Conductor of form

The general topic here is jazz comping— some general concepts thereof, getting into what I think is missing from a lot of students' playing, even as they do the basic thing pretty well. The following are not necessarily mutually exclusive categories of playing— they're more ways to listen, ways to think about the functions of what we're playing.  

Our first job with that is just to learn some left hand activity, as running commentary on the snare drum, which we get from practicing out of Chapin or Reed, or by downloading a bunch of junk off my site. Guided by a general need to be doing something, hopefully not in a stupid way, hopefully sounding like they're listening to the soloist. 

There is also an element of groove support— backbeats, the rim click on 4, a bongo rhythm, and riffs— repeated rhythm figures, which people learn early. 

As players mature, they get better about being selective about how they make their bigger statments, thinking more in terms of punctuations, interjections, filling spaces left by the soloist. They'll differentiate their dynamics between that vs. running background texture. 

Through the development of all of this, the mindset is vaguely about “playing better”, playing cool things well, hopefully being a good ensemble player. Apart from the groove stuff, the real purpose of it isn't real clear— beyond just playing the style, or of conversation or self expression. Building intensity. We get closer to it as we get better at playing phrases, at playing off of the tune. But it all happens by vibe. 

The unstated thing is that there is a presentational or guiding function happening as well— introducing changes, conducting the form, guiding the group through dynamic changes— it's the big center of our musical job as drummers. Acting as an arranger, and stater of the arrangement. It usually only gets discussed indirectly under some other categories of things, and not in the sense of what are we actually doing here, what is this total performance about.   

Maybe you can hear Philly Joe Jones conducting us through the form here: 

This is all over the album Milestones— the arrangement is involved, and very show-like, presentational. Everybody's thinking that way. But he's pretty assertive with the snare drum as running commentary as well, that's not all purely functional re: the form.  

We could stereotype Elvin Jones as generally a texture drummer— I pulled this up with the idea of it being an example of primarily textural playing— but you can hear him doing the exact thing I'm talking about, conducting us through this blues form:  

 

Listen for it here, in Al Foster playing very busily with Joe Henderson. To me virtually everything he does here has a function within the form. There is a lot of pure texture happening, some elements of it just driving the groove. The big things you hear him doing are all about blues, the movement of that form: 

Early on, form is just a thing we're trying not to get lost in. Later it becomes the arena for you to do your thing— at which phase you're more attracted to blank forms, blowing-friendly forms, or to very friendly and distinctive ones— and hostile to the obligations of playing an arrangement. The thing we're talking about here is becoming a presenter, and the form is the thing you are pleased to present.  

When you start thinking this way, your job playing unfamiliar material becomes clearer— you'll know the problem you're trying to solve. The mundane details are not just pains in the a** interrupting your flow, they're the whole thing you're doing. 

I can see someone taking this idea and going way too far with it. People like turning suggestions into doctrine. It's one angle to consider in your playing, and to guide your listening, that I haven't seen widely stated elsewhere. 

Hey, follow me on Bluesky

SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: I have now abandoned that festering hell site formerly known as Twitter, and invite you to follow me on Bluesky, a vastly more friendly environment for good and sane people. There's a nice culture there of immediately blocking trolls, and generally not engaging with negativity. It's a welcome change.  

Find me at: @cruiseshipdrummer.bsky.social

Nice things about it include starter packs on various topics, so you can group follow a lot of people who are knowledgeable about whatever you're interested in. And there are feeds that are actually functional, under which people interested in a certain thing will congregate. And there's no algorithm— part of what has made Twitter truly toxic in recent years, monetized trolling.   

I'm sharing things from the blog, cymbal related news, and a nice mix of art, movie, and comedy related stuff, and some well selected liberal/progressive political content. See you there, and here! 

