Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Bad Self-Portraits in Jazz

It’s a bit like shining a flashlight into an old attic: “Oh yeaaah, I forgot that was back here…”  As I wrote out rehearsal times for this week I realized it’s been almost half my life (several more than ten years, anyway) since I practiced music every day.  But after a mere two years of cultivating friends and asking around, the stars aligned and I found some people that like jazz standards.

I happened to walk into the Coffee House one night where a few people were chatting, and a guy strummed guitar off to the side.  I stopped in my tracks and cautiously interrupted to ask, “Are you playing ‘All of Me’?”  Fast forward one week to happy hours of imitating my favorite singers, going over beautiful old tunes, and throwing in some more bluesy-rockers to even out the set, and we’re on our way to something great.  I’ve listened to that Lake Street Dive song at least two hundred times, and got just the right edge of frustration to describe taking landscapes and still lives, taking night classes and making sculptures, and painting bad self-portraits.

The one downside is that I have barely been outside, and haven’t taken any pictures.  And it’s been pretty gorgeous lately; quite cold, but almost windless, and clear clear clear, with fata morgana (inverted reflection mirage) of the mountains in the distance. 


So instead of pretty photos, I’ll leave you with the mental image of a jazz-style cover of Green Day’s “Pulling Teeth.”  (“I’m all busted up, broken bones and nasty cuts, accidents will happen, but this time I can’t get up.”)

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