Today, I was driving around with my dog doing various errands and I turned on the local FM 24/7 jazz station, KCSM. I realized that I had not been listening to any jazz for a while, but I immediately got right into it. It turned out to be an epic set, mostly stuff I had never heard before. Especially fantastic was a piece by the Dizzy Gillespie All Star Band – the cats were cookin’ and blowing in a sort of controlled mania. Very, very hot.
But the real point of this post is to note that as I was driving around on a gorgeous summer day, listening to great jazz, I felt like I was in my twenties again. I can get flashbacks and contact highs from old rock and pop songs, but today confirmed that only jazz can transport me back in time to the point where my whole being takes the ride. I could almost smell the funky, exciting odor of the small club at which I saw Trane in SF at age 20 on a fake ID. I was literally only about 8 feet from him, and I’m still recovering to this day. Reminds me of the Grammys that year when Carlos Santana won about a zillion categories -- at one point he stopped, got real serious and said to the watching world, “Listen to John Coltrane every day.” Think I’m gonna try that.
~ tom
1 comment:
My sentiments exactly.
Post a Comment