Magic Cities

Awhile ago, I was sitting in Allen Gardens when a friend appeared. We hadn't seen one another for some time, so she stopped to visit with me, and we had a good, meandering talk in the cool of a Fall afternoon. My friend is one of those people whom I felt a pleasant connection to almost immediately upon meeting. There's a sure sense not only of enjoying her company, but knowing too that she enjoys mine. So meeting is always a pleasure. I feel that she carries a spark of magic.

Our connection has never gone beyond our casual meetings, but I feel that it easily could. So much so that, if she and I weren't both married, I would absolutely want to explore our possibilities. And perhaps that explains why we've allowed our meetings to remain random and unpredictable.

So here we were, on a perfect day, in a beautiful setting, relaxed and with no sense of expectation. And we chose to speak of cities. Which was the perfect complement to all the other elements. Because, just like special days, special places and special people, there are cities that possess qualities that are in no way exceptional, that may not stand out on their own, but that when combined is a particular way - including the ingredient of he or she who gets to behold it - becomes something magical.

We both came to Toronto about twenty-five years or so ago, she from a small community in Quebec, close to Montreal, and me from Seattle. Neither of us was very impressed with Toronto upon arrival, but we each discovered - after two or three years - that it is special in a number of ways. But we also agreed that, though Toronto has become, and we suspect will remain, Home, it is not a city that we would ever designate as magical. And we agreed that Montreal, on the other hand, is a magical city. This didn't mean for either of us that we'd rather be in Montreal than here in Toronto. Nor did it mean that we were sentenced to carry a regret for the rest of time, that we'd accepted living out our existence in a place as un-magical as Toronto. It was simply the recognition of a special and rare quality that sets some places apart from others.

Cities that I've felt this magical quality about, and that I've been blessed to live in, include New York and San Francisco. Others that I'm sure have this quality, and that I'd love to spend more time in, to confirm, are Paris, New Orleans, Prague, Krakow and Old San Juan.

And just as is the case with Toronto, there are cities I have personal history and strong connections with, that I've come to love, but to which I wouldn't attribute this same sort of magic. These include Boston, Seattle, Chicago and Berlin.

I wonder what other people think and feel about this: about the presence or absence of something very special in certain people and places; something not easily defined or quantified, but that is somewhat above and beyond the ordinary, the natural; something that speaks to spirit.

I'd love to learn what other people consider to be magical cities. I haven't travelled nearly as much of the World as I'd like, and it would be great to add some other special places to my list. I hope you'll be willing to share!

Ten ECM Albums that will Take You Places

Manfred Eicher's ECM label out of Germany has forever been a source of a fresh listening experiences for me. I did most of my exploration of new music during the seventies and eighties, and I still go to those decades for music that's new to me, however known or obscure its standing in the World. The label has a long list of regulars who return again and again at different stages of their careers, often collaborating with one another and incorporating new influences.

I have about sixty ECM albums, mostly from among their first two hundred issues. Collectively, they make up a good chunk of the progressive, non-commercial, freer part of my vinyl collection. These ten albums are my favorites from among them.

It's fitting that the first album I'll rave about it one I just came across about three weeks ago, in Dr. Disc, a great shop here in downtown Hamilton, where I picked up about twenty used albums. Six of them are ECM and the chance to take up that many discs by mostly unknown artists was easy to take up, because the product from that label is always good, and almost always something unique.

Barre Phillips: Journal Violone II

Incredibly beautiful tapestries of string bass, sax and voice. I have another of Phillips' efforts with the label and I like it, but this one is in a different league. 

One of the most wonderful things about all of the arts is how they remind us of the infinity of possibilities, and that creativity is inexhaustible, despite the too ubiquitous human habit of clinging to what we think we already know. Improvisational and experiential music can always brings us to something beyond what we know. And there's a quality it can have - but doesn't always - of feeling new even when recorded and listened to hundreds of times. That's because it carries us to places we aren't accustomed to being, into spaces and angles that we aren't used to inhabiting.

This album evokes all those qualities. It is an instant favorite and I'm looking forward to growing into it.

ECM, as a label, is supreme in inviting its guest artists to explore new combinations of sounds. Very often, the work an artist records for ECM is totally different than what they've recorded elsewhere, or even their other work on the label. I've assumed - though I haven't done the research to confirm - that Manfred Eicher was a producer who invited artists to do what they hadn't previously had the opportunity or the space to do. It usually feels like the musicians have plunged into some dimension just beyond where they've become settled, so that what they produce surprises even them.

Maybe that's only a reflection of how this music feels to me.

Keith Jarrett: Facing You

This may be the first ECM album that ever came into my possession. That would've been in '75, when I was twenty-one and living in Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There was a used record store called Deja Vu - the first in my experience, and a place I explored whenever I had a few bucks extra from whatever I was gigging. In those days I spent money on rent, books, food, ounces of herb and records. And life was pretty simple. I listened to Eric Jackson's late night radio show, and he was always hipping me to artists that opened my ears in different ways, that brought something alive inside of me that felt like possibility, like newness, like the untried. And I also picked up new tastes from friends, swapping visits and thumbing through each other's small but always growing collections of lps.

