One friday night’s soundscape…

Friday night in the gateway to the west in pursuit of the muse.

She blinded me with science!….SCIENCE!

Among the annals of musical ideas gone horribly awry, the 80’s, overburdened with its synthesizers and bad hair spawned an exceptional number of entries. Yet, despite my general dislike for such music, the song “She blinded me with science” by Thomas Dolby has a peculiar, hilarious awesomeness I find hard to explain. Maybe it encapsulates best the weird absurdity of synthpop in all its artistic vanity…or maybe its just poetry in motion.  Sing it with me “Science! Science!” 

an unintended and unnoticed hiatus

Well, shortly after my first post life became busier than expected and hence the absence of any movement here. It has been a good, productive busy, though, and while I did not intend to commence and then neglect a blog, no one probably noticed. Anyways, I’ll probably put up a few posts in the next couple of days while in Cleveland for Thanksgiving. Cheers!

A Fickle Sonance, Part 1

Greetings. As a means of introducing this blog and myself, I’ve elected to detail some of the inspiration and ideas behind the name. Historically, “A Fickle Sonance” is the title of a Blue Note hard bop session led by the inimitable alto saxophonist Jackie McLean in the late autumn of 1961.

Born in New York City in 1932, Jackie McLean, or Jackie Mac as he was known in the jazz community, thrived in one of the most vital eras of jazz. Though at the time of his first recordings in 1951, the glamor of the swing era had faded, the 50’s and 60’s were flush with the collective genius of the bebop revolution: Bud, Monk, Dizzy, Parker, Miles, Roach, Mingus, Blakey, Morgan and a host more. It was one hell of an time to be a jazz musician or an enthusiast, and unlikely to be surpassed in its depth.

Though heavily influenced by the great Charlie Parker, whose centrality to bebops nascent forms is indisputable, Jackie Mac is easily identified within a couple of notes. While Bird’s tone has a cleanliness and a lightness that ease across the ear even has he whirls across registers, Jackie’s is taut and angular, driving home a sense of searching and striving. And like his unsettled sound, Jackie Mac did not rest artistically. Noted jazz critic Gary Giddins described a 1997 peformance of Jackie’s thusly:

Some of the very moments that kept you leaning ever closer to the bandstand were those that would sound faltering or clumsy on record: the hesitation before choosing an entrance point, the suspense as the rhythm turned this way and that, the breath-catching moments of rumination—the exhilarating, rumpled cool of making it up on the spot

Much like jazz, existence is a struggle of persistent improvisation. To varying degrees at varying times, comes the opportunity to improvise, to try to embody the “rumpled cool of making it up on the spot.” But like the musician who at times struggles to engage the muse, the exultation and joy of teetering on the edge of the present can fade. Always lurking is the possibility that acts of becoming grow staid, losing their potency, their fervor. Improvising is often a fickle game; messy, steeped in uncertainty, and lacking any inherent teleology. But it can be, and is often surprisingly beautiful. That life is a fickle sonance is a guiding ethos for this blog (and blogger).

So what exactly is this blog about? Many things, potentially. A little bit about myself will help clarify. I’m a twenty something that will soon be a medical student who studied biology, philosophy, and neuroscience in college, is a hopeless audiophile, and a bit of a jazz snob. Those interests will certainly manifest here. That said, I’ve refrained thus far from becoming too definite. I look forward to improvising as I go…

_____________________________________________

For more on Jackie McLean: New York Times, NPR

Jackie Mac and Quintet playing “Quadrangle.”