February 12, 2004.

Today was crazier than the cat\’s meow crawling up my back, something I got to experience today, on top of an amazing number of other things which will be discussed tomorrow. Friday, the 13th. My lucky day (no sarcasm, it really is). Tomorrow I am shutting in. No doctor\’s appointments, no errands, no hospital visits, no trips to the office, nothing but time to myself to rest, write, and rock the fuck out.

To sum up today I would like to offer the following:

God has wrought many things out of oppression. He has endowed his creatures with the capacity to create – and from this capacity has flowed the sweet songs of sorrow and joy that have allowed man to cope with his environment and many different situations.

Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life\’s difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph.

This is triumphant music.

Modern jazz has continued in this tradition, singing the songs of a more complicated urban existence. When life itself offers no order and meaning, the musician creates an order and meaning from the sounds of the earth which flow through his instrument.

It is no wonder that so much of the search for identity among American Negroes was championed by Jazz musicians.

Long before the modern essayists and scholars wrote of \”racial identity\” as a problem for a multiracial world, musicians were returning to their roots to affirm that which was stirring within their souls.

Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from this music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down.

And now, Jazz is exported to the world. For in the particular struggle of the Negro in America there is something akin to the universal struggle of modern man. Everybody has the Blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith.

In music, especially this broad category called Jazz, there is a stepping stone towards all of these.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Opening Address to the 1964 Berlin Jazz Festival

I wrapped up my day today at the office at one thirty in the morning, listening to WPFW, the most important radio station in this area, play a full forty five minutes of Billie Holliday, which was occasionally interrupted by Big Tim\’s pleas for station donations. It\’s that time of year. Earlier tonight I helped check my grandmother into a nursing home. My grandmother met my grandfather as a dance instructor in the jazz and big band days. Between my grandparents and my father, who is a jazz musician as well as fan, I\’ve been indoctrinated since pre-twinkle in my grandparents\’ eyes. So I did the only logical thing, which isn\’t logical at all, and got on my cell phone and pledged $35 with my credit card to keep the station alive.

I challenge you, all you motherfuckers with regular incomea and huge lines of credit in your names. All you motherfuckers who love the music. Who know the music. Who are the music. All you little monkeys, either stay up in your trees, or make a fucking pledge in the name of free jazz, free music, the spirit, and keeping it alive. $35. So you buy two DVDs less this month. Suck it up. What\’s more important, really? The soul of the independent, local, non-commercial, radical news-driven, community rallying, uniting force, melodic and playful, screeching and painful, soulful and tearful, our history, our present, our future, our stories, our lives… or another Adam Sandler flick? You decide. I hope this is your decision. Tell them that damn gimp girl sent you. Threatened you, even.

Tomorrow night. My love with the Richmond lads of Tackle Squad. Be there or be a music hater.