jazz

An inch of gold can't buy an inch of time

One two, one two, Type a word or two. Arrow left, arrow right, Keep those fingers nice and tight.Keys up, Keys down,Move those digits all around.One two, one two, Type a word or two.

As I__e said before, __he Mod generation_, contrary to popular belief, was not born in even 1958, but in the 1920s after a steady gestation from about 1917 or so. Now, Mod certainly came of age, fully sure of itself by 1958, completely misunderstood by 1963, and in a perpetual cycle of reinvention and rediscovery of itself by 1967 and 1975, respectively, but it was born in the 1920s, and I will maintain this. I don__ care who disagrees with me, and there are dozens of reasons that I do so __rom the Art Deco aesthetic, to flapper fashions (complete with bobbed hair), to androgyny and subtle effeminacy, to jazz.

American musicians, instead of investigating ragtime, attempt to ignore it, or dismiss it with a contemptuous word. But that has always been the course of scholasticism in every branch of art. Whatever new thing the 'people' like is poohpoohed; whatever is 'popular' is spoken of as not worth the while. The fact is, nothing great or enduring, especially in music, has ever sprung full-fledged and unprecedented from the brain of any master; the best that he gives to the world he gathers from the hearts of the people, and runs it through the alembic of his genius.

But his own mind was helpless against every moment's headline. He did nothing but leap into the mass of changes and explore them and all the tiny facets so eventually he was completely governed by fears of certainty. He distrusted it in anyone but Nora for there it went to the spine, and yet he attacked it again and again in her, cruelly, hating it, the sure lanes of the probable. Breaking chairs and window glass doors in fury at her certain answers. [15-16]

In his book Real Presences, George Steiner asks us to "imagine a society in which all talk about the arts, music and literature is prohibited." In such a society there would be no more essays on whether Hamlet was mad or only pretending to be, no reviews of the latest exhibitions or novels, no profiles of writers or artists. There would be no secondary, or parasitic, discussion - let alone tertiary: commentary on commentary. We would have, instead, a "republic for writers and readers" with no cushion of professional opinion-makers to come between creators and audience. While the Sunday papers presently serve as a substitute for the experiencing of the actual exhibition or book, in Steiner's imagined republic the review pages would be turned into listings:catalogues and guides to what is about to open, be published, or be released. What would this republic be like? Would the arts suffer from the obliteration of this ozone of comment? Certainly not, says Steiner, for each performance of a Mahler symphony is also a critique of that symphony. Unlike the reviewer, however, the performer "invests his own being in the process of interpretation." Such interpretation is automatically responsible because the performer is answerable to the work in a way that even the most scrupulous reviewer is not. Although, most obviously, it is not only the case for drama and music; all art is also criticism. This is most clearly so when a writer or composer quotes or reworks material from another writer or composer. All literature, music, and art "embody an expository reflection which they pertain". In other words it is not only in their letters, essays, or conversation that writers like Henry James reveal themselves also to be the best critics; rather, The Portrait of a Lady is itself, among other things, a commentary on and a critique of Middlemarch. "The best readings of art are art."No sooner has Steiner summoned this imaginary republic into existence than he sighs, "The fantasy I have sketched is only that." Well, it is not. It is a real place and for much of the century it has provided a global home for millions of people. It is a republic with a simple name: jazz.

His eyes, if anything, gleamed even more bright, having found the treasure he sought.

The Angel Gabriel disappeared once for sixty years and they found him on earth hiding in the body of a man named Miles Davis.

Jazz is the music of the body. The breath comes through brass. It is the body__ breath, and the strings_ wails and moans are echoes of the body__ music. It is the body__ vibrations which ripple from the fingers. And the mystery of the withheld theme, known to jazz musicians alone, is like the mystery of our secret life. We give to others only peripheral improvisations.

His eyes never blinked or wavered from mine, encompassing me in a field of control.

We women, me and you. Tell me something real. Don__ just say I__ grown and ought to know. I don__. I__ fifty and I don__ know nothing. What about it? Do I stay with him? I want to, I think. I want_ well, I didn__ always_ now I want. I want some fat in this life.___ake up. Fat or lean, you got just one. This is it.___ou don__ know either, do you?___ know enough to know how to behave.___s that it? Is that all it is?___s that all what is?___h shoot! Where the grown people? Is it us?___h, Mama._ Alice Manfred blurted it out and then covered her mouth. Violet had the same thought: Mama. Mama? Is this where you got to and couldn__ do it no more? The place of shade without trees where you know you are not and never again will be loved by anybody who can choose to do it? Where everything is over but the talking? - Violet Trace and Alice Manfred

I noticed that religion gave some people a way to escape dealing with the world: __hings will be better when you die,_ the people of my grandma__ generation said as they worked themselves to death. __od wants you to forgive and love those who do you wrong,_ some people said to shake off the shame of being unable to respond to the abuse they endured. The holier-than-thou faction found comfort in believing, __he rest of y__ll are lost because you don__ have a personal relationship with God__ur God._ But art engages you in the world, not just the world around you but the big world, and not just the big world of Tokyo and Sydney and Johannesburg, but the bigger world of ideas and concepts and feelings of history and humanity.

Teachers' favorite color ink, splashed and dripped down his face a grisly reminder of mistakes bruising his life.

Amy [Winehouse] changed pop music forever, I remember knowing there was hope, and feeling not alone because of her. She lived jazz, she lived the blues.

The law don__ like jazz clubs. No one wants anything to do with that kind of trouble.

Tongue and hand tied, I was equally cut off and trapped in my own silent dark tomb.

My God, what a sensation to be an atom in the scheme of such grandiosity. The allurement, the jazz, and the physics of it all . . .

Don't make a career out of underestimating me." _ Claire de Haven