Expanding a concept - 01

This is connected with all the fill related jive we've been dealing with lately. I share it with you to illustrate a thought process, not a particular set of licks. These are some things I did live while practicing recently, without writing anything down, using the following humble page from my own book, Syncopation in 3/4: 

You look at that see a lot of dumb rhythms in 3/4 time; I see an unending fairyland of playing possibilities for the drumset. You may put that in different terms. 

I happened to be playing along with a loop sampled from Herbie Hancock's Cantaloupe Island, which is in 4/4 time, with a straight 8th note groove. I was playing 16th note rate stuff against it, so I needed to double time those rhythms— line one for example:  

Becomes: 

Played in a 4/4 environment that would be:  

For practice purposes, and concept purposes, we're interpreting that time signature as a description of the length of the rhythm pattern, not as a demand that we play in 3/4 time. 

The rhythm suggests a number of possibilities on the drum set just as a fill/solo idea— starting with RH on cymbal, with bass drum, on the 1; remainder of the rhythm played with the LH on the snare drum, with some help from the RH, as the embellishments get more involved. 

Of course we're going to move that around the drums, try some different stickings, accents and embellishments. Generally try to make music out of it. 

Some possibilities for line 2:

And line 4:  

You'll notice: 

- We often add bass drum at the end of the pattern, or between the quarter notes of the original rhythm.
- You can interpret the rhythms as a general pattern outline of fast and slow notes— you can substitute faster rhythms for the 8th notes in the original rhythm.
- You can embellish freely, double or buzz some notes, add flams, add ruffs.  

One facet of a larger topic of drumistic thinking. Drummeristic. Whatever. Drumming is a process, not just playing some notes somebody wrote down. More of this coming. This post may see a major revision when I can think about it while some guys are not reroofing my house. It sounds like Gene Krupa uncrating some wildebeest with a sledgehammer on d-day around here. 

Transcription: Mickey Roker - Essence

Here's Mickey Roker playing behind Donald Byrd on Essence, from Byrd's record Electric Byrd. It's vibey modal thing, in a slower 4/4 swing feel. It looks busy on the page, but this is mostly about groove, which is exceedingly deep. Tempo is about 88 bpm. 

I've gone a little nuts with the ghost note notation, but it's accurate— a lot of the comping activity is very soft. We can assume he's feathering the bass drum most of the time; I've only notated it where it's audible. Often with Roker that bass drum and snare drum are layered— he plays more unisons between the two drums than some of us do. 

In the comments someone mentioned an interview with Roker by Ethan Iverson, where he mentions the bass drum: 

EI:  When you are playing this fast, are you feathering the bass drum?

MR:  I almost always pat the bass drum because that’s the bottom of the drums.  I’m from the old school.  We used to play with no bass player and you had to pat the bass drum.  I am so used to that.  Sometimes I get too rambunctious with it but I don’t want to sound like Papa Joe Jones.  That’s why I like cats like Vernel Fournier. Nobody played that bass drum like that guy, you can hear it all the time. Some drummers tune their bass drum at too high a pitch and you can hear it but it gets on your nerves.  But if it is down and damp, it don’t get in the way of the bass player.

EI:  Do you think you are feathering here?

MR:  (listens to track [Three Little Words from Sonny Rollins On Impulse!]) No, I am not playing it here. Well, it’s hard to do that on something fast. You can’t do that on something that is extremely fast, unless you are playing without a bass player. (Listening to Sonny solo) Bad dude. Sonny Rollins!

His sound has a lot of bottom, with a large, muffled bass drum with a soft beater. The snare drum is tuned high and crispy. He's using a smaller, medium weight ride cymbal. Toms are medium size, with the top head tighter than the bottom... if you were wondering what that sounds like. 

Get the pdf

Reed tweak: RH lead triplets - fast within slow

This has been an item of interest for a long time— playing fast in a slow tempo. In a master class Peter Erskine mentioned that Jack Dejohnette was the only drummer he knew who could play fast on a slow tempo. He was referring to Jack's playing on John Scofield's Time On My Hands, which Erskine had produced the year before. I've mentioned it a bunch of times here.   

