to Operation Unite, teach for 2+ hours, get an idea of who can play what for the recital (on June 13th), then bum a ride of the generous Johnny Ronsani while I explain to him my strange, unsound ideas for the jazz vespers gig, then its the Blum Music Studio at Bard College to do a nighttime recording of Daniel Bieber’s senior concert suite from the fall semester.  after that, warmth, softness, the –

[Dexter Gordon.  Body And Soul.  Homecoming: Live at the Village Vanguard.]

– which turned into a nearly 28 hour break.  It is currently on Amtrak heading south from Rhinecliff, NY to New York City.  its tiring, but its starting to occur to me that it might be worth the struggle.  worth the continuous hustle.  why else do we do it?  we love this music, man.  i begged a ride off Johnny yesterday evening after my lessons (in order to get to Bard for Daniel Bieber’s studio session) and we had a music-lover’s dinner in Rhinebeck where we rapped on teaching, practicing, coltrane and the blues, miles davis and the pitfalls of resting on one’s laurels, how to avoid mediocrity, and the coming year’s work.  saying, in essence, to each other: we’re willing to do the work.
which is what we’ve been trying to say all along!

91 North: The Music of Daniel Bieber
I have known the burgeoning titan that is Daniel Bieber since he was but a pup.  a be-dredded, cellist from upstate NY, who had decided to try and play jazz.  to play the bass.  feel a particular connection to Dan because he has come an enormous way since his first days, his first concerts.  It is not dissimilar to my own college experience.  coming in completely unexperienced and having to work day-in and day-out to achieve, first, proficiency, and then, facility.
My first gigs with Dan were probably his freshman year, i think.  When Johnny and I (second semester) decided to put together Bard’s first free-jazz ensemble: Fragile/thePushy.  we recruited Dan for that gig.  we also had like five rehearsals and no gig.  so on the last friday (or was it saturday?  thursday?) of classes we held our first and only annual free-jazz invitational.  we didn’t invite any other free-jazz bands (as there weren’t really any, at the time) but we did mean to invite people to see us play.  the only cat that came was Walker Swain — who came about five minutes after we started but stayed for the gruesome duration.  after that Johnny and I tapped young Dan for every manner gig.  we spent most our senior year planning gigs and coercing Dan to play with us.

[sunday morning.  may 27th.   8:34a]
Also, in that year, I played what I think is Dan’s first great jazz tune:  For Zack, Alive and Burning.  Which was a delightful ballad.  So delightful, that a year later (without ever having heard the recording of it or remembering how the tune went) I knew that I wanted to play the tune in the Dan-Constantine-Akie trio session.  And shit if we didn’t
Dan, who graduated from college yesterday afternoon, comes to new york in a few months.  and then…

well, on thursday night, we finally got his suite recorded.  i have no clue how it sounds just now, actually.  but look out for the lead-out tune in the piece: 91 North (which we also recorded in the same studio as a quartet last january with hoffa and jah).  its, literally, the shit.  welcome to the ranks, Dan.  its hell out here.  everyday.

a journey of a thousand words begins with a single letter. there are letters and there are letters. i am on a train with no cafe car… having just barely made it. tired. very tired. he is. not out of sleepiness, but anxiousness. and anxiousness that consumes and depletes and causes the mind, the man, and the meaning to wind down slowly.

the waiting
i supply the reason. i know reason: reason is mine and she is another’s and she, most exactly, her own. singers (will i call myself poet again? i almost did just there.) pin and needles are the course of the day. we walk on them, wincing, but we must go forward. so we go. i had forgotten just how much i love Kurt Elling’s The Messenger and i must, as a friend to anyone, suggest that anyone who can listen to it – do. a “piece of art” album if ever there was one. i am currently lost in its unfoldings.

on the train. from rhinecliff to bard. the last time officially, huh? am i done teaching at my school? for good? for evil?! ah, who can say. it is not so sweet as it could have been. there is the bitter in’t. i do not weep, but, i am moved. and i will follow a few more generations as they come of age (i had thought this year would be the last). much of the natural way of things has changed.

