There is something about the loss of someone, anyone, that makes us think back upon the times we enjoyed with that person. I remember when my mother died how her house became this place for people who had known her to come by.  At first it was just to express their condolences but if they stayed a while it inevitably turned into stories about their experiences with her.  It became a mixture of tears and laughs as I learned many things about her that I had not known and I shared some of the things I knew. As the night got later it became a catharsis for my grief.  Though it did not lessen the loss, it got me through the grief and continues to get me through it each time the grief comes back.

I never met Etta James; I never even got the opportunity to hear her perform live.  My only relationship with her with through her music, but a powerful relationship it was. Most remembrances of her talk about her mega hits “At Last” and “Sunday Kind of Love’,” which are actually only about one side of her. Her music was always about strength and perseverance, sometimes a sweet strength as in “At Last” but that strength could be in turn challenging, weary, angry, honest, forthright and patient. Whether it was the early R&B hits on labels like Chess or the later covers of 70’s and 80’s rock, the gospel songs or the blues songs, the strength was always there. For me her music was always a reminder to keep on pushing through the bad times, be honest with yourself and persevere because that’s all we can do to have meaning in our lives.

All of that is captured in her performance of “I’d Rather Go Blind” and my favorite is the cut from her album “Deep in the Night.” This is one of the most powerful performances I’ve ever heard on record.  You think she almost completely gets away from the melody (though she does not), and then obliterates the bar measure distinctions that are there in the written music. All that is left is the story of her pain and by implication how she is going to get through it.  She expresses her pain until language and words fail her. We’ve all been there. Listen and enjoy.

Blind Girl compressed

Recently I was trying to help someone make a decision on something and it caused me to think about my own decision making process.  Now I don’t claim to make decisions any better than anyone else and probably worse than some.  I have lived long enough to have made thousands if not more of decisions both important and  inconsequential. I have made good decisions, bad decisions and no decisions enough to regret ones I made or didn’t make. Some have worked out for the better (usually through luck) and some still leave me shaking my head and asking “why did you do that?” Some have been rationally and coolly thought out; some have been spur of the moment hunches;  some have been emotional and some have probably been from unconscious psychological processes I would only learn about  if I went to therapy. Some have been made alone; some with consultation and advice from others; some have been made because of past experiences, some have been scary leaps into the unknown.

As I’ve gotten older I like to think that my decision making process has gotten better and that I’ve learned from my past decisions.  What have I learned?

1. All decisions are choices of which consequences you are willing to accept from your decision. Decisions have consequences that go beyond the decision itself.   Some of these are anticipated and can be planned for, but there are usually unforeseen consequences as well. Understand that the consequences are the results of your decision and take responsibility for them.

2. Use most of the time you have to make a decision. No this isn’t an argument for procrastination.  I have found that the best decisions I have made are not those made at the last minute when time pressure influences your choice, but decisions made at the next to last minute.  If the decision has to be made in 10 days or ten minutes make it at nine days or nine minutes. This maximizes the use of the time you have to make a decision while not putting you under the time pressure that forces you to make bad choices.

3. Once you have narrowed things down to two choices, choose them both if you can. Sometimes you can’t, I understand that, but more times than you think you can have your cake and eat it too.  The time you spend making that last agonizing choice between two choices is usually more than it would take just to do both of them.

4. Try to create another option. If you can, change the constraints that have created these choices.  Sometimes this means changing the question you are asking.  I remember my senior year in college when I was asking “What should I do with my life?” A fellow senior advised me “You are asking the wrong question it should be ‘What am I going to do next.” It caused me to think of whatever decision I made as something that could be changed if it proved to be the wrong one. Sometimes creating another choice means thinking outside the box, but as Shakespeare wrote ” there are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Understand that there are always other things, other choices you should consider in making your decision.

