All That Jazz

Jazz musicians hear harmonies and rhythms differently than the average commonplace man. They mentality can hear the complexities and locate the strange usage of pitches or the rhythmical entanglements of each inter-beat. It is like the beauty of an amber field in the early morning hours of late summer or the deepest blue sky after the first fallen snow on the Appalachian mountains near our West Virginia childhood homes. Jazz--with all its ins and outs and little minutiae coloristic detail--paints a world of beauty, that is a world unfamiliar to those who are not likeminded as those who never experienced an Appalachian snow or the sight a flowing field of amber wheat for themsleves. Jazz is an art for the artist. Jazz is the poem for the poet. Jazz is the complexity for the complex. Jazz is the spirit for the spiritual. Jazz is the love for the lovers. Jazz is the lonely for the lonesome. Jazz is the life for the living.


A friend posted on his blog his distaste for Thelonious Monk, a Jazz Musician (read previous post.) I am not after him for this blemish, which now I associated with his character. (That was a joke.) So, I left a comment on that post and here is what I left. I hope my point is understandable, if not I will explain it with this: Jazz can only be appreciated like the snow on the West Virginia mountains or the wheat field that the wind surfs out on the western prairies, and that appreciation can only be because of self witnessing.

“Before one can love or hate, one must first understand.” -- Leonardo da Vinci, if my memory serves me right.