Coltrane does the trick

Every one know this feeling. It creeps into your soul, digs its sticky fingers into your intestines and slowly makes you feel cold, or lonely, or scared, or just worried. It might be about the end of something, or the start, about the future - or just an undefined unease. It's an unrequested visitor in thoughts, who often won't go after coffee...

Now what we jazz aficionado have in common is the love for an unusual kind of music, that invents and reinvents itself, that moves forward and requires a lot of the listeners, empathy with the players, persistence, and curiosity. We listen to it with open ears and minds and often get something quite undescribable out of it. It's almost like a force outside of everyday life, as if there will always be a backdoor to the daily routine.

Now there are blue moments that require even more than that. Moments when the mind is too lazy to try to figure out things, and they just ought to be beautifully presented on a platter. For moments like that, there is a jazz piece from John Coltrane. Of course - we all know that he was a genius, a thinker and a reformist. But of course he had a heart too, and so I can only recommend to anyone who has ever felt a bit low, to please listen to "I want to talk about you", from Soultrane, 1958 on Prestige, with John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Arthur Taylor!

Hello summer!

Only a short one for today: it's over! Exams, concerts (well, almost: one left for tomorrow!) ended today.
A warm welcome to the summer break: two and a half months in which one will have to plan, or at least start thinking about, the next big thing to come: the bachelor project. Which people to play with. Concerts to plan, so that all the nice people who support me so much through my doubt-and-irony-ridden days will finally see what I'm doing. A network to be built, so that after the studies there will be contacts and ideas left. Wow, sounds serious already!

But let's not forget: hello summer! long weekends with my friends, and two weeks in Germany with The Paraglider. It's gonna be grrrrreat (isn't this what the Kellogs Tiger says in the US?)!

And lo and behold: two cheesy summer quotes, just for the sake of it:

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.  ~Albert Camus

In summer, the song sings itself.  ~William Carlos Williams

Family reunion...

I saw my whole family yesterday, there were almost a hundred people, and I'm telling you, I had to fight for words. What just a day before seemed to me like the rock'n'roll, unconventional side of me lived out through jazz (the crazy music nobody cares for - "ooh, you know, I love jazz, I'm going nuts over some good old dixie"), appeared shallow and useless, when described to people who couldn't know less about what I'm doing. People who got married very young, had four children and that was it (not meant to sound condescending at all). When faced with one's own history, it can get really frightening, somehow one gets thrown back and has to look at oneself as others might, and although I'm happy (at least most of the time) about the road I chose to take, it's still hard to see that I'm so fundamentally different from almost everyone of them - people who are my family.

So that led to rather blue thoughts. Really bad day today.

The Paraglider and coffee and newspapers, and for once: no doubts!

This saturday seems to start out as THE perfect day! First coffee and newspapers with The Paraglider, which we haven't done in ages. Some other time I'll have to describe The Paraglider. Let's just say today: he's more than a nice guy...

Piano playing is going very well lately. I'm learning quickly, have good ideas, my hands seem to be in a very good condition, and pretty hard things seem not so hard after a few days, which makes me feel for a second like a giant brian with a future...

Yesterday for just a split second I had some sort of vision, complete with accessories and everything. I saw myself sitting in an office, and getting the blues for a life not moving forward - exactly like it often happens to me now. This got me thinking - if I do complete my jazz studies, I'll always be able to look back and think: man, these were the days, when for three years I did something really rock'n'roll and out of it. So just for today, I don't have any doubts about trying to pursue a small jazz career on the side. I'm still longing to start livin', you know? to be able to buy things. but still.
I always beat myself up metaphorically when I'm complaining about my life, because I know I'm granted a big chance - being able to study what I think I want, even if it has also rough sides to it. give me a second, and I'll say: nothing worth having comes easy (as Dr Kelso put so nicely). Let's put an end to this cheesy stuff.
But it's nice feeling warm and cozy!

And loved. man, the Paraglider and me, we're having a great time, since almost four years. in fact, I don't really know how it's possible that two people can be so good together. I just hope, if somebody ever reads these scribblings, that you can say the same about your relationships. feels kind of indescribable.