5. Never make a decision that you are ashamed of at the time. You will have plenty of time to be ashamed of your decision later. Regrets over decisions will be inevitable.  It is better to have a regret for something you did because you believed in it than to have regret for not doing what you believe. Much better.

6. Real life isn’t like the SAT’s. There is not only one right answer. The test never ends. There is more than one chance to answer the question. No other person is scoring the test. The final evaluation doesn’t come immediately but at the end of your life.

I just finished my first round of piano instruction.  It was for ten weeks and I am now at the point where I need to decide “what next.” The first set of lessons was an unusual watered down set of lessons teaching you chord basics and melodies to get you up and playing songs as soon as possible. What have I learned? Well I set my sights on learning to play a simplified version of a Duke Ellington song (Don’t Get Around Much Anymore) and I think I have succeeded at that. The intellectual part of introductory chord theory came easier than the finger dexterity needed to play.  I need to improve on my finger dexterity through exercise but I can certainly learn to play additional simplified versions of jazz songs without further lessons as long as  I have the self-discipline to sit down and work on them. The brute force learning of rote memorization and practice, practice, practice is a slog but it pays off in the end. However if I want to learn more about chord and music theory I will certainly need to take continued lessons over an extended period of time. The little arranging exercises that we did like finding harmony notes to play along with the melody notes, was fun and appealing to me. Finding new chord progressions, additions and substitutions for songs also attracts me. The many tricks of fills, grace notes and improvisation also fascinates me. The question I have is how much basic stuff do I have to learn to be able to do all of this?  One of the things I realized immediately is that the ocean of stuff one can learn about playing music is deep and infinite.  I could be committing to a project that will take the rest of my life and I still would not learn all there is to learn.  The learning therefore needs to be selective to take me where I want to be. Can I find a teacher who will concentrate on the stuff I need to do this and is willing to fore-go all the other stuff?

For the meantime I am going to take a break from lessons and strike out on my own.  When I reach the point where I feel I need more lessons to go any further I will try to find a teacher who teaches what I want to know. I am by no means giving up but rather striking out to find my way in the wilderness alone.  Any advice from any of my musician friends would be greatly appreciated.

Lately I’ve been listening to the music written by Billy Strayhorn. For those who might not know Strayhorn was the principal composer and arranger for Duke Ellington from the 1940’s till his death in the 1960’s.  Many of the most famous and enduring songs from Ellington during that era were composed or co-composed by Strayhorn whether attributed to him or not.  Songs like “Take the A Train,” “Satin Doll,” “Lush Life,” “Chelsea Bridge,” and many others, capture the jauntiness, sensuousness, wit, and lusciousness of this man who was quite content to sit in Duke’s shadow.  More to the point he was an “out” gay black man during an era of segregation when homosexuality was frowned upon during the black community. Of course you still find homophobia, ridicule, taunting and bigotry against gays in the black community, but imagine a time when you could not get out of your black community because of segregation. Strayhorn found a wary niche within the jazz, artistic and specifically Ellington communities.

There is a good biography of Strayhorn (Lush Life by David Hadju) if anyone is interested but I want to talk about one cut from one album by Duke Ellington. The album is “…And his Mother Called Him Bill.” It is the first album Ellington recorded after Strayhorn’s premature death at 52 in 1967.  It is a musical tribute album made entirely of Strayhorn songs at a time when most of his band mates were still mourning his death. The selection I want to talk about is “Blood Count.” (Click on link to listen)  “Blood Count” is the last song he wrote  during his final illness (cancer).  Even as he lay ill he expressed himself musically by composing a song based on a medical procedure he was undergoing. In fact you can here the blood flowing through the tubes in the melody. It was not the only “classic” he composed based on his medical experiences.  He wrote “U.M.M.G (Upper Manhattan Medical Group)” based on the place where he went to get tests.  It is this incorporation of his life, both good and bad, into works that stand the test of time that marks the true artist.  It is making your experience into a universal one in which others can find themselves, can feel what you felt, can “relate”, that is found in great music, great art, great literature.