i am not so loosely darkenedly out-to-sea as i was. i see now. from up out of the dark center. i perceive with sadness. with interest. with longing. but we (the editorial we, now) — we are dark, nighttime creatures. we may be day-walkers, but we thrive only in that night. as so many creatures languish happily in the delicious, honey-thick, moon-heavy weight of night, so do we wrap ourselves in day’s sunshine blankets. the danger is that there can be a mingling at the transition times. that at dawn, at dusk, we pass each other in opposite directions. shall i look to the day to find thee? do you look to the night to find me? we will exhaust each other this way. consumed, depleted and winding down. but it is most exciting in the transitions. to linger a bit longer where you do not belong. for the sake of some rightly-belonging thing.

to sustain it, i must make a great magic. hold off night, and you dawn. that is an impossible strength. extending the in-between periods. the guard changes then and nothing is truly guarded. spirits slip in and out of the way of things unnoticed. unharried. unhurried. while nature is being slowed. rules being twisted, massaged, bent. the rules — their revenged is to bend us back. twist us. manipulate us. i am not ambivalent, if i seem so. i am deliberately, determinedly impervious. phased and unfazed.

[the music stops. so does this thought.]

playdates.
i assume it must grow boring, me talking constantly about kyle and luke. there are other music things happening. everyday. when there is not music there is still music. i live unafraid in the meantime. when the music stops, for good, then i will know that i have died. if, when you die, there is any knowing left. til then:

sam morrison. i met sam at the swan last winter. (i have definitely written this before) i sang ’round midnight (at marvin’s request) and it gave us something to talk about. since then i’ve rehearsed twice and played one gig. but we have about three gigs coming up this summer. one festival and a couple of clubs. with Sam (and his favorite drummer, T) i am learning the joy of playing out on original tunes. it’s mostly Sam’s music (except for the occasional covers we put in to please the dinner crowds). while its not straight-ahead and a couple of the tunes can be smooth at times, they encroach territory that i am attempting to explore in my music. i will learn here.

[riverside park. 5:23pm. it is dusk i suddenly observe from this moving window. it is wonderful.]

the akie bermiss quartet (the johnny ronsani experiment). is this john’s band or is it mine? it is the band of the people, people! with this group we have (actually!) torn up joint in Catskill and Hudson. with Dan and Zack (the akie bermiss trio) i have had fairly regular work upstate. most of it instrumental. with johnny we open up the opportunity for me to sing and the band to shift and augment and diminish. we have a smattering of gigs this coming summer. and, though Zack will be away, we will be in good form i think. I’ve enlisted in the talents of Barnaby Alter (another Bard cat) to help us from the drum chair. the rapport should be spot-on. i am hopeful and excited. our first gig is June 2nd in Newark. Jazz Vespers which was a connection through Dorthaan Kirk at WBGO. this is particularly exciting for me… jazz vespers… i mean. that’s like my whole angle, man! right?!

akie solo. nothing to report here. but i did have funny idea that i might ask around brooklyn (at Saje first) to see if anybody want to pay a pianist very little to play a weekly gig and play (and, maybe, sing) jazz standards. that’s like my whole angle, also, son! and it would be great fun.

[penn station. i must quit you.]

(saturday 5/19. 10:22)
let me be your shadow’s shadow.
whatever i intended to write here is gone. after getting approximately two hours of sleep last night i drove upstate to Milan, NY to play an outdoor jazz concert (in the rain? yes. in the cold? yes.) drove back and cleaned my apartment. entertaining a guest (who is sleeping comfortably on my couch at present) and preparing for the mimetiks challenges tomorrow. i hope they go “easy” on me. (they won’t.)

its not the sleeplessness that bothers me. i was not really tired today (except that drive back home on the taconic) . the night just wore down on me. i was tired from working and had to resume work immediately. which fucked up my whole shit. i will have to finish the post tomorrow. or a new one then.

i have had too much gin and ginger ale. and i am tired. and cross-eyed. the drinking enhances sleepiness and ensures my sleeping soundly. it is night. my time. i shall work my wonders from bed, then. a more eloquent man should tell you all the things that have gone down. he’s gone. i am in his place. cursing and squinting.

without a song

or generally, with out any specific song.  there are so many that could be used.  and so few chances to use any one of them.  is that true either?  it might as well be a lie.  there are songs.  innumerable, uncountable sounds.  and one might sing them at any point.  if one is willing to sing.  i try to be willing.  i strive to be willing.

my mother used to say i was willful.

