I love this! Writing down "you've got to dig it to dig it, you dig?" in my notes. Love Monk, love jazz although I am extremely far from being any kind of expert. But I'm often shocked when people say they don't like jazz and then reveal a very narrow breadth of familiarity. I always suggest that they give Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme' and Miles Davis's 'Kind of Blue' a listen if they'd like to give the genre another chance since they are both magical albums for me.
And thanks for the timely reminder about the privilege of voting. I was brought up to see it as one of my most important duties, but it's all too easy to get cynical and complacent.
Most people who say they don't like Jazz often have some idea in their head what it's about without listening to it. I think they believe it's too complicated or sophisticated, but it's got huge range and it's the bedrock of much of modern music. And such talent! How could you live without Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Dave Brubeck, John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong... and I can't keep just typing names! 😄
Voting ... I'm a fan. It's easy to take for granted but when it's gone you'll miss it most. A statistic that stuck with me when I was writing this piece (Regarding UK/Ireland voting):
'In 1831, only 4,500 men could vote in parliamentary elections, out of a population of more than 2.6 million people.'
This is less than 200 years ago. We are still relatively new to this!
Yeah, I often find that for some reason a lot of people seem to equate jazz with kind of the worst insipid elevator-music-sounding noodling? And I hate to be that person who's all "but NO! have you tried THIS! or THIS! or THIS!" because I hate being on the receiving end of it from someone who can't seem to accept that I just don't like THING, but at the same time, as you say, it's such an incredibly rich and varied musical genre that it's hard to imagine that someone who says they dislike it are aware of its scope.
I voted recently in a hyper-local election recently and it was really sad to see, looking at the numbers afterwards, what a small percentage of county residents voted in it (and it's very easy to vote here now, with like two full weeks of "early voting" available prior to the actual election day). Not voting feels like a canary in the coal mine of community and civic disengagement. :(
I get what you mean being 'that' person. For instance, the first time I tried a glass of Pinot Noir (on my own, trying a new thing, in Seattle in the late 90s) I really didn't like it, so I took against the varietal.
A year or so later when I related this story to person who was happily a food snob, he told me I must have had a bad one, and I had to try another. He might have talked about expanding my palette. 🙄 His attitude was so off putting ... but of course he was right! Later on I tried it again and loved it.
Yes, this is a very bourgeois story, but it taught me to be encouraging and helpful, not eye-rolling and condescending.
Yes, and also to accept there does come a point where a person has given a thing sufficient tries and it's just not for them! (I've been on both sides of this one!)
I love this post, as usual 💕 I totally dig it. My mom brought me up believing women should always vote especially because we fought so hard for it, not only here in America, but around the world. Your essay brought me to thinking about that and the good things she made me think about-- I thank you for that. 🙌♥️ have a great rest of your week!
I love this! Writing down "you've got to dig it to dig it, you dig?" in my notes. Love Monk, love jazz although I am extremely far from being any kind of expert. But I'm often shocked when people say they don't like jazz and then reveal a very narrow breadth of familiarity. I always suggest that they give Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme' and Miles Davis's 'Kind of Blue' a listen if they'd like to give the genre another chance since they are both magical albums for me.
And thanks for the timely reminder about the privilege of voting. I was brought up to see it as one of my most important duties, but it's all too easy to get cynical and complacent.
Most people who say they don't like Jazz often have some idea in their head what it's about without listening to it. I think they believe it's too complicated or sophisticated, but it's got huge range and it's the bedrock of much of modern music. And such talent! How could you live without Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Dave Brubeck, John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong... and I can't keep just typing names! 😄
Voting ... I'm a fan. It's easy to take for granted but when it's gone you'll miss it most. A statistic that stuck with me when I was writing this piece (Regarding UK/Ireland voting):
'In 1831, only 4,500 men could vote in parliamentary elections, out of a population of more than 2.6 million people.'
This is less than 200 years ago. We are still relatively new to this!
Yeah, I often find that for some reason a lot of people seem to equate jazz with kind of the worst insipid elevator-music-sounding noodling? And I hate to be that person who's all "but NO! have you tried THIS! or THIS! or THIS!" because I hate being on the receiving end of it from someone who can't seem to accept that I just don't like THING, but at the same time, as you say, it's such an incredibly rich and varied musical genre that it's hard to imagine that someone who says they dislike it are aware of its scope.
I voted recently in a hyper-local election recently and it was really sad to see, looking at the numbers afterwards, what a small percentage of county residents voted in it (and it's very easy to vote here now, with like two full weeks of "early voting" available prior to the actual election day). Not voting feels like a canary in the coal mine of community and civic disengagement. :(
I get what you mean being 'that' person. For instance, the first time I tried a glass of Pinot Noir (on my own, trying a new thing, in Seattle in the late 90s) I really didn't like it, so I took against the varietal.
A year or so later when I related this story to person who was happily a food snob, he told me I must have had a bad one, and I had to try another. He might have talked about expanding my palette. 🙄 His attitude was so off putting ... but of course he was right! Later on I tried it again and loved it.
Yes, this is a very bourgeois story, but it taught me to be encouraging and helpful, not eye-rolling and condescending.
Yes, and also to accept there does come a point where a person has given a thing sufficient tries and it's just not for them! (I've been on both sides of this one!)
I love this post, as usual 💕 I totally dig it. My mom brought me up believing women should always vote especially because we fought so hard for it, not only here in America, but around the world. Your essay brought me to thinking about that and the good things she made me think about-- I thank you for that. 🙌♥️ have a great rest of your week!
Thank you, Laura. ❤️ Wishing you a great week too!
Monk was one of a kind...
A true original!