The Ellington band was unusual in that it lasted so long and musicians stayed in it so long. Ellington’s genius was in hearing the uniqueness of the “sound” of each band member so that he could write features that put each in the best position to sound as good as possible.  Johnny Hodges was for most of the time the band’s alto saxophone soloist.  If you have not heard him please do.  He had a tone on his horn that was so sensual, singing and expressive that no one else sounds like him. He was great on uptempo swingers like “The Jeep is Jumpin'” but it is on the slow ballads especially those written by Strayhorn that he is superb. All of Strayhorn’s ballads incorporate beauty, world weariness and a longing that takes your breath away. They transport you to a time of late nights, cigarette smoke and perhaps some alcohol.  On this album and on this cut all of those things come together. Hodges is the main “voice” stating Strayhorn’s theme with more than his usual balladic grace.  His sensuality and Strayhorn’s mesh perfectly so that you cannot tell where one begins and the other ends. His solo changes however as it reaches its climax into, at least to my ear, an angry cry maybe against having Strayhorn taken from them too soon.  At once you hear the raw grief behind the polish and professionalism of the Ellington band.  No longer is it just the well oiled machine.  It is a group of individuals who have gotten together to share their remembrances and loss together.  While the cut ends with a return to Strayhorn’s (and Hodges’) sweet sensuality it is now different with that quick glimpse of what is behind it. Its sensuousness,  elegance and yearning is taken to a new level.  All in all the cut is a both a catharsis and a heartfelt memorial to a great artist.

It is that catharsis we all search for when we must cope with the loss or serious illness of a loved one. If you are like me you have learned to hold it in so that you can get done all that needs to be done in such situations.  It always finds it way out however whether it is days, weeks, months or years later. We need to let it out and then move on as the Ellington Orchestra does here.

I was thinking the other day about how many jazz artists I had seen “live” and it is quite a few.  I saw my first in 1967 (unfortunately after Coltrane had passed) and have seen many of the legends of the genre.  Living in New York was a great advantage; after I turned eighteen I could go to the clubs and the Newport Jazz Festival was even held there for a few years. But I digress…It is the some anniversary of some milestone in Miles Davis’s career and I was thinking back to the one time I saw him perform live.  It was in the spring of 1971 at my undergraduate college and he was scheduled to perform on Saturday evening but his equipment (much electronica) had not arrived from his last gig.  I happened to be near the entrance when he came in with Ken McIntyre our local jazz artist and professor.  Upon surveying the crowd of hundreds who had come to see him, he said in that gravelly voice of his he would stay the night and perform on the next day (Sunday) “after church.” True to his word Sunday afternoon he and his quintet performed a concert that is etched in my memory. I remember being proud that aside from his bass player (Dave Henderson) and Miles, the other members of the group, Keith Jarrett (keyboards), Gary Bartz (sax) and Jack Dejohnette (drums) had all performed at the college during my four years there. I recalled Jarrett and Dejohnette had performed as members of the Charles Lloyd group.  Dejohnette had become part of memory when during a drum solo he reached down into a gym bag to grab a towel to wipe the sweat that was rolling down his face.  He then picked up the gym bag and played it as a percussion instrument hitting the floor with it as part of his drum solo while his other hand and foot were striking other parts of his drum kit. He concluded his solo by raising up the gym bag and letting it hit the floor so that its final thump punctuated the end of his solo.  The crowd went wild…but I digress.

