Fruits.

The fruits of summer are upon us.

The last week or so of improvs... kind of into it.

Here we go, Day 329: https://ia601408.us.archive.org/10/items/Improv7812/20120708133706.mp3

Puddles.

Sometimes I can't believe how charmed my life is.  And I don't mean to brag.  I'm just amazed at all of the blessings that have dropped from the sky like rain, and made little puddles of happiness and luck all around me.

Here we go, Day 328: https://ia600806.us.archive.org/8/items/Improv7712/20120707172324.mp3

Upstate.

I can't help but look at properties upstate after spending an exquisite few days there, with the best of friends, cooking dinners for one another, the company of a sweet pooch, and a pool in which to laze about on sunny afternoons.  Late night card games; coffee in the morning, sitting in wooden rocking chairs on the open-air porch; lightning bugs illuminating their presence in the midnight fog.  Farmer's market bliss, earning the delicate taste of once-a-year squash blossoms, and wild, black raspberries.

Here we go, Day 327: https://ia800308.us.archive.org/33/items/Improv7512_197/20120706181358.mp3

Good in bad.

The country helps me remember all those sounds of nature that go missing in the concrete jungle of New York City.  Those sounds that make me remember that my environment is living, and impacts me profoundly.  It's often not until you juxtapose your "city self" against your "non-city self" that you realize how difficult it is to stay focused on one task in NYC.  At least that's how I feel.  There's a constant whirring in the body... even when you're at rest, you're buzzing. 

Anyway, the shimmering rustle of the leaves was a welcome appetizer for the July 4th holiday.

Now, back in the city, I'm buckling down for a week of hard work before three weeks of even harder work.

The piano in the country house was severely out of tune, you will hear on days 325 and 326.  But I expected it, and tried to use it to my advantage.  I think it turned out pretty well.  Certainly some of the effects of Day 325 would not have worked on a better instrument.

Here we go, Day 324: https://ia600705.us.archive.org/30/items/Improv7312/20120703095931.mp3
and Day 325: https://ia800300.us.archive.org/28/items/Improv7412/20120704135345.mp3
and Day 326: https://ia601407.us.archive.org/9/items/Improv7512/20120705114115.mp3

Country.

And off to summerific paradise!  Packing is done, and the Fourth of July in the country awaits!  (Standby for posts... I've not yet decided if I'll be bringing my computer along.)

Here we go, Day 323: https://ia600501.us.archive.org/27/items/Improv7212/20120702204245.mp3

Ambient sound.

I was speaking yesterday with someone who works a bit with sound engineering, mixing, and so forth.  It made me think about the elements of recordings that I notice and don't.  And how important it has become to have a "clean" record.  I get it... it's like a neatly typed up paper or story.  You don't want to send something to the presses that has smudges or errors.

But...

... in listening to Art Tatum on my 1931 Victrola a few nights ago, my friends and I concluded that the sound from that gramophone was the sound of 1931.  What we heard was essentially untouched from that moment of Tatum sitting at his instrument.  The recording directly cut to the disc.  Any "mistakes" were preserved there, and yet, we don't listen to them... maybe we don't even hear them.  We hear masterwork.

Some of my favorite recordings are live, from inside a tavern, or on someone's front porch.  You hear the ambient sounds of glasses clinking, old men chuckling (you can see their large bellies bouncing up and down), maybe an "olé, olé" every now and then accompanied with a small crowd's palmas.  It's only with these recordings that you can really slip into the moment of that artist at that time.  The sounds are all descriptions of the environment, and you need nothing more to conjure the atmosphere.

You may have noticed, if you've listened to even only one of these improvs, that I don't attempt to mask the ambient noise.  First of all, there's no way that I possibly could.  Sometimes I turn off the ceiling fan so that it doesn't flick the sound of the music too much.  But other than that, in the summer you hear all the street noise, all the twang from a piano in too much humidity, my little cat whining, and the thin book of music I throw at her to get her to stop.  In the winter, you hear the pipes rattling, and a little more clarity from having the windows closed, plus the dryness in the air, which helps my particular piano settle into tune.

But secondly, I think it draws you into my space.  You're in my apartment.  You're hearing exactly what I hear, and you're hearing the moment.  Every one of the improvs has a slightly different sound quality, and you can feel what the day was by the elements of the backdrop.  In fact, listening to an improv from last August (I think it may have been Day 2,) brings me to the exact feeling I had as I recorded it, because of the density of the humid air that passed by outside, which in turn caused the sound waves to slow down slightly.  I know it's a little strange, but I think I might like all of these recordings more because of this.

Anyway, on to today's pre-park improv.

Here we go, Day 322: https://ia801407.us.archive.org/14/items/Improv7112/20120701184137.mp3

Gallery.

Something important that dawned on me tonight.  It's imperative that you believe that people enjoy your music.  Take that away, and every note becomes tentative and unsure.  Even if it's not.  Of course, being swollen with talent helps a lot, as in the case of Jason Moran, whom I saw perform tonight.  Pretty inspiring to see people play that don't revert to gimmicks and devices to make their music work.  These guys, Ralph Alessi, Moran, Drew Gress and Nasheet Waits played beautiful music.  Long lines, stillness at times, thoughtfulness, conversation... and not until the music really required it by virtue of nature did they explode into wild fortissimos.  Again, the kind of night that makes me remember why I live in this place.

Here we go, Day 321: https://ia600800.us.archive.org/31/items/Improv63012/20120630164357.mp3