Visions of a Moneyless Tribe

Writing this post is scaring the caca out of me.
Then I think:
If it is meant to be, let it be.
If not, let it be not.
Ultimately, the flow of the river is out of my hands,
so why worry?
Only trust, trust.
Then I feel peace, whatever happens.

In Fruita

Last week I hitched here to Fruita, Colorado to visit my parents... rather, I should more accurately say, the parents of this body I ride in.  I am finding really good new friends in Fruita, feeling a developing sense of community, that I'd never found here before.  It makes the idea of possibly moving here someday a joyful possibility, as I may have to live with and take care of the parents, who are both 85 years old.

But, right now, I can't let what could be or should be keep me from my walk.  Cross bridges when they come.

Possible Moneyless Tribe

Thus, I'm still brainstorming with some friends about beginning a moneyless tribe soon, inshallah:  we are envisioning a walking pilgrimage, in open invitation to all who are willing to give up all money to their name.  It can't be half-way, half-hearted.  The hearts of those who join must be fully here and now, not somewhere else.  Only then can our hearts be exactly where our treasure is, within us (here in heaven), fully committed to our present walk.

Two-Fold Mission:

I'm thinking this moneyless tribe might officially begin at the national Rainbow gathering, a place to meet and rally others, and its mission two-fold:

1) To walk to cities, towns, organic farms, intentional communities, monasteries, ashrams, and churches across the country, and do service, raising awareness of gift economy, infecting the nation with freely giving, and freely receiving.

2) To walk to native reservations in an act of repentance to heal wounds and raise our nation's awareness.  This means bowing before native elders and presenting them with our statement of repentance for the atrocities we as a culture and a religion have committed against them: our genocides, our robbing of their lands and homes, our destroying their food sources, our stripping them of their livelihood, our stealing of their children to be indoctrinated in our schools, our breaking of nearly every treaty we ever made with them, etc., etc.

I had this inspiration at the very time my friend Carolyn released the trailer for this film she and her friends have been working on, and I took it as confirmation:

Daring to be Adults, Dare to Repent

I myself have been finding myself really sick of religion and often wonder why I bother with it, feeling on the verge of giving up on it.  But I keep feeling a glimmer of hope, and perhaps this is a last chance to salvage good hidden beneath its hypocrisy.  Actually, I'm not sensing just a good, but a powerful good, hidden.

Are you with me?   Do you dare hear me out?

In short, professed Christianity has done so much harm something must be done to find healing.

Here's how:
we would bow to Native elders and own up to being hypocritical Christians and repent for not following the core teachings of our own religion, which we have insisted on cramming down Native throats.  Jesus clearly taught giving up possessions, sharing all things, freely giving and freely receiving, and we have not only done totally the opposite, but persecuted any who have even hinted at practicing such teachings!  Sharing things in common has been a principle of Native religion, making it more Christian than our own religion.  As long as professed Christians don't practice these teachings, we continue our genocide.

"Repent" is the very first recorded commandment of Jesus.  To repent means "to turn, to change."  It means action, not just words.  Our call for repentance cannot work until it is more than words, backed by action.  Our religion has been notorious for talk: very, very loud talk which does not listen. By giving up our money, giving up "our" possessions, which were never ours in the first place, we make our quiet statement of repentance with powerful sincerity, heard above all the loudness.  By giving up possessions, we give up being possessed, freeing ourselves into powerful love.   We must own up to our genocide, not as something our ancestors (they) did in the past, but that this genocide is ours, a spirit and mentality as alive and strong today as it was in the past.  Nothing will ever change until we own up, become adults, take responsibility, and stop blaming some "them".


We don't think it odd that a warrior leave home and give up everything to go to war.
What if we did the same for a greater cause: truth and justice and peace?


Repenting for our arrogance, 
which breeds genocide

Our very mentality of thinking our religion is right and all others are wrong will always breed genocide.  Egotism can breed no good, any more than a bad tree can bear good fruit.  We must repent for not keeping the Golden Rule, Rule above all rules.  We must repent of our arrogance in thinking our religion is right and all others are wrong.  Only then will we be able to do unto others as we would have them do unto us: listen, and consider that they could be right.

Why Christianity:
hasn't it done enough harm?

Self-proclaimed Christianity has done enough harm, this is my point.  But I have also seen good Christianity, a small and hidden remnant, easy to not spot.  I bring up Christianity because it is our culture's dominant religion (in word, not in deed), and our culture's religion is our nation's heart.  Cosmopolitan city dwellers out of touch with rural religious America don't realize how true this is.  No action will be lasting until it pricks our culture to its very heart!  Those who control a nation's religion have power over the nation, whether or not many citizens are religious.  Our politicians know this.  Hitler knew this, using Christian lingo, placing his Nazi flag in churches across Germany.