D. J. Oh!
been in rehearsals the last couple of weeks with Daniel Jose Older (DJ Oh!… as i have begun to call him) for a gig coming up at the 169 Bar on thursday may 31st.  at 10pm.  his music is sort of latin pop style.  very digable stuff.  we’ve got two great singers (i’m just playing keys!), a drummer and a percussionist (i’ve met the perc. but have never play with him or the drummer), and trumpet player.  Besides Dan on bass and guitar.  Its part of a showcase and I think we’re only playing for like 20 minutes or so.  but we’re playing.  the flyer (i got Dan’s email yesterday) reads: Sad and Sexy Song about the Sea.
so…

jazz vespers
  June 2.  6 – 7:30p.  Newark, NJ.  Bethany Baptist Church.

just now i am trying to figure out what tunes will go where in this program.  as i understand it the goal is not have jazz musicians come in and play church music but to use jazz as the medium of worship.  as the vehicle of prayer.  as the conduit of faith.  supposedly, “that like my whole angle, man!”  but when you really think about it, its a difficult thing to pull off effectively.  the music can’t just be “all of me” or “speak low.”  (though i am considering that new arrangement, just without vocals.  quietly considering it, just now…)  the music has to have a spiritual bent.  not in title, but in composition.  so i am mining my mind to find suitable music from the akieBermiss4tet canon.
i have some ideas…

on the train again.
still haven’t really had the chance to take care my car situation.  its going to start hurting soon.  i know.  but its pretty damned difficult to make it work when you’re working.  ah.. and they cost so much!  so here i am on the train again.  this time: to Hudson.  where i’ll hot foot it on over to Operation Unite, teach for 2+ hours, get an idea of who can play what for the recital (on June 13th), then bum a ride of the generous Johnny Ronsani while I explain to him my strange, unsound ideas for the jazz vespers gig, then its the Blum Music Studio at Bard College to do a nighttime recording of Daniel Bieber’s senior concert suite from the fall semester.  after that, warmth, softness, the –

[Dexter Gordon.  Body And Soul.  Homecoming: Live at the Village Vanguard.]

– which turned into a nearly 28 hour break.  It is currently on Amtrak heading south from Rhinecliff, NY to New York City.  its tiring, but its starting to occur to me that it might be worth the struggle.  worth the continuous hustle.  why else do we do it?  we love this music, man.  i begged a ride off Johnny yesterday evening after my lessons (in order to get to Bard for Daniel Bieber’s studio session) and we had a music-lover’s dinner in Rhinebeck where we rapped on teaching, practicing, coltrane and the blues, miles davis and the pitfalls of resting on one’s laurels, how to avoid mediocrity, and the coming year’s work.  saying, in essence, to each other: we’re willing to do the work.
which is what we’ve been trying to say all along!

91 North: The Music of Daniel Bieber
I have known the burgeoning titan that is Daniel Bieber since he was but a pup.  a be-dredded, cellist from upstate NY, who had decided to try and play jazz.  to play the bass.  feel a particular connection to Dan because he has come an enormous way since his first days, his first concerts.  It is not dissimilar to my own college experience.  coming in completely unexperienced and having to work day-in and day-out to achieve, first, proficiency, and then, facility.
My first gigs with Dan were probably his freshman year, i think.  When Johnny and I (second semester) decided to put together Bard’s first free-jazz ensemble: Fragile/thePushy.  we recruited Dan for that gig.  we also had like five rehearsals and no gig.  so on the last friday (or was it saturday?  thursday?) of classes we held our first and only annual free-jazz invitational.  we didn’t invite any other free-jazz bands (as there weren’t really any, at the time) but we did mean to invite people to see us play.  the only cat that came was Walker Swain — who came about five minutes after we started but stayed for the gruesome duration.  after that Johnny and I tapped young Dan for every manner gig.  we spent most our senior year planning gigs and coercing Dan to play with us.

[sunday morning.  may 27th.   8:34a]
Also, in that year, I played what I think is Dan’s first great jazz tune:  For Zack, Alive and Burning.  Which was a delightful ballad.  So delightful, that a year later (without ever having heard the recording of it or remembering how the tune went) I knew that I wanted to play the tune in the Dan-Constantine-Akie trio session.  And shit if we didn’t
Dan, who graduated from college yesterday afternoon, comes to new york in a few months.  and then…

well, on thursday night, we finally got his suite recorded.  i have no clue how it sounds just now, actually.  but look out for the lead-out tune in the piece: 91 North (which we also recorded in the same studio as a quartet last january with hoffa and jah).  its, literally, the shit.  welcome to the ranks, Dan.  its hell out here.  everyday.

