music

"Troubadours are more important and influential than theologians and bishops."
Brennan Manning, in Ragamuffin Gospel

There is the theology of art and theology in art.

"Labels were invented to sell the music. You had to know what to call it to sell it. So they called the blues the blues, and the jazz the jazz, and the bluegrass, gospel. But some music encompasses it all. So what do you call that? And that’s pretty much what I like to play."

Willie Nelson

This is some amazing guitar playing.

I recently downloaded an album by Katie Herzig from Noise Trade, and I'm in love with her voice. I admit, I listened to it all day. One album. Over and over and over again.

So I searched for her on YouTube so I could give you guys a treat. This song isn't on the album I bought, but it's just fun.

On The Writer's View 2 (a yahoo group for writers where we discuss craft, market, and career), Cecil Murphey asked:

"'I want to be an excellent writer,' he said.
'What qualities make a writer excellent? How do I develop as a writer?'

I'm up today at the Tapestry blog talking about why I'm a Jazz Chrstian.

From the post:

"I call myself a Jazz Christian because jazz music has structure, and this structure gives freedom and improvisation. It constantly invents. No two performances can ever be alike. It is infinitely interesting."

It's fitting that I write on this today. It's Charlie Parker's birthday.

Here's some inspiration...

It's rare to come upon an original musician these days. Perhaps it's not any rarer than before, but with the millions of songs coming out per day, it takes time to work through the dredge.

To be honest, most of it seems uninventive, as if the singers/song-writers/bands settled at mimicking their favorite bands without moving on (or taking the time?) to discover their own sound.

Perhaps I'm too critical. But the truth is, I can tell exactly who some of these musicians grew up listening to.

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us--don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

--Emily Dickinson