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Showing posts from May, 2017

Miles Davis and John Coltrane

As a relatively new convert to jazz, I knew very little about Miles Davis and even less about John Coltrane, but enough to know they were legendary in their craft. I had the chance to watch two films last night that illuminated parts of their lives and careers. The first was Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary . It was fascinating to hear about his warm, loving nature from his step and biological children, and I learned that his musicality advanced as his career progressed. I also had no idea that he played with Miles Davis. The second was Miles Ahead , which has been described by others as an impressionistic take on the comeback years. It is a pretty apt description since the film was not meant to be an accurate portrayal of actual events. Instead, it was a fun romp with gunfire, car chases, and intense portrayals of relationships beginning and ending courtesy of Don Cheadle, who is always entertaining. After both films, I found myself more intrigued by their music...

And so it begins...

It seems like it has been years since I've written anything personal for the public arena aside from the occasional tweet and less frequent Facebook post. It wasn't that I had nothing to say, but rather that it was a hassle to use my old journal since the platform had gone to seed and my schedule made it inconvenient. I had also routed my thoughts into multiple offshoots so the options were either to regularly update the separate blogs, which had become a chore, or else have them lie fallow. I gave up when life got busy. For years. Tweeting helped, but it felt like all my thoughts had to be truncated into ugly 140 character morsels that left a lot unsaid. I even adapted to skipping the second space after a period - the horror! Twitter was fun, but its non sequitur nature only satisfied me at a surface level. Writing used to be a form of therapy for me and I want to start again - not only about my thoughts and experiences, but also creatively. I'm convinced I used...