Oi Vey! the Heat!
Oi Vey! the Heart!

shall i make amends of things?
and fix what ne’er was broken?
and break what works in trumps. in kings!
(in brooklyn – get it?) Ocean

Avenue — my retinue
of singers, saints, and sinners
grows thicker of last most ones
– of singers (and saints!): thinner.

am i the Lorax anymore?
the warbling with and stump-er?
or more: the thneed issuing fool
whom Doctors call the Once-ler?

(then i might say):
but those trees! those trees!
… magnolia trees?
all my life i’ve been searching for trees
such as these!
why the touch of their tuft
is much softer than silk
and they have the sweet smell
of fresh butterfly milk.

i’m a fool to make plans;
to care and consider.
to subsume in the dark
and by dawn’s light: deliver.

but as if to keep steady
as if stifling the screams
as if holding together
as if delta-ing streams

so my mind, so my heart,
so this heat has become
so the song has explain
so the game is begun.

on a bus, on train
i write this, i make notes

without speaking a name
i indict; i invoke.

by the sun! by the moon!
indisgrace i bespoke

in the night; in the noon
all occluded with smoke

i go on to my work
though i doubt(fully) dote.

Oi vey! what a day!
what a life!!
what a joke!!!

Oi vey!  the Heat!
Oi vey!  the Heart!

(then i might say):
but those trees!  those trees!
… those magnol-i-a trees?
all my life i’ve been searching for trees
such as these!
why the touch of their tuft
is much softer than silk
and they have the sweet smell
of fresh butterfly milk.

Oi vey!  what a day!
what a life!!
what a joke!!!

notes from the road: provinces

war is the province of danger and therefore courage above all things is the first quality of a warrior.
- Clausewitz, On War

I have wanted to be a warrior since before i can remember. the appeal of valour and courage and adventure have been constantly with me. weapons and gore and destruction. obscenity and surrender and fear. danger. oh yes, danger. i have wanted these things for myself all along. but perhaps you have been fooled by my seemingly conservative practices. i do little that might be considered adventurous: eat new foods? wear new clothes? demand satisfaction when wronged? climb to high places? jump off of them? battle against my superiors, when outnumbered and out-gunned, with nothing to gain except cuts and nicks and bruises and lacerations? I never do any of these things. you will find me on any given day off either a) at home with the cats (felines, you dig?) watching movies or writing stories, b) in a book or music store spending every last ounce of my spare cash on that which pleases me most, c) trying to get a jam together, or d) drinking and smoking. i have resigned myself to wanting to be glorious and, yet, being only nominally interesting. i have accepted that in today’s world a warrior or priest or, yea, a warrior-priest is not the marvelous thing it once was. that my ideas for what i wish come out of dark and obscure past. one that has been all the more muddied by inconsiderate histories and science and religion. but ever since i read The Book of Five Rings, between 4 hour practice-blocks my junior year at Bard College, i have considered myself a warrior.
If i explain it too precisely i will either be completely understood (and therefore, completely misunderstood) or written-off (which is the only thing worse than being written-up, i hear). so suffice it to say, i have wanted since then to become a warrior and witch of the arts and letters. without saying as much (and hopefully never saying as much again). but in the constant struggle to stay afloat since my graduation, i have lost sight of what was most important. training and fighting. a warrior can not spend all his time teaching apprentices how to string their bows or how to sharpen their knives. a warrior can not ride about in soft-furred vehicles considering the great fighters of the past. a young warrior can not reminisce to their own future. cannot mitigate their fighting spirit with the vanquishing of either unworthy or imaginary foes. and certainly, a warrior cannot repress that need in them to fight. to live and die by the weapon of their choosing. to let every aspect of their being be syphoned in to that skill and purpose. with nothing left over. a warrior is not a normal person. a warrior is an aspiring demi-god who can only achieve apotheosis in death. a warrior does not fight to stop fighting. they fight to die. i wanted very much so to be a warrior. in the greatest old traditions of human civilization. this life is nothing if not short. and every moment in it is a struggle. the warrior knows this. and fights against the universe. because the universe is immense and immovable and unperturbed. and the warrior gives the necessary locomotion to all things. a warrior. an artist. they are not mutually exclusive. but rather closer than anyone has really ever considered them to be. i do not appreciate the artist who wishes to quell those “darker” impulses of humanity. who wishes to grow into a sterile eruditeness. and to be loved, only loved, and understood. i prefer those artists who not only accept the turmoil, but incorporate themselves upon it. who are walking storms. that cast up trees, roots and all, and throw them down cliff-faces. i prefer to be an artist like that.
a dearth of heroics. i have been all this time misleading you, dear reader. we are surrounded by heroes. just as we are surrounded by God(s). i asked One what they believed last night. getting no answer. expecting none. O! what is there to believe? there are no heroes here, dear reader. only monsters.

