Warning: Extremely Selfish Post

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.

It’s one thing when some one says their favourite composer is Miles Davis, because that’s the thing to say; or their favourite bassist is Ray Brown, because again, that’s the thing to say. But it’s a whole other idea, when the person at hand goes out there and listens to a lot of material and then returns to where they started. The basis on which the big names are the ones that usually cut through as favourites isn’t devoid of reason. They cut through simply because they speak to you.

I know enough people who would downplay jazz – and that’s fine. I am in full awareness of the temptation to be romantic – but this transcends that.

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.

It is about self-discovery – and whether the emotions or sensations that you experience when engaging in something are communicated to you by that work of art, or whether that piece of art brings it out from inside you (something that was already there)– is a question worth asking – and is fully indicative of the complexity of the transaction.

Enough developments in science can now tell you, that I don’t see/hear/feel the same way about the same things as you do. Whether one sees that as an assurance of idealism (everything is in your head and the supremacy of the subjective experience) , is a secondary topic. I remember in my third year of college, I studied a text by Martin Heidegger – called Origin of the Work of Art. It would be immensely helpful if I could remember a single thing about it – but what I do remember, is that for Heidegger art was a dynamic agency. It was seen as independent of the work of art and the artist. I know this is redundant – but you should go look it up.

I digress. What got me writing this was me thinking of who my favourite composers are. I can think of two, that cut through everything for me. The first being Bill Evans – and the second, being Pat Metheny.

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. 

Question and Answer - Pat Metheny