jazz

Sometimes it so happens that you're going along your regular route and you turn a corner and see something completely unexpected.  Something you fall in love with.  It's not entirely coincidence because the thing that you fall in love with stirs something inside of you that has been brewing for sometime, you just failed to notice it before.

This happened to me in New York with a person.  This also happened to me a few weeks ago with jazz.  I was spending an evening with someone, and he put on Brad Mehldau whom I hadn't heard of before.  Although I was attracted to the music immediately, I felt like I couldn't trust myself with the feeling yet.  I had had a lot of wine and needless to say (since most of my readers know me too well) this person and I ended up in his bed.  There were many thoughts, feelings and sensations swirling around in my head, and I had a hard time singling out the music.  It was only later when I got a chance to download more, and when I began listening to KCSM (the local jazz station) that I settled into this feeling.  I realized that I turned a corner and bumped into this friend I had had since childhood, but didn't immediately recognize the face of.  The friend has not changed, but I had matured and I was able to not only recognize it, but appreciate it as I never could before.  The more I listened, the more the music was separated from that evening.  The events of it, though enjoyable, simply became a catalyst for this blooming obsession.

Jazz, good jazz to be exact, has always been in my life with the help of my dad.  It was always in the house, in the car and sometimes at concerts that he took me to.  I pretended to like and understand the music.  Yes, there was something in it that intrigued me, even as a child, but I can't honestly say that I liked it.  Even now after listening to more, I had this irksome feeling that my like for this music was a pretense.  I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to tell good jazz from bad and that in a way I was at yet another concert imagining (but simultaneously wishing) that I  understand it all.  This changed tonight when I was driving from work and Myra Melford (piano) and Marty Ehrlich (alto sax) came on the radio and I was completely blown away.  This is what I like.  This is quality.  I know it.

There is so much out there that I need to catch up on and even more to discover, I feel overwhelmed.  Nevertheless, I think this is the start of a lifelong relationship.