Sri Aurobindo
It's Oscar Peterson's birthday today. The Oscar Peterson Trio Live in Chicago was one of my early jazz purchases when I was a young lad, based on no real knowledge or reasoning. I vividly remember listening to it over and over again, digging Oscar's playing and vocalizations. The Ray Brown/Ed Thigpen rhythm section was something to be reckoned with. I've heard through the grapevine that Mr. Peterson's health has not been the best of late, so now is as good a time as any to give him the props he is due.
A quote from Sri Aurobindo:
"Rhythm is the premier necessity of poetical expression because it is the sound-movement which carries on its wave the thought-movement in the word; and it is the musical sound-image which most helps to fill in, to extend, subtilise and deepen the though impression or the emotional or vital impression and to carry the sense beyond itself into an expression of the intellectually inexpressible - always the peculiar power of music..."
and
"Music deepens the emotions and harmonises them with each other. Between them music, art and poetry are a perfect education for the soul; they make and keep its movements purified, self-controlled, deep and harmonious. These, therefore, are agents which cannot profitably be neglected by humanity on its onward march or degraded to the mere satisfaction of sensuous pleasure which will disintegrate rather than build the character. They are, when properly used, great educating, edifying and civilising forces."
Muhal Richard Abrams solo piano tomorrow evening in Millennium Park here in Chicago, 6:30 PM, free.
I apologize for the tumbleweeds around here of late. It probably won't get much better until after Labor Day weekend when my schedule settles down, and then the deluge of backlogged reviewing and writing will come tumbling forth.
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