the new deal. the new covenant.

when the flood waters had receded, God told Noah that never again would he flood the earth to rid it of evil. that by destroying nearly all the natural world under a deep sea of water, God realized the beauty of his creation. that is was imperfect. and had it been perfect, it might well not have lived. life being a failure’s forte. Was it only last week? Not past saturday, but the saturday before it? my first few days of 24ish-ness. what is only then that i found myself seated on a spring day at Eastern Parkway and whatever runs next to the Brooklyn Museum and thought, “I cannot go on like this.” Was it only then, considering my cigar and my coffee and the sunshine. the trees playing their tricks in it. the sound and shimmer of passing cars. the grate of rubber and cement. was it only then that i sat considering the most impossibly perfect thing. that i might give it all up, for a little more? It seems so long-ago conceived. but it was, perhaps, a reconception of my initial impulse. to be a warrior. to expand upon my skill and give up the ghost in untimely perfection. i remember it well. that saturday filled with light, even as the sun set and all was set about in darkness. there was exceptional light about everything the whole evening. until dawn. and at dawn the light seemed to have been extracted from the universe and set in me. and i wrote to quell an over-flowing and i sang out light without heeding the consequences. it was my best magic to date. and it was nothing special. its healing power was minimal. its force was negligible. and its depth was inconclusive. and yet, i found myself fortified again. as i have not been in two long years. what happens to a mind unchallenged? uninvolved. does it remember itself? and how long a sleep must it endure to restart? to boot up and realize. all this time i have been sleeping. with no vector for my ambling. not even a circles retracing, just a sort of sad, simpering idling.
the new deal is to myself. to reconfigure all my life as i did once in the interest of music. life is funny. i remember being there. knowing it for what it was. as i know now that i am watched by a baby in the seat one up and across the aisle from me. what does she see? i think i might now. it.
in this instant its real. after june, i will teach no longer. i will dedicate myself, instead to teaching myself. i must improve drastically to make the world as it might be. to make that in my mind, and then shape it existently. have i lost you at last, dear reader? or have i found you at last?! why were you there? and what did you see?
in 1950, John Coltrane was 24. five years later he was with Miles. two years from that he exploded into himself with Thelonious Monk. and by 33, he was with Miles again, recording the beginning of revolution with Kind of Blue. I wonder if i have as much time. but there is more ground to cover in proficiency for me, than for Trane. and i must get cracking. without delay. without delay. without delay.

…then luke walked in and gassed the whole sphere with his indelible groovitude.
a major part of what has cause the renaissance? the entrance of luke notary into the musical equation. we met luke quite serendipitously though Max ZT at one of his Bar Tabac gigs. we were duly impressed with his concept of time and groove and when the time came that we were looking for drummers to make our sunday night gigs more energetic we looked into getting touch with luke. after one gig is was clear that he had some very hip ideas. and after two gigs it was clear that as three (not one; not two) we created a new kind of musical organism. we invited luke to a couple more of the Saje hits and it we decided to make the sunday brunch happen every sunday. and, if mr. notary were willing, to take on luke as the drummer.
no regrets there. i assure you. [you may assure yourself, dear reader.] we have since then gotten together for two or three quick recording sessions-slash-rehearsals (and when i say rehearsals, i mean that we ran luke through the songbook… most of it anyways.) last-last wednesday Bard called us to see if we’d be down to play for the Friday Night of Spring Fling. we accepted. we brought up luke. and — as my previous post explains in more detail — we were well received. its always nice to come home that way.
but as things begin to take-off and congeal with theMimetiks, other things begin to wither from either a lack of attention on my part or lack of vigor on their parts. I am sorry to have to let these other things go (in a way) but i am ecstatic to have a working band once again. a band that is playing it’s ass-off (if i may momentarily gush). it makes me feel like practicing till i drop when we’re not playing and play until we drop when i’m not practicing. in essence, i’m dropping.

