Viewing: Humility - View all posts
PROPOSITIONAL ATTITUDE
"Do you love me?" she asked.
"Of course," he said.
"Do you really love me?" she asked.
"Of course," he said.
"Do you really REALLY love me?" she asked.
"No," he said.
"Do you love me?" she asked.
"Of course," he said.
So she asked no more.
HERMAN BLOUNT WAS RIGHT
"We are not the same. I am a Martian." ~LIL WAYNE |
"I'm a total frickin' rock star from Mars." ~CHARLIE SHEEN |
"I am from the planet of Elegance." ~RON CARTER |
THE EXPERTS AGREE
"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future. Concentrate the mind on the present moment, and do your work with mastery. Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds, and shine."
~Buddha
"Happiness is not a memory but a reality. Reality is neither past nor future but only now. NOW is the greatest time there ever was."
~Nicholas Payton
"Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog. So why not just be happy?"
~Snoopy
THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE
When I was at Berklee in the 80s, the Boston jazz community was teeming with talented trumpet players.
There was the brilliant INGRID JENSEN, who had the freshest sound in town, the legendary HERB POMEROY, a lyrical master of bebop, and the ultramodern TIM HAGANS, a harmonically adventurous improviser of the Woody Shaw school. DAVE BALLOU was known for his pitch-perfect intonation and musicality, JEFF STOUT for his uncanny way with a standard, and KEN CERVENKA for his inventive spontaneity. GREG HOPKINS could break your heart with a ballad, while the always soulful KENNY RAMPTON made the trumpet sing like no other. There was also the spirited ROY HARGROVE, a musical chameleon steeped in Blue Note tradition, the explosive ANDY GRAVISH, who channelled Freddie Hubbard at will, and TONY THEWET, a playful prankster with a gift for infectious island rhythm.
The scene was inspiring, to say the least, but it could also be quite intimidating. I was playing trumpet more than flugel in those days, and trumpet players tend to be a bit competitive by nature. Nevertheless, I tried to learn something from everyone and carve out a niche for myself.
Inevitably, whenever I grew confident about my place in the pecking order, I'd hear someone new who blew my mind.
In those moments, I felt like someone who had stumbled into the world of Highlander holding nothing but a pocket knife.
Like the time I worked on Brandt #6, a challenging etude for trumpet.
I had to sweat the thing for weeks before I could make its awkward intervals sound even remotely musical.
After I don't know how many hours in the practice room, I was finally ready to play the piece for my teacher. Sure enough, the hard work had paid off.
I was feeling pretty good about myself until the trumpet player in the adjacent studio began to mimic what I'd just played, only effortlessly, by ear, at a brighter tempo, and doodle tonguing it like Clark Terry.
But what really took the wind out of my sails was when he started cycling the melody through the keys.
I decided I'd better go over there, find out who it is, and pay my respects. Apparently no one had ever told this guy that playing the trumpet is difficult.
And that's how I met GREG GISBERT.
~DM
MYSTIC CHORDS OF MEMORY
"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." ~Abraham Lincoln
JAMES MOODY'S OVERDUE GRAMMY
James Moody's Grammy win tonight is a beautiful thing, but long overdue.
The last of the original generation of bebop masters, Moody died in December at age 85, just two months too early for him to appreciate the honor.
Nevertheless, the award decision is heartening.
It affirms that we in the jazz arena, unlike the rest of the youth-obsessed music industry, celebrate our pioneering elders above all.
And it proves -- believe it! -- that melody, warmth, swing and soul are still relevant.
In fact, they may just be what matters most.
~D.M.
Some of my favorite nuggets of James Moody wisdom...
Moody on Race:
"There's only one country. Mankind is one. All that stuff about different races—about your kind and my kind—that's bullshit."
Moody on Technique:
"It's a challenge constantly. I've had a saxophone for over 50 years and I still can't play it. Some days I wake up and say, 'Hello,' and the saxophone says, 'I don't know you.' But I keep at it."
