So many memories you've aroused in my tiny brain. Thanks a bundle, Danny. One name you mentioned Robert Fripp, sounded familiar so I had to look his music up on YouTube. Lo and behold he married one of my hero singers from the 70's, Toyah Wilcox! She was singing a Bowie song, Heroes, She still looks stunning even at 63 as she would have been in the video. I had all of Bowies albums back then. And then we moved to Jazz again and I had a sudden spark of memory - I owned an Ella Fitzgerald album and listened to her all the time, another of my early heroes. Some Jazz is brilliant, Some not so good, as you say. But hey! Thanks again for the memory jerker. Great Post.
We were in the middle of the Vietnam war when I first heard Bob Dylan’s songs “Masters of War.” and “The Times They Are a Changin’.” I was 17, and I totally got it. What goes around, comes around. Those songs still play in my head today.
“Come senators, congressmen please heed the call.
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall…”
My sister is still trying to get me out of my cave to eat
Unagi!
PS: I really love your last paragraphs on Jazz. Want to share them with my art instructor.
My father has a large collection of jazz records and, as a child, I thought it was a genre that I would never get into. It sounded like it had no tune, often had no lyrics and just didn't resonate at all. Now I'm 55 years old and, when the time is right, love a bit of jazz. You're so right about keeping open-minded, I am afraid too often my instinct is to go with the kneejerk reaction of "it's not for me" when presented with something new or challenging rather than "why not"?
Excellent essay as usual! After 30+ years in tech support, I'm very sensitive to loud sounds, or any sounds really, so my enjoyment of jazz is limited to the more melodic: Brubeck, Mehldau, that vein.
I feel like you have thrown me a challenge though. NHL... The reason I watch NHL is because these guys do the impossible, with tremendous speed, on razors. They deal with 82 games a season, and because it's the only pro sport without open boundaries, the abuse they take is quite intense (though they've done some things to reduce injuries). I'm not into hockey for the violence, I just love seeing people do things that are so amazing that I can watch them again and again. In case you're interested - top US player Patrick Kane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I06ApO0fXUQ&list=WL&index=75, https://www.reddit.com/r/hawks/comments/1jviuvx/patrick_kane_top_10_career_highlights/ And you've probably heard of Sidney Crosby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIcJz97zXjY Enjoy!
Two things I promised myself I would study or somehow develop an appreciation for when I retired, that I still haven't: SHAKESPEARE and MOZART! I just turned 70, so I guess I'd better get my ass in gear. I ain't gettin' any younger!
I love jazz, too. Just so you know, I checked out of Draw With Me that day because the music was so loud at my end I couldn’t think straight. When I turned down the volume, the situation improved, but I couldn’t hear you. I’m so sorry if I offended you. It certainly wasn’t intentional.❤️
This essay came at the perfect time for me. We just started a new unit in my Advanced Drawing class, paleontology, that I was really not wanting to do because I never really had much interest in learning a lot about dinosaurs or drawing them but today I started with a skull study and trying to keep an open mind when watching all the hours of dinosaur information my professor assigned. Thanks Danny :)
I LOVE jazz. It's American music and not enough people appreciate it. My dad was a jazz musician so I heard all kinds of it growing up. I'm always grateful when I get to hear it somewhere❤️
The part about building up a 'resilience' to the discomfort reminded me of a long-standing dislike I have with the whole resilience rhetoric (particularly its pop psychology variants)... but that's not a knee-jerk reaction for me, it's been a slow, considered and researched approach e.g. what resilience has come to mean in popular usage; what is it really saying when we ask of ourselves and others to be resilient; and what it says about how we approach risk, fragility and the 'right way' to react to difficult experiences at this point in time.
I guess what I mean is that this approach also applies to picking apart something that you dislike, and really trying to understand the root of that reaction. So that rather than the instant dismissal or snobbishness or whatever, you get down into the meat of it (sometimes realising you were wrong). But if it still doesn't gel, to then be able to move past the 'I don't like it' to consider what precisely you don't like, what is missing, to be able to think 'What else, instead?' (Still unpiecing this last part).
Run-on-sentence meanderings aside - and probably not quite what you were getting at with sushi and Jazz - I just wanted to share some thoughts I had while reading: how sometimes we really don't like something and understanding it won't change that; but the process of sitting down with your curmudgeonly self and figuring out the reason for that dislike (and what that might tell us about ourselves) can also be fuel for pushing beyond comfort.
And just what is wrong with multi volume science fiction epics??????
This is a really interesting post and I agree with so much of it. It’s so easy just to stick with the things that I know I will enjoy whether it’s food, travel or books. I do make myself do new things though and have discovered so many new things that I love.
Aging doesn’t help though. As I get older and become more aware of how few years I might have, I become more reluctant to really explore new things as I don’t want to waste the time I have on things I might not love. Curiousity often wins out though
I’m a recent smooth jazz listener, but am listening to Keith Jarrett RN. Found the Kolin concerts…. Thanks!