provinces. promises. practice.
A smattering of other gigs has also help me remember what i got into this line of for. though i love teaching, its not something i’m really prepared to do right away. or right now. it has helped pay the bills, but it has also tied me down to teaching. so what to do? priorities, young man. priorities. and so here i am. deciding. in a collection of reaffirming moments to through the whole shebang into music. whether i am good or not. whether i am great or not. that to achieve goodness or greatness, one must be devoted. Playing, these days, with the FTM crew. When i began this entry it was Tuesday morning and we were headed to Texas. Its now sunday. I have long since been back. (i once again mention the previous entry which i rudely inserted between the first notes-from-the-road and this one out of a sort of bubbling exuberance, agitations, frustration, sort-of-joy). I want to write so many things that have happened in the interim, but i suppose much of it boils down to what i write here. what i have already written. and that i continue to write here. Signed on with Sam Morrison to sing and play in his group this coming summer and fall. If i keep my chops up and work on my reading, i shouldn’t have much trouble with learning his tunes and playing them down. Whether i can keep my place and earn my stripes is another issue altogether. But i will not let that fall to the wayside whilst i am trying to teach piano here or teach voice there. music is the end of everything. is the beginning. music is in all things. and out of them. even the most dry and undernourished souls, the most foul and contemptible voices, the most terrified and cautious brains know the meaning of song. whether they say so or not. music. be it so or be it son’t, i will be there. and in it and a force to be reckoned with. whether appreciated, loved, respected? i’m not able to say. this is a funny world we live on. and i am too often a grave man. i can sing vision into certain futures. nudge particulars one way. or other ways. but my power is too little to alter the course of greater things. will there be a world to sing to? of? for? when i next look up from my hands after the music has been made? i am a shitless, witless wonder and i do not know.

saturday. 4:52a
’twas the lark, i heard.

this morning. walking along the road to Hadad house. the house where the collective band(s) of Max ZT & Friends and the Mimetiks were staying. i am interrupting myself with this post. interrupting a post already in progress (and long sucker, at that) to write a more immediate piece here. a piece inspired on my long walk home. to a home that is not yet home, but closer to home than i have been. softer than some places, but harder in other ways. tomorrow i return to Brooklyn, at last! and i have no appointments once i get there. my only goal: to be, finally, home. i have been, this week, to jersey, to texas, to tivoli, to annandale… and home is around the bend. i welcome the feeling of being at home. of seeing my cats again. hearing them mewl by the bedroom door, or nipping at my unconscious body. i welcome the familiar chinese food and 24-hour deli/soup shop. the D&D fracas. my couch. my CDs.

i believe that we played well tonight. alot of new music. old, at this point, for the Mimetiks. but new to these ears. and they, somewhat inexplicably, dug it. no matter how confident I am that i am bringing great music to people, i always wonder how it will be received. i may love. and yet they may find it uninteresting. or unchallenging. or too challenging.

there is no way to avoid this. apprehension is a part of the process. so is acceptance (sometimes.)

notes from the road: take the day.

take today, for instance. here i am: in newark, nj. again. trying to do the best job that i can in the time i have to do it. so what? i could’ve spent the whole afternoon vagabonding it about in Military Park or the Ironbound. Instead of that poor fate, i hung out with BGO crew back (and under) stage until just now. 5:19pm. when they went to dinner; and I? I came out to the front of house where i will sit from now until 7:30 with the WBGO marketing materials, and a volunteer, and myself. waiting on the music. and waiting, in earnest, for the music coming thereafter. music unbeknownst to itself. a music which i hear, apparently, in that way that only composers and songwriters do hear music. the music yet to come. future music. music that comes to fill a space that was never there before it.

