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

Tags: Celtics, NBA Finals, 2008, Bob Ryan, Kendrick Perkins, Rajon Rando, Kevin Garnett, Eric Dolphy, Thelonious Monk, Lee Morgan