I’ve heard a few times recently that the little list of what I’m listening to while I work gets checked out every week. That’s fantastic. That’s my hope with ANYTHING I share, not that you think like me or listen to what I do… but that you do think about things a layer or two deeper and you listen to new-to-you music. I was gifted this podium along with my craftsman’s path, and part of that means I’m supposed to share and inspire. If a tiny bit of how music inspires and fills me somehow transfers to you by a recommendation or even something else you found in the used CD bin while you went LOOKING for something I was into, I mean that’s life right there! That’s how it all hooks together! That’s how little paths happen into other artists’ work, and musics, and even lives – go ahead and SAY hello to the person next to you. Stop at that bar or restaurant or shop on the way home you’ve driven by all those times but wanted to. Life is a tapestry of these thin threads somehow entwined. My whole path traces back to one thumbtack holding my first business card as a musician for hire at 17 years old into a cork bulletin board at a drugstore for two years. You think the guy went there to find my card? No, he was on a quest doing something else and picked up my thread, which I have followed through and to a thousand others over the past 32 years right to this moment typing this for you, light years from who, what, and where I was when that tack got pushed in... but somehow connected by that one thread. Now, I’m not going to send you out for shaving cream, but I will get you going for music. The rest is up to you and the universe.
When I write I was listening to Kamasi Washington’s “The Epic” SURE I’m hoping you’ll find something there that will season the flavor of your life. That’s a badass work that could blow your mind! Way more than that, way deeper than that though, I’m seeding a tiny little journey into your garden. A little quest! If it takes, Kamasi or not, you’re going to be out off looking for something and find a lot more on the way. It’s that “lot more” I really want to share, from the seeking to the path to the nuggets along the way to the new soundtracks you have for moments you might need to make now too. All uniquely yours, most of which I’ll never know… but I know you’re there, and I know music – in a world of viral spiraling lunacy from all sides – is a virus of connection and good vibration and inner health. It takes you on GOOD little journeys, sometimes where destiny can find you and plant her little seeds too. Your life doesn’t need to look anything like mine – but I’m here to inject you with the good musical virus so YOUR doings and feelings and ripplings come from the best place in YOU. This dis-dis-ease is spread by music, and that’s what it does. Share, spread, soothe, and inspire.
This is a busy time of year. Feed yourself well, but feed yourself wellness. That includes daily affirmations that whatever’s difficult you’ll get through it, whatever’s coming you’ll work around it, whatever’s happening you can handle it, whatever’s not working you can change it. AND TO all of that, and all the joys and magic moments, is a soundtrack, also taken in daily doses. Add to that. Share it with the people around YOU. Keep the music playing around you and it will keep the song in your heart.
Listening to: Kamasi Washington The Epic; Jerry Jeff Walker Viva Terlingua; Marcus Roberts As Serenity Approaches.