There are points in the career of an artist, whatever his or her art, where the collision of beautiful forces – the fluency of artistic technique, the fullness of life experience, the vibrancy of physical form, and the collaboration with artistic equals – like the splitting of atoms, crash together to release pure and nearly-perfect light.
It is the brilliance of beginnings. No: it is the brilliance of what follows just after, when the uncertainty of a beginning falls away, and there is a comfortable happiness and ease in creating something together. As an audience for that art, you hope that as your favorite performers mature their skill increases, their stamina holds out, and beauty continues to flow from their hands or mouths or minds: like Joni Mitchell or Paul Simon; like the best works of Woody Allen; like Bob Dylan or Georgia O’Keefe, like the dancers and composers and writers and painters that have decorated your generation.
When in college near Chicago, I found a great music store around the corner and down the road from campus. They specialized in “cut-outs”, promotional LPs which had found their way from recording labels through local radio stations and out the other side, to be resold half-price or less to disadvantaged students like myself. In those constantly-refueled stacks I found some of the best albums and tracks of the best current and future stars of the music scene. Santana’s Caravanserai comes to mind, with it’s boundless track #5, Song of the Wind; and Pat Metheny Group’s inaugural, crowning album; Billy Cobham’s Crosswinds; Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks (or was it Infidels?), and David Grisman Quintet’s self-named first release, with its inspired bluegrass fusion, powered by Daryl Anger’s violin and Tony Rice’s seamless guitar runs, backed up by Bill Amatneek on bass and Todd Phillips on second mandolin:
Please visit the original image, “Mandolin Player” by Balasz Pataki @ deviantart.com
On the surface: great performers leaning into one another for inspiration, and jamming a track to disc. Great riffs on a central theme (The House that Dawg Built), and beautiful, energetic passing of the baton from one soloist to another. And beneath the surface, where currents sweep left and right, up and down: a cadence that stays faithful to a single time signature, while stretching here, prolonging there, so that the music skips along. Phrasing that lasts longer than a breath, so it draws you out of your complacency, makes you listen longer and better than you normally might (1:13 through 1:16, and a graceful suspension), and variations on the theme that don’t shout but murmur. Unaccidental accidentals run major up the frets, then minor slide back down, leaning into dark, then winking back into light (Rice’s guitar, 2:45 and on). What’s that great single slide note to end Rice’s solo, around 3:46? Who taught him that? Or suggested it?
I’ve seen enough players in my life, and I play myself – not like this! – so when I listen, I can close my eyes and let the musicians come to life as well. There are fingers dancing on those strings. The eyes are probably closed. The head is probably rocking back and forth in the waves of sound, a meditation: that’s when you are music (instead of making it), and being a musician (instead of faking it).
What I like most about this particular album is the depth of musical knowledge displayed in it. There are roots in genre here, yes; but which one? You look at the cover and it shouts bluegrass. But here the lyric line dissolves into jazz, there it rests back into traditional tones and play (for a moment, another wink, yes we know it is a mandolin, but it thinks it’s a piano), and a broad adventure through all of it, let come what comes.
Beginnings are all creative flourish, invincible spirit, immortality. We know that they, like we, will come to dust, and the bravest music we write is for the present, refusing to acknowledge that the earth turns, or the sun goes down.
And then, there’s this echo from just over the horizon. Someone’s lit a candle and carried it out into the night, and stands there shining vigil, until the first hint of a warming, morning light.
That’s good music.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012