Confessions of a Human Nerve Ending

I don't question where the muse goes, the unbridled, quick reflex that leads me to pick out books on a bookshelf, the random internet post that leads me to an article, a list of tracks I should be listening to, so when I stumbled upon your name on a list, I thought I'd give it a go. The "Jezebel" of Jazz, you bucked trends by not singing in an evening dress, preferring skirt and band jacket to place you squarely in the band instead of in front of it. The wikipedia entry says through a botched tonsillectomy it left you without a uvula Thus you created a percussive, short note style because you couldn't hold long phrases or use vibrato. So surprised that I'm not hearing "I'm going mad for a pad," filtering out through some weird internet commercial for Apple, but, hey, maybe they're not as hep as I think I am. Jump jiving Jezebel, you join Kenton, Goodman, Krupman, Herman, you loved pot, and mov...

  For What It’s Worth … I am a Poet. My job is writing poems, reading them out loud, getting them printed, studying, learning how to become the kind of man who has something of worth to say. It’s a great job. Naturally, I’m starving to death…. --Lew Welch--             In the Spring of '97, I started seeing The Withdrawals on a regular basis.  I was single, making a decent chunk of change, and really didn't enjoy hanging out by myself.   So, like I was still in college, I went trolling for live music.   Nothing compared to the live experience of dancing, getting to know the regulars, the songs, and eventually the band.   Being a regular fan broke down the myth that separated them from me, the artist from the fan.   When my only experience of art was in a museum, a big auditorium, a published book, a radio station, the artist seemed somehow different, somehow speci...

On Being a Writer                 I’m not sure why, but at an obviously weak moment when I was 17 years old I sat down at my desk and wrote a story.   And after no editing, revising, creative writing classes, or real encouragement from any real writers or teachers, no ambition, discipline or any reasonable degree of aptitude  announced –to myself mostly –and my best friend, “I want to be a writer.”                 I wish I’d never uttered that phrase.   Some ____ years later, I’m saddled with the weight of that phrase.   I had no idea what I was getting into.   I mean, this is America.  No one really writes anymore, or at least how I imagined writing to be.   Stephen King or Mary Higgins Clark don’t write; they work:  8 hours a day, complex formulas, books out on deadlines, b...

Track 5 on Charles Mingus' Let My Children Hear Music Arranged by Charles Mingus and dictated to Bobby Jones. Conducted by Sy Johnson. ·          1,7: September 23, 1971, New York City ·          5: September 30, 1971, New York City ·          3: October 1, 1971, New York City ·          4: September 23-November 18, 1971, New York City ·          6,2: November 18, 1971, New York City With Lonnie Hillyer, Joe Wilder, Snooky Young, & Jimmy Nottingham - trumpet Julius Watkins - French horn Bobby Jones & James Moody - tenor sax Charles McCracken - cello Charles McPherson & Jerry Dodgion- alto sax Sir Roland Hanna & Jaki Byard- piano Jimmy Knepper - trombone Charles Mingus, Ron Carter, Richard Davis, & Milt Hinton - bass Dannie Richmond - drums ...