Here are a couple of ways of doing this as a Reed system, reading out of Syncopation, with both 16th notes and 16th triplets, within 8th note triplets. 

I've chosen to lead the filler with the left hand, favoring an inverted diddle sticking, with the diddle up front, beginning with a LRR where possible. See this page from last year for some other options. Obviously there are a lot of possibilities for stickings, and linear patterns. And it's real similar to some things on the recent 3/8 and 4/8 fills pages. And see this page as well. 

Where there are two cymbal hits in a row, you can also play them with the R then L hand. 

Get the pdf

Two measure Reed phrases - 02

Another cut-and-paste, hack-and-slash job, extracting some two measures phrases from the full page exercises in Syncopation. For when I want a particular kind of phrase, and don't want to hunt around the eight pages for it, and don't feel like writing it my damn self. These ones all end the same, with a dotted quarter note's worth of space. And they all start with a note on 1, not a rest. 

I had the right hand lead triplet system in mind for these, or any number of the straight 8th RH lead tweaks, that have something special happening in the longer spaces. 

Get the pdf

More 3/8 fills - 01

Here are some things I was playing around with while playing my page of 3/8 fills— embellishments on things on that page. Some odd stickings, or normal stickings I would play in an odd way. Stuff to fool with.  

This entire recent framework for fills has been working really well, in teaching, and in my own practicing. We practice a lot of endlessly running patterns on the snare drum, but the thing about a fill is that it has a start and it has an end— you have to get to it from the cymbal, and end it on a cymbal, usually. Kind of obvious, but including that, and doing it in a specific duration of space is working a lot better for me, and my students.  

The mission is pretty clear, drill the living bejeezus out of these things, move them around the drums. There are some other obvious sticking possibilities that I didn't include because they're obvious. Vary stickings/accents as you like. I can't control what you do. 

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Daily best music in the world: Michael Griener solo set

Here's an incredibly beautiful solo set by my friend, and friend of the site, Michael Griener. News of Roy Haynes's death broke during the set, and it feels like we're sending him off... 

At Richten 25, Berlin, 11/12/24. 

RIP Roy Haynes

The last old master drummer has died, Roy Haynes, at age 99. He was the last of the “magnificent seven” (coined by Lenny White): Kenny Clarke, Max Roach, Art Blakey, Roy Haynes, Philly Joe Jones, Elvin Jones, Tony Williams. He, Elvin and Tony especially are the real triumvirate of modern guys. He was a very slick, modern player from the beginning— he plays a lot of the same stuff on his early records that you hear later on. Maybe I can attempt to write a full blown analysis of his playing and influence soon.

I used to listen to this record in my headphones constantly when I was at USC, it's a fitting send off: 

I think the late 80s weren't a real high point for his public profile— this record put him front and center in a lot of people's consciousness:
 

I've written about him and transcribed him pretty extensively in ~13 years of writing this site, I suggest you spool through that. I also have an e-book of 5 transcriptions.

And here's a very short list of recommended listening:
 

Miles Davis - & Horns

Thelonious Monk - Misterioso

Roy Haynes - Out Of The Afternoon, We Three, Cracklin', Hip Ensemble

Oliver Nelson - Blues And The Abstract Truth

Steve Lacy - The Straight Horn
McCoy Tyner - Reaching Fourth

John Coltrane - Selflessness Featuring My Favorite Things

Gary Burton - Duster, Like Minds

Chick Corea - Now He Sings Now He Sobs, Trio Music, Trio Music Live

McCoy Tyner - Blues For Coltrane

Pat Metheny - Question & Answer

There's a comprehensive discography here— I'll be going through that and filling in some gaps in my listening. 

Fills in a 4/8 framework - 01

Continuing the concept of that last thing, Fills in a 3/8 framework. Here we've got four 8ths of space to deal with, a cymbal accent, and three 8ths of fill. I'm very pleased with how this broad system is developing— I finally have a way of practicing fills, and teaching them— to all levels of students— that is systematic and realistic to how you actually play. It was always something you just had to figure out by playing a lot. None of the books on the subject made it for me. 