So many memories you've aroused in my tiny brain. Thanks a bundle, Danny. One name you mentioned Robert Fripp, sounded familiar so I had to look his music up on YouTube. Lo and behold he married one of my hero singers from the 70's, Toyah Wilcox! She was singing a Bowie song, Heroes, She still looks stunning even at 63 as she would have been in the video. I had all of Bowies albums back then. And then we moved to Jazz again and I had a sudden spark of memory - I owned an Ella Fitzgerald album and listened to her all the time, another of my early heroes. Some Jazz is brilliant, Some not so good, as you say. But hey! Thanks again for the memory jerker. Great Post.
We were in the middle of the Vietnam war when I first heard Bob Dylan’s songs “Masters of War.” and “The Times They Are a Changin’.” I was 17, and I totally got it. What goes around, comes around. Those songs still play in my head today.
“Come senators, congressmen please heed the call.
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall…”
My sister is still trying to get me out of my cave to eat
Unagi!
PS: I really love your last paragraphs on Jazz. Want to share them with my art instructor.
My father has a large collection of jazz records and, as a child, I thought it was a genre that I would never get into. It sounded like it had no tune, often had no lyrics and just didn't resonate at all. Now I'm 55 years old and, when the time is right, love a bit of jazz. You're so right about keeping open-minded, I am afraid too often my instinct is to go with the kneejerk reaction of "it's not for me" when presented with something new or challenging rather than "why not"?
Love this!
Excellent essay as usual! After 30+ years in tech support, I'm very sensitive to loud sounds, or any sounds really, so my enjoyment of jazz is limited to the more melodic: Brubeck, Mehldau, that vein.
I feel like you have thrown me a challenge though. NHL... The reason I watch NHL is because these guys do the impossible, with tremendous speed, on razors. They deal with 82 games a season, and because it's the only pro sport without open boundaries, the abuse they take is quite intense (though they've done some things to reduce injuries). I'm not into hockey for the violence, I just love seeing people do things that are so amazing that I can watch them again and again. In case you're interested - top US player Patrick Kane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I06ApO0fXUQ&list=WL&index=75, https://www.reddit.com/r/hawks/comments/1jviuvx/patrick_kane_top_10_career_highlights/ And you've probably heard of Sidney Crosby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIcJz97zXjY Enjoy!
Two things I promised myself I would study or somehow develop an appreciation for when I retired, that I still haven't: SHAKESPEARE and MOZART! I just turned 70, so I guess I'd better get my ass in gear. I ain't gettin' any younger!
I love jazz, too. Just so you know, I checked out of Draw With Me that day because the music was so loud at my end I couldn’t think straight. When I turned down the volume, the situation improved, but I couldn’t hear you. I’m so sorry if I offended you. It certainly wasn’t intentional.❤️
This essay came at the perfect time for me. We just started a new unit in my Advanced Drawing class, paleontology, that I was really not wanting to do because I never really had much interest in learning a lot about dinosaurs or drawing them but today I started with a skull study and trying to keep an open mind when watching all the hours of dinosaur information my professor assigned. Thanks Danny :)
Really enjoyed this one, Danny. Thank you.
And BTW, even Wes Montgomery?
I LOVE jazz. It's American music and not enough people appreciate it. My dad was a jazz musician so I heard all kinds of it growing up. I'm always grateful when I get to hear it somewhere❤️
The part about building up a 'resilience' to the discomfort reminded me of a long-standing dislike I have with the whole resilience rhetoric (particularly its pop psychology variants)... but that's not a knee-jerk reaction for me, it's been a slow, considered and researched approach e.g. what resilience has come to mean in popular usage; what is it really saying when we ask of ourselves and others to be resilient; and what it says about how we approach risk, fragility and the 'right way' to react to difficult experiences at this point in time.
I guess what I mean is that this approach also applies to picking apart something that you dislike, and really trying to understand the root of that reaction. So that rather than the instant dismissal or snobbishness or whatever, you get down into the meat of it (sometimes realising you were wrong). But if it still doesn't gel, to then be able to move past the 'I don't like it' to consider what precisely you don't like, what is missing, to be able to think 'What else, instead?' (Still unpiecing this last part).
Run-on-sentence meanderings aside - and probably not quite what you were getting at with sushi and Jazz - I just wanted to share some thoughts I had while reading: how sometimes we really don't like something and understanding it won't change that; but the process of sitting down with your curmudgeonly self and figuring out the reason for that dislike (and what that might tell us about ourselves) can also be fuel for pushing beyond comfort.
Great brain food here, thank you!
And just what is wrong with multi volume science fiction epics??????
This is a really interesting post and I agree with so much of it. It’s so easy just to stick with the things that I know I will enjoy whether it’s food, travel or books. I do make myself do new things though and have discovered so many new things that I love.
Aging doesn’t help though. As I get older and become more aware of how few years I might have, I become more reluctant to really explore new things as I don’t want to waste the time I have on things I might not love. Curiousity often wins out though