Music & Reminiscence
Music & Reminiscence
I never just listen to music. No one does. I listen with my eyes, my memory, my emotions. I listen like a man reminiscing about his life, hearing sounds, seeing the musicians play—all, in my mind’s eye, where the Jazz-Man dressed in a black sharkskin suit and skinny tie swings the blues. That’s how I listen, with a lifetime of personal and cultural memory.
When I listen to the Miles Davis record “Live at The Blackhawk,” I think of the liner notes that I first read more than forty years ago. About how cool and unpredictable Miles was at the peak of his career, having gone from a reasonably famous Jazz Man, to become a cultural icon—of the ragged but righteous House of Jazz that I imagined the Blackhawk to be. People sitting at tables, whispering, while “The Rhythm Section” warms up the audience, glasses clinking in the background as they wait for Miles to take the stage, Wynton Kelly at the piano, Paul Chambers on bass, Jimmy Cobb on drums, and the very underrated bluesy modern jazz groove of Hank Mobley on tenor sax, filling the impossibly extravagant shoes of John Coltrane. Still swinging, only in slightly smaller steps than Coltrane. If Coltrane was James Baldwin and Jackson Pollack, Hank Mobley was Langston Hughes and Horace Silver.
I remember being 20, the first time I heard Miles Davis Live at The Blackhawk.
I remember my girlfriend’s 1973 yellow VW Beetle, which stalled and wouldn’t start when it rained and the wind was blowing the wrong direction.
The one certain thing, though, it’s never just music that I’m hearing. I’m hearing my life. I’m hearing Miles life. But as I imagine it. Like a thin Black Marlon Brando with a raspy voice, playing a lyrical, bop-based, deeply personalized jazz trumpet.
Then I hear John Coltrane—probably my favorite jazz musician—for, at least, a couple of years now. There is this huge arc in Coltrane’s music, covering a condensed time-frame, maybe a decade is all. You can hear the endless searching, the obsessive-compulsive need to play, without concern for the established rules that are normally imposed on the jazz musician. Or the listening audience.
Coltrane isn’t there to entertain. He’s hunting. You’re there to participate in the journey, to watch and observe, to offer some necessary encouragement, as fuel for the journey.
Most artists are obsessive-compulsive, I think. At least, a little. They need to be. It’s that need to do, whatever it is that they do, in spite of being seen as strange to the casual observer. But the artist continues on regardless. The artist doesn't really need validation, although, everyone needs it once in a while. But they do need peace, by getting that 100th sunflower out of their heads and onto that canvas—or that unreachable interval that exists somewhere on their instrument, but is never found, because it changes imperceptibly, a millimeter at a time. Like watching your hair grow—until you’re no longer recognizable—having looked away for just a moment.
Anyway. Music never exists in a vacuum. All music is linked. Tethered by memory, making it far more than just music. This is true for all of us. There is no special talent or skill that makes the music ours. Even when it's given to us by someone else. It's still indelibly carved into our memory and then refashioned into our life. A communal experience, making a broader, deeper culture possible.
Mark Magula
I never just listen to music. No one does. I listen with my eyes, my memory, my emotions. I listen like a man reminiscing about his life, hearing sounds, seeing the musicians play—all, in my mind’s eye, where the Jazz-Man dressed in a black sharkskin suit and skinny tie swings the blues. That’s how I listen, with a lifetime of personal and cultural memory.
When I listen to the Miles Davis record “Live at The Blackhawk,” I think of the liner notes that I first read more than forty years ago. About how cool and unpredictable Miles was at the peak of his career, having gone from a reasonably famous Jazz Man, to become a cultural icon—of the ragged but righteous House of Jazz that I imagined the Blackhawk to be. People sitting at tables, whispering, while “The Rhythm Section” warms up the audience, glasses clinking in the background as they wait for Miles to take the stage, Wynton Kelly at the piano, Paul Chambers on bass, Jimmy Cobb on drums, and the very underrated bluesy modern jazz groove of Hank Mobley on tenor sax, filling the impossibly extravagant shoes of John Coltrane. Still swinging, only in slightly smaller steps than Coltrane. If Coltrane was James Baldwin and Jackson Pollack, Hank Mobley was Langston Hughes and Horace Silver.
I remember being 20, the first time I heard Miles Davis Live at The Blackhawk.
I remember my girlfriend’s 1973 yellow VW Beetle, which stalled and wouldn’t start when it rained and the wind was blowing the wrong direction.
The one certain thing, though, it’s never just music that I’m hearing. I’m hearing my life. I’m hearing Miles life. But as I imagine it. Like a thin Black Marlon Brando with a raspy voice, playing a lyrical, bop-based, deeply personalized jazz trumpet.
Then I hear John Coltrane—probably my favorite jazz musician—for, at least, a couple of years now. There is this huge arc in Coltrane’s music, covering a condensed time-frame, maybe a decade is all. You can hear the endless searching, the obsessive-compulsive need to play, without concern for the established rules that are normally imposed on the jazz musician. Or the listening audience.
Coltrane isn’t there to entertain. He’s hunting. You’re there to participate in the journey, to watch and observe, to offer some necessary encouragement, as fuel for the journey.
Most artists are obsessive-compulsive, I think. At least, a little. They need to be. It’s that need to do, whatever it is that they do, in spite of being seen as strange to the casual observer. But the artist continues on regardless. The artist doesn't really need validation, although, everyone needs it once in a while. But they do need peace, by getting that 100th sunflower out of their heads and onto that canvas—or that unreachable interval that exists somewhere on their instrument, but is never found, because it changes imperceptibly, a millimeter at a time. Like watching your hair grow—until you’re no longer recognizable—having looked away for just a moment.
Anyway. Music never exists in a vacuum. All music is linked. Tethered by memory, making it far more than just music. This is true for all of us. There is no special talent or skill that makes the music ours. Even when it's given to us by someone else. It's still indelibly carved into our memory and then refashioned into our life. A communal experience, making a broader, deeper culture possible.
Mark Magula