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!

Marilyn's frigidaire

I'm through with love, I'll never fall again, said adieu to love, don't ever call again.
For I must have you or no one, and so I'm through with love.
I've locked my heart, I'll keep my feelings there, I have stocked my heart, with icy, frigid air.
And I mean to care for no one, because I'm through with love.

Yesterday I watched a Frasier episode (yes, really!), where Frasier Crane is once again frustrated about not being able to find a woman, and he feels so desperate that he starts to play this old standard (famous since Marilyn Monroe in Some like it hot) on his grand piano. I immediately had to stop watching and start playing myself! I love these songs, their harmony speaks of a long lost time, there's always a harmonic happy ending.
I played it as a cheesy ballad type hotel bar (which is always great fun), and in double-time with a walking bass and stride, and fooled around with reharms. I found out something new: I only listened to the text half-consciously, so I always heard Ella or Nat sing about an icy frigidaire, which left me wondering about the very graphic text-style...

I talked about it to the Paraglider, which brought us to a (long!) discussion about how to interpret the second chord of the tune, Ab diminished (first turnaround: Fmaj7, Abdim, Gm7, C7), because it can't easily be interchanged with a dominant chord. Aren't we geeks? At least we're geeks together (would now be the perfect time to form a Star Trek sign?)

Something I've found which I think is hilariously funny: there's a new jazz festival in Switzerland, in St.Moritz, which is a meeting-point for the rich and the beautiful. Unfortunately, their press material doesn't live up to the standards this particular demographic must be used to. Two pictures got interchanged, which led to this:

I don't know who this is, but it certainly isn't brown-haired, slender and "glassless" Brad Mehldau...

jazz ain't summer music

It isn't, don't you think? In Switzerland, the weather is great since two weeks. In Berne there are (next to bears!) a lot of great bathing spots - you can, by river, see the most important buildings, slowly and lazily floating by for twenty minutes, getting tanned and doing some sightseeing!
For a week now, I've been working, been paragliding (yay!) and eating lots of grilled food. Never ever have I touched a piano. While a break is necessary for wrists and psyche, I still wonder about the compatibility of jazz for hot and sweaty times. When I listen to music now, it's Jimi Hendrix or Janelle Monae or hip new indie bands. I just can't really imagine sitting through Aaron Parks or David Binney or "the old cats" now. Doesn't fit! Can't do that in a little summer dress or a bikini!

The paraglider doesn't agree. As soon as the sun goes down, he's in the mood for playing - which still rules out the hot hours of the day. I wonder what others think about that?

Picture for today: the music academy in Basel apparently is a hot address for classical musicians in Europe. People who actually have soloist careers ahead of them because they're one of a kind come to study here. So there are one of a kind instruments here, too. They are so extraordinary and holy and awesome that they can only be played on very extraordinary and holy occasions. One of which happened last week, it was the diploma ceremony. And since the jazz school belongs to the music academy, the jazz school big band had to play there. And since I'm the piano player in this big band....
Well. It actually meant that I was allowed to play this holy thing! Wow!
(To be honest: I have no idea how it sounds. In a big hall with a high ceiling, there can't be anything louder than a big band, neither I nor anybody else present heard a single sound out of the grand piano. Still! I was allowed to play it!)

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

A night at the opera, and: I almost did it!

I've just had a crazy week. Exam time is almost over, everything went well (very well even) until now. I am so unbelievably proud and happy - one week to go and I'll have finished my fourth semester as a jazz student. I did it! I did it, I DID IT! Now, and if only for practical reasons, deciding time is over. In one year, I'll have my bachelor of arts in jazz performance (just saying it out loud makes me proud, writing it down is even better!) One year. 32 weeks of lessons. Not so long any more, and stupid would I be, would I give up now. I'll still have to take one step after the other, and I'll still have to face doubts (appearing out of nowhere like whiny old-lady-ghosts). And: I won't know what the heck I'll do afterwards, how I'll face everyday life as a part-time jazz musician. But I guess I'll have my music degree after all!!

For christmas, The Paraglider had given me opera tickets for yesterday, "Der Freischütz" von Carl Maria von Weber. Me, almost presentable in a nice dress and boots, with drum sticks looking out of my bag, in the Zurich Opera House! Known for pretty conservative productions, nice old building, red carpets and balconies with a view over the Lake and the city - an evening out at the Zurich Opera is really quite the event. I loved it! The Paraglider and me did some pretty ignoble things like drinking out of the faucet in the toilet and ordering a McDonalds-menu not five minutes after the last curtain. And: it's forbidden to take pictures, but I still did it, rebel that I am.

The Paraglider has a natural ability to fit in environments like that, while I may for a second look like I do, but the next will with absolute certainty do something inappropriate. I know he has a great career as a cultural manager ahead of him, he really has all the potential!