Jazz is still just spontaneous improvisation for me,
but I'm seeing enough here to start adding my two scents,
and those are the musical smells of being left and having to be right-handed, sometimes.
I stopped signing up and having to log in with Google, and all other options,
just wanting to access You Tube.
It was worth it, losing my last computer to get a new one, and deactivating Facebook,
to get away from all the notices and unwanted replies, also from domains I never signed up for.
When Joni Mitchell went jazzy with Charlie Mingus and did "Pork Pie Hat",
considering I was down on Jeff Becks version already, it wasn't jazz any more.
I like the traditional, not dark, but warm and clean, jazz tone, why I have a large P.A.F. Humbucker by the neck,
of my Strat-style guitars. I'm thinking Gibson L5 like Mr. George Benson was playing,
when he was winning Downbeat Jazz magazine readers polls as best jazz guitarist, five years in a row.
We'd be talking more about him as a jazz giant, if he didn't stand up and start singing.
Charlie Christian was sitting beside a record player, with the arm taped to his guitar,
the diamond needle sticking in, to get his amplified sound, something I've never seen or done.
I bought "Are You Experienced", "In A Silent Way" and "Bitches Brew" at the same time,
probably my most influential record buying spree of all time.
As for JHC and teddy, yes, acoustic players have not just the traditional, or classical, approach,
you have a totally different appreciation of sound and what you do to get it.
It's easy for rock players, with loud amps and effects, to assimilate jazz tunes,
sounding more, sounding louder, even if the subtleties, even if some notes, are missing.
That's one of the first things I thought, playing the first section of "Sonata in C#m",
through my new Strat and Marshall, with some Dallas Arbiter distortion, phasing and echo.
I sound louder than an entire symphony. I also cracked my bedroom window.
And yes, I've had to carry that horrible musical responsibility with me throughout my entire career.
Now, close to the end, it's only more than gratifying,
to know I'm dying the same paupers death as Amadeus Wolfgang Mozart.
Stanley Jordan? Was he a bassist, hitting it big with "Return to Forever" with Chick Corea,
using an Alembic, before he got a six string, piccolo bass? Is he actually playing electric guitar now?
I just heard "The Night They Tore Old Dixie Down", this morning, beaming down from an American satellite.
They're still shouting "na, na-na na-na, na-na-na-na-na, na na-na-na-na," as those Canadian boys did,
only now, it's at a northern president.
I still like sha-na-nas and doot-doot-dos better.