6:08p i am simultaneously preparing for life in the fast lane. i haven’t had a lick of coffee today. the bustle surrounding me presently? that of all the NJPAC ushers and volunteers busily stuffing programs with membership offers and tonight’s programs. i believe i ate this morning, sometime. between new york and new jersey. or, else, in jersey. god. and i wish i had more to say just now. or that i could say more but i am held back by all manner of humors. i wonder, presently, exactly how much of the music i will hear in this show tonight. and how much of the show i will see. also i am concerned for my mental health as i have truly just been on-the-go, working. everyday since some point last week or two weeks ago. in the coming days? the mimetiks with luke notary at Saje (from noon to 3) and at Brooklyn Exposure (from 7:30 to 10); WBGO’s On-The-Air at the two Newark Schools where i was last monday to run song-writing workshops; tuesday is the flight out to Dallas; Wednesday is the gig in Dallas; Thursday is the flight back from Dallas followed by an intense, elongated singer’s class complete with all the madness of a dress rehearsal; friday brings further singer’s workshops and the mimetiks’ Bard College debut at Spring Fling opening for Max ZT & Co. and then jamming with; saturday is a possible bard singers set at spring fling; and sunday is more of the mimetiks with luke at Saje and BX. Come the dawn of monday may 7th, i may have — at last! — a day to myself. i have made plans for that day.

if it is rainy: i will clean up the apartment, play with the cats, go to D&D, maybe hit the bookstore.

if its sunny: i will hit D&D, return to the apartment for deep music-ing and play with my cats, i will walk to the park and smoke a cigar, and i will go to sleep early.

5:13 am (sunday)

if it is a question of whether i have slept. knowing that each day will pull successively on my strength until it dwindles to an ember. knowing that in sleeping i secure my only assurance of health and mindfulness. knowing that, in many respects, i wake to sleep. if that be the question, then the answer be “NO.” a resounding unequivocable “NO!”
is it passion is it foolishness, is it wildness? i could pretend to know. but i’d be a fool to do so. could it have something to do with Kenny Garret’s 50 minute set at NJPAC that just blew the doors off that shazzlebe-nazzlebe.

6:55 am (monday)

them six a.m. blues are a doozy, ya’ll.

2:18 am (tuesday)

i have no regularity. my schedule is just insanity in every place i can pull it off. but i survived this last hectic monday. the schools i taught at last monday were alright. the songs came together with very few snafus. i video-recorded. i drank some tea (iced, don’t you know). and i walked away.

5/1 1:38 pm (new york)/ 12:38 pm (dallas)

inflight. american airlines. no movie. no headphones. and (very) little leg room. i just had the surprisingly pleasurable experience of a flight attendant spilling ice all over me (in an attempt to get ice to the man seated in the window. i have the aisle. there is no one between us. or, likely, there is some phantom. some conglomeration of personage that both he and i are carrying around with us. that person, unwittingly, sits between us in the the space. with my Stanley Crouch Book (for which i owe some serious cash to the brooklyn public library) on their lap, and my coffee (to counter-act the effects of my cold shower) on their tray table. who are you, personage? how may i make you more comfortable? do you like movies? or music? books or television? beer or bourbon?
i get almost giddy on airplanes. why? i worry about accidents. i am quite capable of worrying, dear reader. i worry for you all the time. worry that you are reading and yet perhaps not comforted by my words. and strive (striving very much of late, aren’t I? but then we will come to that. or have we already?) to do better. in order to balance the flow of negative thoughts i become silly. or else, i caffeine-ate and go to sleep. much like i am hoping to do today.
so its off to fort worth, we go. then to dallas. then to soundcheck. then dinner. then rehearsal. then sleep. then wednesday. this is one of the odder tuesdays in the scheme of things. normally, i am just gearing up for Saje work. but last week a kitchen malfunction shut the joint down early and this tuesday i am up in the stratosphere. (that being the only sphere i really remember from 6th grade or whatever it was). And this is the middle of hectic week, but the plane ride is giving me time to reflect where i have not had time in ages. since i crashed my car in late March essentially. so much has happened since then. i can’t really begin to explain myself. somethings happen that are all too expected. somethings suddenly. and perhaps the onslaught of so many things has cause me to have to reckon with them in a less deliberate but more decisive way. i prefer to let fate decide, don’t i? or i used to. but this month has changed me nearly as much as it has changed the things around me.
perhaps i should begin anew. for clarity. for composure. for a break in all this textulating inference. yes i will end this post here. pause for the cause. and return to you. in a moment’s time. this post: take the day. has over-arched itself and taken days. but i am not upset by it. for on the otherside of things is a sort of clarity. a condensation of what was vaporous. oooh! i didn’t know vaporous was a word!!! apparently it is! i am delighted, dear reader. delighted.