This page may see some revision— my office is still blown to hell and I haven't been able to play through them. Some of the stickings are unusual, replace them with whatever more obvious thing you want. I'll probably add/change some stuff. 

You know the routine, drill the individual things relentlessly for timing, movement around the drums, dynamics, and lastly speed, then play them in the practice phrases on p. 2. All of the phrases are limited to having three 8ths of fill, and that's pretty limiting— next we'll get into some phrases that are more realistic, and varied.  

Get the pdf

Very occasional quote of the day: epic

From Hal Galper on Facebook:

“I’d heard a recording of an interview with Coleman Hawkins that stuck in my brain. He said you had to go to the city twice. The first time to learn the city,  the subways, where the jam sessions were and meet the doorman at every jazz club in town. You can then evaluate your playing relative to the scene, figure out what you had to get together and go home to prepare yourself for your next and hopefully permanent visit. It took me three times 

Boston at the time had two top level jazz clubs. George Wien’s Storyville was across the street from The Stable. The NYC bands came to town I'd interrogate them to find out what it was like to go to the city. Everybody had a different story. That's when I realized what happens to you in New York City only happens to you!

I was failing miserably in high school except for Shop as they called it. Grasping at straws, my parents got the idea to send me to a technical prep school my sophomore year in Boston’s Copley Square, coincidentally just across the street from The Stable, Boston’s local jazz club. I had my lunch breaks there, eventually taking a couple of bongo lessons from the club’s janitor just do do something jazzy. I’d bail on the classes spending the rest of day hanging around the club catching the sounds of Serge Chaloff rehearsing from my perch at the top of the ramp that led down to the basement venue. That was where and when I first met and took my first ever jazz piano lesson with Ray Santisi. He hand-wrote out a lead sheet with the melody to Moonlight In Vermont with some simple, nice sounding changes telling me to come back when I’d learned it. I didn’t tell him I couldn’t read. My 2nd lesson, Ray asked me to play the tune. I sat frozen staring at the lead sheet. He opined “forget it kid, you’ll never play.” I remember hearing the receding Doppler Effect of his shoes as he walked up the ramp and out of the club.                                                                                                      

Back in Salem again I came home, unkempt but unbowed. But It was too late, I’d caught the bug. Didn’t know if I could play. How could I? I knew nothing. I spent my senior year of high school cutting classes, jamming with my first trio in the back room of the school’s music director, Mr. Devoe. My bass player was Mary Burke from Tennessee and local drummer, John Pramis. Mr. Devoe, he got me. With an unending supply of pre-signed absentee approval slips in hand I jammed my way through my senior year ostensibly working on “the senior revue.,” which was actually true. Having the courage of my ignorance I played my first trio concert at the Review. Two originals. The first was in the key of C, the only key I knew a little bit about at the time, following with another in C minor, which I knew even knew less about. I knew nothing about form or structure. Considering the absolute silence that ensued, it was at best a head-scratching performance. 

You want this record.

I was facing a bleak and uncertain future until I learned Massachusetts had a State program offering financial support to disadvantaged students for tuition to go to college. I had lost my left eye in a childhood accident and qualified for full tuition at any institution of higher learning of my choosing. Really? Looking forward the end of the semester I expected to be called down to the Dean’s office because my attendance record was so bad.  He said, “Mr. Galper, if you do’t start doing any better you won’t  graduate.” Prepared, I gave him a mental F—K you, asserting I didn’t didn’t need no stinkin’ graduation because I was going to be a jazz musician. I left triumphant. My path was clear and didn’t attend my graduation.

A year later I was studying with Ray again at Berklee College Of Music. He’d play the piano while I sat  beside him, watching his small hands skitter over the keys in awe. If you were quick enough to stop him and ask, he'd show you what he played. I hadn’t become much of a better musician since our abortive encounter at The Stable and didn't learn a thing that semester. However, I studied with him again a year later and redeemed myself. I was much faster and copped royally!

