I want to talk about you

To Coltrane I listened.   I remember listening to Coltrane, first in a car, or was it on record, but it was after it was on record (it was either Coltrane’s Sound or Coltrane Jazz) that I saw Flea from RedHotChiliPepppers on the MTV video music awards saying something like “stay up late and listen to John Coltrane.”

But I remember the tape I made from the library: Sonny Rollins’ Saxophone Colossus on one side and Soultrane on the other.   For a while I listened to both, happy to flip, remember reading about how Coltrane unwanting or unknowing, pushing Sonny from the scene, I thought of Sonny acquiescing, of Coltrane winning, and I would start to rewind or put the tape away after Soultrane.  But this is purely a saxophone understanding, I’ve since seen things else-way, heard other things, after all, Max Roach.

I still came back to it, and it seemed that Coltrane would come back to it too, I Want to Talk About You, since it was one of the few songs, SONG songs, that he came back to.

Of course I didn’t think this then, in fact I couldn’t listen to Live at Birdland, for to hear the difference in phrasing put me off course, since he immediately diverges off, melodically, off the course of the melody, I would immediately think of the first, and return to it.

And was he thinking of Billy Eckstine?  A reminder (to whom?) of he who shaped the old from the new, a pioneer of music, American music, or was it then? The notes still ring in my ears, shaped melody, simple singing, comping, Coltrane already in a resurgence even then, the comeback that supposedly sent Sonny to the bridge.

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And now, later in life, still listening back. And what used to be the same, is now different, and yet, the structure is the same, the notes are the same, in a different order, and rhythm, multiplied by the players, Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison all multiplying exponentially, and true, all things must come to an end so no recordings after ‘63, except isn’t there an unbalanced boogleg Half Note from ‘65?

There’s Stockholm ‘63, and Newport ‘63, and Afro Blue Sessions, all important on their own account, Graz concert seems particularly poigniant or filled with a sort of peaceful triumph.

but of course, now, none are as ineffable as Birdland.  Birdland, which seemed to build off the Village Vanguard a couple years before, which I distasted years before when I borrowed Soultrane from the library and listened in the car, which I couldn’t get past the beginning, now kept waiting until the moment comes, in the last bridge, or into the last chorus, so that, waiting for it, the solo seems to unfold and build towards it, now climbing, now falling, but moving in a distinct and purposeful direction, since there are no breaks, only a melody, repeated, saying the same thing, over again, saying the same thing over and over again, and over again, repeating, rephrasing, the same thing, until finally returning to the beginning of the end,  the final A section, the refrain, and

(empty space)

and now starting to recede, into the past, an anachronism, that waits for another clue.

— — — —-  —- — —-

And so the end is not the end, but more of a built-in mechanism that sets to test man’s foremost goal: to be at all places, in all times, while time, the trace, the remaining factor, will contain the stories (in or out of the order of the storyteller), and surely this will be man’s triumph.

Because, you see, Coltrane never made it past ‘67, just like Sam Cooke didn’t make it past ‘64, like Otis Redding didn’t make it past ‘67, like Rudy Lewis, Sonny Clark didn’t make it past ‘64, like King, Malcolm X…

Blue Train or the 2008 Celtics

The effective functionality of jazz: push through with everything you got.  Theres no such thing as perfect, of course; it’s inherent to make mistakes.  Athletes, at a certain pace, find the right balance, fast enough to function and produce more than the opponent, but in music, this is an exercise in thought. The parameters are set.  It is a game: intellect.

Down court, exchanging passes, settling into rhythm, they are not expected to make each shot each time.  You don’t count the mistakes, in fact, you shouldnt. That is part of the design. Each decision made in the moment, planned out or not, looking not down and not up, but in front, out.

There are five at once, 12 total. And the people around them. And the people around them. Finally, you.  You and the five

and they had to pick up where the Patriots left it.  Just shy of perfection, like a myth.  Then they put it down and there was nothing there. Nothing to comprehend, nor contemplate; I couldn’t sleep that night

and so turned it to the Celtics. The turned-around Celtics, its tenured star ambiguous of a legacy.  They made the trade like a new session, with differences each year, each session; like a quintet, improvising on  changes sometimes strict, but most effectively loose, enough, just enough to be skipping off the surface, ultimately to win

and came the finals, the first series despite Bob Ryan’s old fashioned cantankor (this never should have happened) happened before they won in 7 , proved it versus LeBron on a free throw, beat Detroit and L.A.

and Kendrick Perkins very similar to Thelonious Monk, the loner, stuck to his guns, wearing an expression of determined solidarity, his face taut with subcutaneous expression

, Rajon Rando, like Lee Morgan, spritely, who played the same figure each ninth measure in Moment’s Notice, as if he was nervous, but still covering the court,

and Kevin Garnett, like Eric Dolphy, reportedly changing the culture. and Doc Rivers, maintaining the culture, arranging the parts together, keeping his word, even if it was either a lie or a truth. and in the end it was the truth.

and when Nadal wore green, they wore green and played the blues, like Blue Train, like any other chorus of the blues with its variations, first dominant, sharp nine, then, ambiguous, holding it on the nine, and then, finally, a major, and the song begins