Keith Jarrett Drags Our Asses to Church
The art of playing the wrong instrument
Somewhere out there in the night is an animal with electric eyes waiting to devour you
Jazz piano isn’t for everyone
As the story goes, Miles Davis once stopped a mid-twenties Keith Jarrett in a jazz club to tell him he was playing the wrong instrument. Jarrett responded by saying he was relieved someone else understood that. The two men went on to play together in stints, with both Davis’s touring band and his early ’70s sextet.
Jarrett played piano when the two met, and he still plays piano now. Davis paired him on the keys with Chick Corea, giving his live tour at the time the kind of bebop backcourt that puts jerseys in rafters. So, as is often the case when it comes to genius, the comment about the instrument wasn’t a comment about the instrument. It was dharma. A legendary moment of game recognizing game.
Jarrett’s career wouldn’t calm down for five decades, and neither would the Lao Tzu-esque anecdotes. One of his personal mantras became, “Don't follow in the footsteps of the wise, seek what they have …
Critic's Corner
Aghori Mhori Mei — Smashing Pumpkins
There seems to be a crazy divide occurring within The Smashing Pumpkins fan base. The band is probably one of the most important alt-rock bands of all time. Their 1993 masterpiece Siamese Dream is probably one of the best albums of all time, and has majorly helped to shape music of all genres since. What was so special about that album is that it was completely new and different and weird. Almost as much of a novelty for its time as The Beatles.
The new idea on that album, as my father notably pointed out to me when I heard it for the first time on a long car drive, is the opposing yin-yang forces of James Iha’s heavy, sludge-metal guitar and Billy Corgan’s weirdly high-pitched alien voice. It feels authentically grungy, and uniquely them. It doesn’t sound like Nirvana or Alice In Chains or any other ’90s grunge …
The Longest Yard Sale
Hundreds of Miles of Crap you don’t need, or maybe you do
Welcome to the Invisible America
Burt Reynolds is welcome here
Last year, at a birthday party in the Shenandoah Valley, a friend told me about a yard sale that lasts four days and spans six states and almost 700 miles along the US Route 127 corridor. “The World’s Longest Yard Sale,” it’s called. She and her boyfriend had set out from Michigan and taken on the northern leg the year before. Already, they were working on plans to finish the job. “Tell the story, tell the story,” she prodded, swatting him with the back of her hand. “Oh yeah… okay,” he yielded. “Last year, I bought a stiletto. And the guy told me beforehand, he said, ‘You know these are illegal in a lot of places, right?’ ‘Right,’ I told him. ‘Yeah… I know.’ He didn’t miss a beat. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘that’ll be twenty bucks!’”
Yes, I thought, America the Invisible. And I resolved in my heart to go looking for it.
Now in its 38th year, the “127 Yard Sale” is the brainchild of former …