Ray had been playing 6 nights a week at The Stable forever when he handed his seat over to me! I mean, who does that? I was playing seven nights a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays with Herb’s big band, the weekends in a Varty Haroutunian’s quintet with Herb Pomeroy and Monday nights with Sam’s quartet or Gene Distatio’s Quintet. One night he came into the club, pulled me aside to remind me of our first two lessons. I had completely forgotten the incident. He told me he’d learned an important lesson as a teacher. “Never second guess a student, they can surprise you.” Considering the context, his gesture was incredibly sweet and generous. He didn’t have to tell me that and he did so without ego. A lesson in humility learned and never forgotten.

“Never second guess a student, they can surprise you.”

Following 3 years of intense study with the great Madame Chaloff I was overly protective of my new chops. Alan Dawson was the drummer with Herb’s big band. A great drummer and a prince of a man but he was a lick-stepper, following my lines too close, duplicating the rhythms I was playing. I Hate That! Duplication is death to the music. Playing what you play isn’t dialog. All that tells me is you can hear. Don’t play my ideas, play your own ideas! Can’t have a conversation if the other person says the same thing back to you. I’d have to breakup my phrasing to get away from him. Not bad training in itself but I was staring to lose my hard won chops. The crazy part of me got out of the box and I lost my cool. Like an idiot I pressed Herb with an ultimatum, it’s either me or Alan. No one else in town could play the band’s drum charts and they had Ray Santisi. I was promptly fired having unknowingly broken protocol, instantly becoming persona non grata in Boston. Lesson learned. I have since never given an ultimatum to anyone. In any case, no matter what, it’s inevitable you’ll eventually bypass the musicians you came up with. You’ll know when it’s time to leave town when they make you leave. You’re a reminder they didn’t stick to the true path. So I left, giving what few gigs I had to Mike Nock, split with my first wife to Berlin to Paris to test the waters. I was back in Boston a few months later  month without a wife, broke with a brick of hash strapped to my chest, the proceeds of which kept me alive for six months. I figured, gee, I guess it’s time for me to go to The City. Duh! 

Stuffed my life into an old blue Navy B4 ever-expanding suitcase and took a bus out of town. Was told to get off at the Port Authority unawares there were two Port Authority bus stations. I got off at 178th St at 2 am with nineteen cents in my pocket, dragging my B4 down a deserted Broadway to West 75th St where I had a couple of friends I’d met the previous summer who’d let me sleep on their floor until I got my shit together. Tried to bum a penny to get 20 cents for the subway but everyone I asked gave me a weird look. Had I known more about NYC culture I would have asked for a dollar. As I walked downtown B4 in hand I kept thinking “welcome to New York Hal, welcome to New York.”  

Looking back, I'm more than ever convinced most of the important decisions in our lives are made below the level of consciousness, something I expect to expound upon in the future.”

Abstract art

Helen Frankenthaler

Talking about abstract painting, and attitudes towards it in general, countering some things I've heard said many times over the years, sometimes about my own work. Modern painting is easy to relate to what we do as drummers— in both disciplines we deal in simple forms, and the craft of it is not always obvious. People who don't know anything enjoy not respecting either of them. 

Some drummers are happy to be— no disrespect— pure knuckleheads and live their lives strictly in paradiddles and flam taps; I like people who have interest in art beyond that. Therefore, some things to think about approaching this other art form: 

What's similar, and different
It's easy to see an improvisational element in music and in that kind of art. They seem to be analogous to each other, both coming from a similar cultural place and time, with a similar hip modernity. For a long time, though, I could only see how they were different. For example: 

Painting is production craft, music is performance craft. Art happens in a work shop, like any other artisanal endeavor— woodworking, pottery, wine making, jewelry— producing objects to sell. Unlike those applied arts, art-art is made to be somehow enriching for being what it is, as a kind of visual literature or music, inspiring some kind of feeling of emotion or creativity in people. Or whatever someone is looking to inspire.

