Monk’s Blues

Columbia Records, 1968

Thelonious Monk’s blues. Are … not very sad. They’re boppin’ a bit, in fact. When I pulled this record out of the stack, I was searching for quiet, yet reaching jazz piano music, to tell the truth. I wanted a grey chilly thoughtful start to what will be a long, long day full of questions and demands and tasks and such. This is not that album. In fact, I can’t recall this album. It seems so un-Monk, so brassy and loud and externally large, as opposed to the internal, pause-ridden largess that I usually with Monk’s jazz piano.

There are questions here, but not the kind that offer counterbalance to the approaching daily onslaught of tasks and supervisions, and not the kind that help me check off from my list the item indicating that I’m doing the right thing. I think this guy always did the right thing, at least on the keys. Although this album would maybe argue that point, in that it feels so not like this player’s personality.

So I’m disappointed I couldn’t remember that this album is not in fact quiet piano introspection but a full-on horns-and-all band, making the day come on with a one-and-a-two-and-a like the rush of peoples ascending the stairs after trains arrive on both tracks, like the the trucks dangling above us on the overpass, the slam-rhythm on neighbor commuter cars setting off for the expedition at hand: the sounds of going out there, of extrospection. Extra out there, extra open to the dips and flows and peaks of the moment.

I guess that’s what some jazz is, right? Extra. This kind opens with an assault and smooths into a quiet one only two tracks later, arranger and conductor Mr. Oliver Nelson making his presence in the room known at all times via his big, big!, arrangements, horns and horns and horns that leave Benny G. behind by a decade or so, yet still stick together tight enough to pay him his proper dues.

I can list the ways in which I will go outside today, and to this soundtrack I will do it with relish, I will write it pretty and I will keep, keep listing. List the sounds outside like the neighbor kid lists his toys from the backseat of the van, list the tidal back-and-forth swoop of distant vehicles passing, the internalized squeak of the bus stop and the bus wires overhead, list the phone calls I will make soon and the tasks we all will accomplish this day, list the troubles of others and the doubts of yourself, like all the different pangs of guilt I will feel in two minutes when I have to stop working on this to work on other things, list the numbers and numbers of days I have stopped working on this thing in front of me, in order to work.

It’s okay; in the arms of Nelson and Monk it just it what it is. A day. Maybe not the kind you want or expect, but here and present and all accounted for. So whattya gonna do? So, go outside, don’t be too blue, remember the horn section backing you up, and let yourself be.

Octaves are yours: check ‘em off one by one.

[This is not from the album, but is what I was aiming for when I chose Monk today:]

Loaded

Atlantic/Cotillion, 1970

I am learning to love the sun. I never did before. I am a child of clouded ocean breezes; there are still places where the sun makes my skin balloon, pimple, rash. There are places to sit in the shade. There are big straw hats.

I am learning to love the sun and this to my surprise did not happen in the many streetside summers of Manhattan, peeling the dirt off freshly shaven legs with an idle fingernail in the harsh relief of the air conditioned subway car and emerging like smoke from the grates in tandem with the heat. This did not happen as sun emanated from the pavement after dark like the twisted cousin of a remembered breeze. It did not happen in hot nights, cool bars, or hotter clubs. It never happened like the avant garde never happened for me, not in all those Junes learning major chords from sweaty boys.

But now I am learning to love the sun and this began in Portugal, really, chasing wildfires under pine trees far from any buildings at all. On my bicycle pushing wheels towards afternoon rivers as the only respite ahead, in the silence of no-wind and flies sucking salt from my pores, heat from my forehead, strength from my calves and we looked at the melting pavement and kept, going, up. The realization when you live outdoors that a ceiling is also shade.

I am learning to love the sun as my city grows hotter, fog held back beyond banks of heat waves in a place where heat waves never come in June. I love the sun walking on that side of the street for once, at outdoor concerts under useless umbrellas, through new tank tops and toe-peeping shoes, and with a conscious and teeth-clenched decision to just man up and embrace the splayed-out layerlessness of it.

I should learn to love the sun the way my father does, not as a bronzed natural compatibility but as the thing that makes other things grow; to help that process, you need to be in it.

I yearn to love the sun, too, there in Portugal and here in the garden, in a muscular way: unburdened by softness or damp or flesh.

So I am learning to love the sun slowly, by tasting it and smiling and pushing further into it, under it, these rivers of sweat as indicators of athletic light loving.

Like everyone.

And now, a word from our proprietor…

Hey, listeners of the internet! So, it’s been a week or so since you heard from me. Sorry ’bout that. But lots is happening. To wit:

I was on NPR! Well, on their awesome podcast show, All Songs Considered. I recorded a snippet of my thoughts on “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” and sent it to the All Songs guys for their “Summer Music Memories” show– and to my surprise, they used it! So, so cool. Listen to “the discussion” at the link below, and at minute 11:13 you can hear me talking about Neil Young and Santa Cruz!

All Songs Considered: Summer Music Memories

In related news, watch for me to be switchin’ up the format of this here weblog a bit in the coming weeks and months. I have figured out I have a few (2? 3?) months left of records to listen to, and I have also, honestly, felt this project is in a bit of a rut with regards to style and personal time management. So I’m thinking of ways to keep it going while not taking up all the writing time in my world (I do write other things, ya know) and not boring myself and my few regular readers to death. Here are some ideas:

–Audio segments! Like the one on All Songs Considered, or similar.

–Guest bloggers! I do have a few friends who are awesome writers and awesome listeners, and I’m thinking of inviting some folks to help share the workload. Not sure how this would play into the whole “my record collection” aspect of this site. Maybe we’d find albums we both own or something.

–Summaries! In which I sometimes post a summary of a few days’ listening in one post, a kind of audio “roundup” of my week. Shorter segments, more records, potential for thematic record groupings. Less of a scheduling burden on moi.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Scolds? Drop me a line in the comments or here.