If you listen to and have a wide vocabulary of jazz, or really any form of music – then maybe you can sympathize with the familiar situation of some one asking you what your favourite song is. Or to be fairer, atleast your favourite album or artist. If you’ve done your listening – the hypothetical naturally being operative - then the question can be staggering – in the face of the plethora of not only talent, but just evocative material out there.
What I have noticed though, is after a considerable amount of time – and ofcourse this process is one that is subject to evolution – the musicians I know and the listeners I know, manage to find certain artists that really just cut through. Now I can sympathize with the idea that really ‘choosing’ with a capital C, your favourite artists is really quite a self-indulgent and self-important act. But maybe in an ideal situation, or atleast personally speaking, the act is not public until some one asks – and making the choice isn’t just making the choice, insofar as a personal preference – but instead: a clear indication that something in that music speaks to you, or brings something out in you.
I’m not really talking even talking about music as much as art altogether. The actual discovery of a book (passages in a book), or a painting or whatever your medium of choice is not exclusively material. The relation between the work of art and the perceiver of it is : intimate, unique and inimitable. When you find something that doesn’t let you Go, it’s worth either enjoying it – or figuring out why you’re still listening, reading or watching. Ideally : both.
Evans is a pianist and Metheny is a guitar player. On a very personal level, I subsume both under the same categories – even though their approach, style and era are have considerable amounts of distance between them.I love Bill Evan’s piano style. Miles Davis said that his delicate playing sounded like crystals falling down a waterfall (I misquote slightly). It’s an odd metaphor, but it’s scarily accurate. What that says about me, is that I like delicate and controlled playing.
Pat Metheny, who I’ve been listening to a lot lately – and who is really sparking this off for me, writes these heart wrenching melodies and when I listen to them, it’s like melancholic ecstasy. Drift has been working on this tune called Question and Answer – the head or melody for it, makes every musical fibre in me lose the plot. His other album with Charlie Haden, who is one of my favourite bassists, called Beyond the Missouri Skies, is a guitar – bass duet. It’s musicality has the same reaction on me. I don’t understand what it is about his music that does what it does, but somewhere it’s reassuring to feel that surge.
Hahah.
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