NOTE: This is a preamble of sorts to another observation about connections I hope to finish up today.
Musicians jamming on a song get into a groove. They are altogether connecting in a series of reactions. Smiles, eye contact: They play off the sounds of the instruments — off each other.
The mix is elevated beyond the contribution of any single player.
They’re connected.
Listen to Dexter Gordon or Walter Wanderley.
When the moment is gone, a song, that was once live music is a memory. It lives on in the brain– a brain that neuroscientists say may be able to store as much as 300 million hours of TV shows were it a video device.
The music connects the musicians who try to connect the audience.
In basketball and other sports, players and the team can get in ‘the zone.’ Every shot goes in, every pass finds its mark.
It’s like jazz.
Elevated improvisation within a structure. Its kind of what I’m doing here. And, it would be appropriate at this time to ask the question: What’s the point? The point these connections, these relationships shouldn’t be taken lightly. The brain is a buzzing slab of electro-excitability that needs its connections, its synapses and neurons to be firing.
I have Lewy body dementia where the connections get snowed in; the neurons get caught in a sticky pile of excess proteins. I get that I have a lot of storage capacity but every day a little is being chipped away. Lewy body dementia robs people the ability to make those connections.
Please join us July 20 for a fund raiser basketball tournament to raise money to fight this horrible disease. I didn’t ask to be the poster boy in this, but I am so happy to be involved. We have raised a total of $25,000 in two years and are looking to do much more.
If basketball isn’t your thing, we have an after party at TrimTab brewery open and free to all. We’ll have Karaoke, purple T-shirts for sale and I hear there may be some dunking going on.
Let’s connect. Go to: www.mikemadness.org
My NP this week are four Paul McCartney albums – 3 good, 1 bad.
For music reviews this week click on www.myvinylcountdown.com
Relationships can be tricky. A misperceived comment; fumbled attempts to help. We listen but aren’t really listening. We make assumptions that aren’t true and build with those assumptions our own wrong-headed case for action – the wrong action.
From the archives today, we have something I wrote about 18 months ago. I believe I meant it as a warning that like a gentle rose, relationships need nurturing to keep the connections alive.
What is more fragile than a relationship?
A day too old rose waiting for one touch to send petals spinning to the ground.
The stability of a family facing a future with too many ifs.
The conviction that doing right is always right. Or always doing right is right.
The profundity of a well educated person.
The joy of sleeping when really really worn out.
The reality you see right now.
The love you can’t define but know it’s true.
The knowledge that the straight trail is better than the switchback.
The theory that a theory is not truth.
The laugh between old friends you may not see again.
The idea that your decisions don’t affect the world.
The notion that there are things that are impossible.
Caring, love as I rearrange everything
What is rare as a loving relationship?
DId you find that yellow bird?
Reach Mike Oliver at moliver@al.com and read his blog at myvinylcountdown.com