Tag: Genius
Footlights
Wee hours.
I thought I would jot some words and see where they go. I woke up with Pat Metheny jamming in my head in the middle of the night, when I’d been dreaming of Shakespeare’s plays. Now it seems that I’d love to read The Tempest once again, if I never read anything else in my life. It would make me think of the crucial mistakes I made in love with somebody at a young and foolish age and try in my mind to rearrange history. On the other hand, it’s better to make errors and learn from them than to dwell on the past and repeat the things we did wrong. Another book on my list is still The Ambassadors, though this also would express a regret in my unconscious mind. I might be better off to open up The Octopus or something I’ve never thought of reading before. Or instead of reading anything, I could go take Aesop for a walk around the hood and have ourselves a little adventure. But not at two forty in the dead of night. There must be a way to go beyond what I learned in school thirty years ago, a way past bibliomania into a wider reality; but the real world offers nothing as exciting as the ideas found on a college campus: ultimately, in books and music, the theater and art exhibits. All the world’s a stage, but it is illuminated by genius.
Finding a Voice
Quarter of eight.
It looks like a cloudless day, and perfect for the holiday. I don’t feel very inspired to write this morning. Maybe after I’ve been to the store I’ll have something to report. My imagination is rather limited, probably due to the medication. Thoughts flit by, but not long enough to gather momentum. How about Jaco soloing on “Third Stone from the Sun?” … I watched him doing two versions of his bass solo on YouTube. What he did with harmonics was incredible. No wonder I went through a phase of idolizing Jaco when I was in college. It’s just the human being he was that people didn’t like. If we could put his personality aside and just look at his genius, then we could appreciate something amazing. He influenced my playing a great deal when I was young. I even sort of lost my identity in his for a couple of years. I think a lot of bass players did. There were many Jaco clones on the radio around 1989, two years after his death. The way he put dynamic feeling into his playing was special. Now I realize that my identity is separate from that of Jaco. In fact, I have no more idols to emulate. Why pretend to be someone else? It’s enough to be myself, though I’m still learning who that person is. Everyone has their own voice. It just takes some practice to excavate it and trumpet it forth. It is not only advisable, it is necessary.