If paintings have an applied purpose, it's to decorate a wall in a home or business, and some of it is strictly that— commercial decoration. The difference between the two is like a quasi-poetic greeting card vs. legit poetry. The difference may be real obvious, or not. Some artists have gotten very skilled doing abstract art that looks great and is visually impactful, but doesn't say a lot. 

Of course painting is visual and static, and music is aural and changing. Either way we want sustained interest— for people to look at the picture longer, or to listen to the recording again. 

Ellsworth Kelly

Which is where some artists lose me— not enough reasons to look longer. They'll function as an attrative design element as part of a larger space, but there's not a lot to look at in the piece itself. You see Ellsworth Kelly's work in the picture here— he was a great, appealing, creative artist, his work in total is a master class on design possibilities, but there's not a lot to look at in individual works, once you get the initial design idea.  

Some have tried to make painting a performance art, but if the main thing is not the end product, then you're really just doing avant garde theater. As long as the end product is the point, it is a production, work shop craft, no matter how you stage its creation. 

Likewise, with music, whatever you do with the performance aspect of it, the thing you listen to is the sound. Take that away, you're more doing performance art, or a theatrical spectacle, with incidental music. I don't know if anyone ever bought and listened to a Gwar record, for example. 

There is a “performance” aspect in painting, in the sense of real time application of skill, with some or all of a painting are done “live”, in one sitting— alla prima, it's called. Or freehand drawing. Which is usually what we do in music, playing complete performances at once. Commercial music and art, in the interest of production, use a whole range of technical tools and techniques to minimize the need for that real time pure skill performance. More so in commercial art. 

“I could do that.”
In fact, yes, you could. If you chose to. In art or music. Many or most of my drum students can deliver credible performances in some type of music, without being full time players. Anyone can do it, and should. It doesn't make it less good, or worth less. But you have to do it. 

Getting that easy money faking a career as an artist would require renting studio space, outfitting it, stocking it with materials, and then confronting the problem of trying to make something other people want to look at, that people who look at art all the time would approve to show in their gallery, and that someone might want to spend money on to own it. You would find that it takes many hours of your time, and considerable dedication, not to mention financial investment. You would also have to be able to convey belief in your own work, which you can't do cynically— hard to get away with it, and sustain it. After you do all that, you really are just an artist.   

Art likers will counter this with, no, it really is amazing, it is really hard, and piling on the superlatives, which is really not the point. Something does not have to be hard to do— or time consuming for the artist— to be worth looking at. Elvin Jones played Up 'Gainst The Wall in three minutes and thirteen seconds. I'm sure this very large Jackson Pollock painting below was done in an afternoon. What's the difference?  

Jackson Pollock

As a technical matter, anyone could have composed John Cage's 4'33". They would have to think of it, and then present it, put it into a performance. Then the real trick is getting it published, and publicized, and getting others to perform it, and listen to it, and have it be persistent in the culture as a work of art. Even if you're convinced that the work is a pure fraud (you'd be wrong), John Cage had to organize his entire life around perpetrating it, he could only do it if he had built up some credibility as an artist. You couldn't say he wasn't committed.  

There's more below the fold....

Triumph of the worst

UPDATE: Toning this down a bit— mainly removing a very unkind assessment of the American electorate— and moving on. My current state of mind is that I'm not going to worry about all the horrible things he's going to do until he actually attempts to do them. I'm priviliged enough to not be as vulnerable as many are.

I'm still not convinced the cast of ding dongs he has assembled are competent enough to acheive the total restructuring of government into the pure kleptocracy/theocracy they envision. And they won't be unopposed. They seem congenitally unable to do anything legally, which get them a lot of attention from state attorneys general, at least. They can certainly do lasting damage and hurt and kill a lot of people.  