Moody on Bandleading:
"A lot of times when you go somewhere to work, they put you with people who they think will work well together. That doesn't go. A band is like a marriage. Can't nobody pick a wife for you. You've gotta do it yourself. Only you know what you like, man."
Moody on Ego:
"Blessed are those who run around in circles, for they shall be called Big Wheels."
Moody on Music:
"Practice, work hard, but then let God take over. Jazz is a spiritual music. Remember, when you play music, you're praying. And most of all, learn to love yourself."
James Moody Discography
SUZUKI ROSHI ON SOUND
NEW VIEW
DANCING UNDER THE GALLOWS
STAY GOLD, PONY BOY
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
~Robert Frost
LUCK, LOVE & MAKING A LIVING
"The lucky person passes for a genius."
~Euripides
"Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination
nor both together go to the making of genius.
Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius."
~Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
"A genius is one who can do anything
except make a living."
~Joey Lauren Adams
SINATRA SETS GEORGE MICHAEL "STRAIGHT," SO TO SPEAK
TELLING IT LIKE IT IS
GENERATIVITY VS. STAGNATION
"If I am what I have, and if I lose what I have, who then am I?"
~Erich Fromm
"It's only after we've lost everything that we are free to do anything."
~Tyler Durden
"Is it my imagination, or didn't we arrive in a limo?"
~Rod Tidwell
WISHED AWAY
“They have exiled me now from their society and I am pleased,
because humanity does not exile except the one whose noble spirit
rebels against despotism and oppression.”
~Kahlil Gibran
PATRONAGE
"From the time Cézanne first left Aix, at the age of twenty-two, Louis-Auguste [Cézanne's father] paid his bills, even when Cézanne gave every indication of being nothing more than a failed dilettante. But for Zola, Cézanne would have remained an unhappy banker's son in Provence; but for Pissarro, he would never have learned how to paint; but for Vollard (at the urging of Pissarro, Renoir, Degas, and Monet), his canvases would have rotted away in some attic; and, but for his father, Cézanne's long apprenticeship would have been a financial impossibility. That is an extraordinary list of patrons. The first three—Zola, Pissarro, and Vollard—would have been famous even if Cézanne never existed, and the fourth was an unusually gifted entrepreneur who left Cézanne four hundred thousand francs when he died. Cézanne didn't just have help. He had a dream team in his corner. This is the final lesson...success is highly contingent on the efforts of others."
~Malcolm Gladwell
A PRINCE ENJOYING HIS INCOGNITO
"For the perfect idler, for the passionate observer, it becomes an immense source of enjoyment to establish his dwelling in the throng, in the ebb and flow, the bustle, the fleeting and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel at home anywhere; to see the world, to be at the very center of the world, and yet to be unseen of the world, such are some of the minor pleasures of those independent, intense and impartial spirits, who do not lend themselves easily to linguistic definitions. The observer is a prince enjoying his incognito wherever he goes."
~Charles Baudelaire
WHEN THEY SLEEP
All people are children when they sleep.
There's no war in them then.
They open their hands and breathe
in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.
They pucker their lips like small children
and open their hands halfway,
soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.
The stars stand guard
and a haze veils the sky,
a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.
and open their hands halfway,
soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.
The stars stand guard
and a haze veils the sky,
a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.
If only we could speak to one another then
when our hearts are half-open flowers.
Words like golden bees
would drift in.
-- God, teach me the language of sleep.
when our hearts are half-open flowers.
Words like golden bees
would drift in.
-- God, teach me the language of sleep.
~Rolf Jacobsen
JEDI MAXIM
"There's always a bigger fish."
~Qui-Gon Jinn
~Qui-Gon Jinn
LET GO
EARS
"I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening.
Most people never listen."
~Ernest Hemingway
"Ears. Now, they're important, too."
~Jonathan E.
"Nuff said."
~Stan Lee
QUIET CONSISTENCY ~ DM on Aspiration
Humility and quiet consistency, like the grandfather clock
in the corner that steadily ticks away quietly,
regardless of the weather outside.
in the corner that steadily ticks away quietly,
regardless of the weather outside.
POWER & POETRY
"When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses."
~John F. Kennedy