Music: I'm your biggest fan

There is usually music in the house.  The radio goes on in our living room first thing in the morning.  Our car has an iPod with 160gigs of music on it.  We have a growing LP collection.  Music is part of our lives, like a soundtrack.

I became a fan of music when I was 3 or 4 years old when I first heard the song "Magic" by a band called Pilot.  Mom went to the record store and picked up the 45rpm record of the song and I still have that record, one of my most prized and cherished possessions.  After that, it was game on.  

The record player was my hidden universe.  I played it for hours.  Listened to my favorite records at all the speeds:  45, 33, 78 and even 16.  I was and still am fascinated by sound, rhythm, theme, melody, harmony... the whole thing.

As I became a musician, I also became an even bigger fan of music.  Later, when I studied piano I could heard deeper into the music.  It's endless really.

My favorite musicians are those who can somehow create something fresh and new and interesting, yet make it listenable.  Listenable.  Now there's a word.  That word means a lot to me because there is a lot of music out there that, while technically amazing, is simply not something I can really listen to. Some music picks you up, some music surrounds you with a feeling that you can relate to.  Other music sometimes feels like it's coming at you like a machine gun and you can't get out of the way other than to just shut it off.  

I think about this a lot.  I think it's one of the biggest, if not the biggest challenge of jazz.  How to transcend the technicalities an make the music listenable yet satisfy the artists creative reach.  Herbie Hancock is somebody who comes to mind.  Herbie came to a point at which he said  something to the effect of...  I don't want to lay some heavy musical trip on people, I just want them to like my records.  He said that he was at a party once, and his records were not playing.  What was playing was Sly Stone and James Brown.  Hmm... 

So, Herbie, being the genius and naturally gifted and intelligent cat that he is, adapted.  He put out an album called "Fat Albert Rotunda" with some great funky songs on it like "Wiggle Waggle" and it still had that Herbie thing, yet it was more listenable for a wider audience.  Herbie continued with the Headhunters band, and later with his huge hit "Rockit" and then again with "Dis is Da Drum" and then again with "Possibilities" and the "New Standard".  

I can't think of anybody who DOESN'T love Herbie Hancock.  

So, I think about this a lot.  If I quit playing, writing and teaching... I'd remain a huge fan of music.

How does this factor into writing and playing?

Well, if I write something that sounds good to me, then I feel like there's a good chance somebody else will like it.  The tricky part is that it must satisfy me as an artist, yet still be something somebody would want to listen to.. and hopefully want to listen to again and again.  

I feel like if a musician can come from the music fan inside them, then they have a connection to honesty.  They have a connection to truth.  If it becomes something done to satisfy other musicians, or to be "heavy" or whatever, then I think that it's in danger of becoming disconnected from the truth.  

John Coltrane is maybe the prime example of somebody who achieved this to the highest degree.  Monk, too.  Bill Evans.  But especially Coltrane found that rare place of total truth from which his music flowed.  His search was incessant.  And thru that truth, he found a sort of complex simplicity that spoke from his artistic truth and connected with listeners.  Most people are not Coltrane or Monk fans because they found new ways to address harmony.  It's the "listenable" factor.  

This is something I think about often.  When I put on music, sometimes it's the absolute opposite of technically challenging and dense notey music.  Seriously, I put on Johnny Cash or Merle Haggard and I get a lot out of it because they are speaking from their artistic truth, and that makes them listenable to me. Same with Motorhead, Stevie Wonder, Buck Owens, Eberhard Weber, Seal, or whoever... How's that for a list?  

And I tend to go back to many of the same records to drink from this well of truth.  Sometimes I think, man, I need to check out more new music.  Of course, but I also feel like there is so much truth in an album like "Love Supreme" that I can go back to that, again and again, and the well never goes dry.  

In the end though, I'm just a big fan of music.