Sunday, August 28, 2011

just to get it started

Yeah, "writing is fighting" as my buddy Ishmael Reed said (wrote) and proves over and over again so splendidly (I'm choosing that word with care.  I don't think I've ever used it before...), and although I really don't love the computer or internet, there's so much that is asking to be said about music, about thinking critically about music, about thinking critically with music...  Well a blog's not as lucid, fluid and breathing as a conversation over a few cachacas during which all the parties to the  exchange share and are affected by the same shifting lights and shadow patterns, and by the white noise outside the circle (sometimes of two..), and by the stories being narrated (counter narrated, I guess) by the facial muscles of the participants as they listen, or interrupt, or are changed, or resist change....  And a blog's not as clear, strongly confirmed and already negotiated as a book (or ever with as much presence or gravity.... yeah, the computer does weigh more, but, aw....), but it's what we have access to right now.  It's only slightly funny but something like the blog of Leon Ichaso (one hell of a film maker, by the way - how many as good as Leon has Hollywood coughed up, through the haze of money expectations, since Cassavettes?  Huh?) is so damn emotionally moving (http://ichaso-ichaso.blogspot.com), but it's still not the book I'm praying he puts together someday.  Between films.  But, again, it's what we have, so...   So I'm starting this tonight mainly just to get it started.  I'll be writing something more substantial tomorrow, maybe having to do with how when you're learning Ga drumming, you're taught with seriousness that in order to solo on the drums, you have to learn, memorize, with accuracy, as many bird songs each morning as you could, and reproduce their cadences, internal rhythms, both calm and tense  silences and breaks as the only way to make solos that the ear understands as musical.  Was it Lars from "Hands across..." in Copenhagen who reminded me of that during a concert in 1998?  Lars, you there?  So, when you hear a drummer run through paradiddles.  Well, yeah, depending on the intent, it might still fabricate a musical story.  Maybe..

Anyway, as examples of my writing before this, two pieces about Astor:

www.americanclave.com/3-the-players-pages/13-Astor.html
http://www.americanclave.com/5-words-Astor.html

Again, more tomorrow.