I'm also retiring my Twitter ("X") account— there's a big migration away from it right now. If you want to follow me on social media, I'll be on Bluesky, where the vibe is much nicer, less tension-inducing.    

‘recrudescence’ (17th century): the return of something terrible after a time of reprieve.

kak·i·sto·cra·cy

noun

1. Government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state.

2. A state or society governed by its least suitable or competent citizens.

Quite remarkably and apparently decisively, the United States of America has elected D***** T**** to be the nation's president. Running a virtually incoherent, intensely negative, divisive, openly racist and sexist campaign, that was virtually content-free in how it would improve the lives of Americans. 

What will happen is that he believes he was elected dictator for life, having been giving some form of immunity from prosecution by the Supreme Court he largely appointed. He will have fewer limiting influences, fewer sane, non-corrupt voices around him. He will have the support of a Republican party that largely believes he is destined to rule as a king, if not worships him as a virtual deity. 

...quite sanely, you do not understand what that man has ever done to deserve to be regarded that way. Neither do I. 

But he is old and losing energy. The worst excesses of his administration will be conducted by his underlings, whom he will not have the energy or interest to supervise. We'll see how effective they are at that. 

Hope: We all didn't just vanish over night. T**** and his vice president and their policies are deeply unpopular with about half the United States population. We were not stripped of our political power. There is still a legal system, both federal and local. There is a federal bureaucracy which the new administration will be seeking to dismantle and disempower— we will see how durable it is. The military has been well aware of its constitutional role, and institutionally resistant to committing crimes at the behest of the executive branch. 

There will be another election in two years. He may well try to stay in office beyond his legal term— if he lives that long— but I don't believe he will cancel elections altogether. But Republicans will increase their voter suppression efforts. He is an old man, and is deteriorating mentally and physically. It is unknown whether he could ever be so mentally disabled that the American people would not re-elect him, should he seek an unconstitional third term at age 82.  

The power of his movement is that it encourages corrupt, horrible, criminal people to believe this is their time to rule completely. In their hubris, they commit crimes, which will be resisted at some level, and for which they may eventually be prosecuted. 

The country and the planet has seen worse, darker times. Possibly worse times than these have been the normal state of affairs for most humans, and things did improve. Barbarians don't just breed more barbarians— intelligent civilized people came from them, civilization came out of barbarism. 

Young people came out decisively for Harris— they are the actual future, and they will remember this outrage. 

Doom is not an option— there are people who pose as allies, who really are abusing us emotionally with doom content. Shut them out. The situation sucks, that's all. Remember your love and do your work. 

And who knows, maybe when he is sentenced for his 37 felony convictions later in November, the judge will simply throw him in prison. 

“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

-Toni Morrison

RIP Quincy Jones

Quincy Jones passed away early this morning. I'm not equipped to write anything meaningful about him, so here are some links: notices from the Associated Press, and from Variety.

“I've never been bored or lonely in my life. I'm an orchestrator, a musician, a producer. I  love everything. I've studied languages from Farsi to French. How can you get bored?”

A short video of Jones in the studio with Herbie Hancock, 1984. And a Rolling Stone piece on the making of the “We Are The World” song and video, and another about the Netflix documentary on him. 

And famously colorful interviews in GQ, and in Vulture. From that interview— this is really how art works, our whole lives are based on this principle:

“God walks out of the room when you’re thinking about money. You could spend a million dollars on a piano part and it won’t make you a million dollars back. That’s just not how it works.”

As a kid I was most aware of his TV music. There's a lot of forgettable music on TV, even if you heard them a hundred times. A few of them etch themselves in your brain, they're so well structured. There's not one wasted note here, everything has a function, everything connects to something else and leads to something else:

And a more trivial item— from Bill Cosby's first series in 1969-71. I saw it when I was very young, and then when it was syndicated in the late 80s. Jones got screen credit for the song, and that's when he jumped out at me as someone with whom to look deeper: 

See the links for more meaningful stuff. RIP.