Miles’ group was superb that evening and in many ways the culmination of my undergraduate experience.  If you want to hear what they sounded like check out his Live at the Cellar Door albums which were recorded with the same group at about the same time.  I had of course heard Miles on record for years, but what struck me upon seeing him play was the physicality of it. He wore an armless shirt so the muscles in his arms were visible and he had the “guns” of the middleweight boxer he wanted to be. More than that he bent backwards to play and it seemed like all of his strength, his essence, his self was being poured into the horn to emerge as the purest sound I had ever hear a trumpet produce.  Now way back in my history I had played the trumpet in the junior high school band and at no time had I heard a trumpet sound like that. It was not just that he was blowing hard, it was that all of his being was focused through the horn, not on being loud but on being pure.  He had stripped away any wasted effort, any knowledge of the world outside his group or his immediate vicinity, any past or future.  The music was all that existed for him in that moment.

More than the memories of a glorious afternoon concert with the sun streaming in all around, it is that laser focus that I took away from that performance. That one should put your all, your body and your soul into a task, was the lesson I learned that day and have tried to emulate ever since. I learned that it was the quality of what was produced not its “loudness” that counted. Over the last forty years that intensity was sometimes obscured by the laid back persona when one doesn’t sweat the small stuff to concentrate on the important stuff.   That was the first lesson learned from Miles but not the last.  But I digress…

Facebook is good for some surprising things. Lately I have reconnected with friends I have not seen since junior high and I joined a group called “You’re probably from Jamaica, Queens if…”. I haven’t been back to Jamaica in 6 years nor back to my old neighborhood for 17 years.  I haven’t lived there for almost 40. It is interesting therefore to hear the remembrances of those who have grown up there in the many years I’ve been away. There are some things we remember in common e.g. theaters that have been turned into churches and blue light parties in the basement, and some things that I don’t,  the rise of hip hop for example. That was to be expected but there was something else I didn’t anticipate. The layers of successive age strata’s memories also provide a history of the neighborhood that will never be written or even understood because no one will ever put it together and no one would publish it if it were. These memories are micro oral histories collected on a random basis not a scientific one. I suppose one could go to the records to back up some of information and look at long range trends in race, employment and income, but it would be a much drier history than these recollections and stories. The story of going to Mr. X’s corner grocery or repair shop, the creepy man down the block, or restaurants, diners and dives long since gone, provide an entertainment, colored by nostalgia it’s true, but which no book history could hope to equal. A book would chronicle the transformation during my lifetime of a once mixed race neighborhood into one of the most segregated African American areas in the country and I am sure provide a model of that transformation which undoubtedly occurred in other parts of the country.  For those who grew up there it was simply home.  It was a place in which we kids snatched enjoyment from life and either failed to notice or took as given  the low incomes, the growing violence, the scuffling to make it.

It is hardly unique, in fact it is an old story.  Immigrant groups cluster together in an area using networks to find support and others like them.  Whether it was Italian, Jewish or Irish groups whose remnants were still there when I first moved into the neighborhood in 1959 or the black migrants from the south and Caribbean who came while I was growing up there and after I left, Jamaica has seen them all. The difference has been that once these were just stops which individuals or successive generations made on a path to something more. While a host of people have moved on nowadays many have not and probably never will. The successive mini-memoirs in “You’re probably from Jamaica, Queens…” show a deteriorating neighborhood behind the smiles and stories. Not only have the movies moved away to the suburbs, until recently the big box stores, supermarkets, and chain stores had too. The neighborhood adapted and smaller mom and pop stores proliferated, people in the neighborhood followed the stores across the county line into nearby places like Valley Stream, and in fact the entire black southeastern Queens neighborhood is creeping there as well. The neighborhood has always been the home for much of the lower to upper black middle class.  They are mostly hard working people,  many who have several jobs, just trying to raise their families and capture a part of the American dream. The dip in the economy has hit the neighborhood but most are holding on even if only by their fingertips.

As Gladys Knight has said on one album, “As bad as we think they are these will be the good old days for our children.” Facebook has many “You’re probably from X if you…” pages.  It is a good way to connect with memories and a format that probably will not be preserved beyond those pages. I urge you to start one if there isn’t one for your area and join one if there is. It is  producing a kind of oral history that contains the voices of those previously unheard. It’s also a lot of fun.