One place this album takes me is to church, and into the ecstatic joy that church sometimes inspires. And it doesn't just take you in the front door, bound up in suit and tie and good manners. This is like stepping into the side door of a Baptist church, where the brothers shout and the sisters catch the spirit and roll in the aisles. And in the kitchen, some of the church ladies are preparing suppers for sale: greens and fried chicken and cornbread. Jarrett takes his solo piano on journeys to wherever his mood and spirit and thundering or tickling fingers take him.

The Koln Concert is of course Jarrett's and ECM's most revered classic and all-time best seller. But this studio album was Jarrett's first solo album, and it's may favorite because of "In Front", the tune I've been referencing.

Keith Jarrett: The Survivor's Suite

I intend to mostly stay away from multiple works by one artist. But Jarrett need this representative of his other most loved performance idiom, that being the small combo. And - respect to the Peacock/DeJohnette tandem, and to the Garbarek/Danielsson/ Christensen quartet - my favorite is his "American" quartet, with Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian. This is characteristic of their terraforming magic.

Julian Priester: Polarization

I wish there was more of this out there in the World. Julian Priester was onto something with this and his earlier atmospheric beauty. Ephemeral, pulsing, moody. It's long been a late night favorite of mine.

Bennie Maupin: The Jewel in the Lotus

This is undoubtedly one of my three bests on this list. It too is moody, but also sweet, caressing, evocative. This is a prime example of an artist's work diverging from the rest of his discography, which features Head Hunters funk. If I was a smoother guy, this would've been my 'make out' album.

Dave Holland: Conference of the Birds

Here, we're more into the hard bop side of ECM, with Holland mixing it up with Braxton, Rivers and Altschul. This is a great batch of quirky melodies that actually do evoke a social clustering of twittering, squawking, keening birds. Bright and bouncing.

John Abercrombie, Dave Holland & Jack DeJohnette: Gateway

A driving, grooving Set featuring the virtuosity of three masters. If you like it, they reassembled every couple of years until they'd recorded four.

Jack DeJohnette: New Directions

Another of my top three! This impressionistic stew finds DeJohnette with Abercrombie again, and joined by Lester Bowie and Eddie Gomez. They all play their instruments loose and rolling, slippery and smoky, with the leader dancing around and beneath them. Bayou Fever for REAL!

Pat Metheny: 80/81

At the time this came out, I had Metheny pegged as a proponent of music that wouldn't offend the ears of the tourists who want to listen to jazz as a backdrop to their cocktails. This album showed me how transcendentally beautiful his music could be, and that Metheny subordinated his chops to the service of his land and spirit-scapes. "Everyday I Thank You" is truly prayerful.

Chick Corea: Return to Forever

For me, this is the top of the mountain, a musical voyage that delivered the World to my ears. It's earthy, impassioned, playful and soulful all at once. And it jams! The musicianship of Joe Farrell, Stanley Clarke, Flora Purim and Airto Moreira is epic!

Feed your Hungry Ears!

Trickster Trip

We’re in Niagara-on-the-Lake, and it’s been a helluva time getting here.

We left Hamilton on the 15^th on our sailboat Trickster, expecting to arrive that night.

But we’ve endured high winds, a loose shroud and torn sails, and sputtering and stalling engine. We’ve run aground and got our jib line tangled in our propeller. We’ve been rescued by the Coast Guard and chased out of Smuggler’s Cove. And we spent a night bouncing around off an anchored buoy in the mouth of the Niagara river, and spent a night dodging visions of coming loose and wakening as we hurtled over the Falls. (It was pointed out to me that this fate was impossible, as Niagara-on-the-Lake is down river of the Falls. Embarrassing.)

And now we have to turn around and try to make it home without drowning!

And it’s been a WONDERFUL trip!

My Bardzo often teases me about being boring, and with good reason. These days I’m generally happy with my books and lps, Netflix and NPR, and the odd bike ride and takeout from Popeye’s.

She, on the other hand, can be accused of being the antidote to boredom! Meaning, interesting things always happen when I hang out with My Bardzo. And it’s been just that kind of trip. So full of the unexpected. One of those reminders of the incredible richness of the world and of simply being alive and in it.

We’ve spent the nights in beautiful spots, have had wonderful meals on the boat, laugh about Mawa, our cat, waking us every night with her squawking and squalling, have met a handful of really nice, helpful boaters, have enjoyed having electricity, thanks to our newly added solar panel, and even the motor, as tempermental as it’s been, has always come through strong when needed. And the job of diving under the boat, to cut and clear the tangled line was both easy and provided a huge boost of confidence, and plenty of story material for years to come.

It's actually been an intention of mine these last weeks, to consciously feel all of my feelings, especially the fears. Reaching my late sixties has me wanting to prepare for a healthy death. And it's been said - and I believe it - that one of the best ways to gift oneself peace during one's last years is to meditate on death. And this trip has given me more than one premonition of dying, and with them a very clear-eyed appreciation of whatever the circumstances were at the moment. Even with the motor unresponsive and our sails down, and a strong offshore wind of 20 knots pushing us out onto Lake Ontario as dusk approached, the sky and clouds and light were God's gift beautiful. And then, when death doesn't happen...!?