Now, in the US, greed-heads have hijacked and control Christianity.  Recognize them by their zeal, yet notice how they won't touch Jesus' basic teachings with a 10-foot pole (see Here's the One Point We Know the World's Religions Agree Upon), even as they harp on Jesus being the only way.  Religion is a powerful tool, under our very noses, that few who care about social justice and truth are using!

This movement must be ecumenical, open to people of all faiths and to those who aren't religious.  Its purpose is not to convert people to Christianity or to create a new religion (the last thing on earth we need).  Its purpose must be to use what already exists, to put a mirror up to our nation's self-professed Christianity, and for those who identify with Christianity to repent as Christians, and for those who don't identify as Christians to stand in solidarity with us.  Martin Luther King's movement was open to all, but his Christianity was his driving force.  Imagine Christians bowing before Native peoples, us repenting for our atrocities against them, repenting for our hypocrisy, not somebody else's.  We have been masters of harping on splinters in other culture's eyes, never seeing the lumber yard in our own.  Who is willing to say "our hypocrisy"?  Can you imagine something more powerful and healing and awareness raising?  Imagine us bowing before Native peoples, not arrogantly trying to "help" them in our usual self-righteous condescension, but admitting that we are the ones who need help!  Only then can the division between us and them dissolve.

The few examples of good religion 
have eclipsed the many bad examples

David Walker, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, 

Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, John Brown

Yes, our culture's deepest heart is its dominant religion, Christianity.  This is why, in this country social movements (e.g., the suffragists and abolitionists--such as Quaker movements and movements led by folks like Harriet Tubman and Fredrick Douglas--and the Civil Rights movement led by Martin Luther King) were so effective, because they took back a Christianity hijacked by nationalist greed-heads.  We saw the same happen in India, led by Gandhi using Hindu ideals, and we saw the end of Apartheid in South Africa taking back Christian ideals stolen by the racists.  People can find flaws or sins in Gandhi and Martin Luther King, but neither Gandhi nor MLK claimed to be a saint, and the people who find flaws in them can't see the forest for the trees, the greatness of Gandhi's and King's actions, despite their sins.

The small walking in truth
overpowers the huge walking in lie
as a small lamp lights a room of dark

A small group of admittedly imperfect people walking in truth and love is more powerful than a whole nation walking in hypocrisy.  The tiny overpowers the huge, the David conquers the Goliath, the small hero conquers the huge dragon, the stone that the builders reject becomes the chief capstone, and the tiny cottonwood seed becomes a giant tree: this is the theme of the world's myths, the theme of all biology, all life.

The faith of the tiny mustard seed: the driving principle of all nature.

Secular activist movements are good, 
and we must work with them

Secular activist movements are good, and I can in no way knock them, and we must work with them.  But movements that use the tool of religion are more powerful and lasting, because they are etched into the deepest consciousness.  Their purpose is not just ending an injustice, but ending the root of that injustice.  This is a risky proposition, because religion is usually used for bad.  What I am proposing is dangerous, risky, and could get us imprisoned or killed.  This is why the Cross is such a powerful symbol, once taken back from the greed-heads.  The Cross means giving up fear of death, standing for truth, even if it gets you crucified.


Having no overseer or ruler, 
but led by consensus

And what if, this time, it were led by no single person, but a movement of consensus, like, as Jewish scripture says, "ants, having no overseer or ruler"?  People often see ant colonies as models of conformist tyranny, but in reality they are perfect models of anarchy at work.  Each ant, by following its own instinct, not the dictation of anyone, works in perfect harmony with the other ants.  The "queen" is not a ruler dictating, but a mother laying eggs.

Can a group move as one mind, in consensus?

According to the scriptures of our culture, the secret of a group having one mind in consensus is revealed.  But we don't know whether or not that secret of one mind is true because nobody practices it, nobody dares prove it!  It might be a sham, but we don't know until we take a chance and practice it!

That secret is giving up all possessions and sharing all things communally!  You would never know it, looking at today's conventional  Evangelical, mainline, and Mormon churches, which emulate private property and capitalism as if God-ordained!  But this communal principle is taught as the ultimate model in both the New Testament and the Book of Mormon.  Here are the scriptures:

The Bible:
Acts 2:44-46,
Acts 4:32.

Book of Mormon:
4 Nephi (the first half of this short book)

Maybe it's bogus, maybe not.  We'll never know until we practice it.  It's risky business.  But in our hearts we understand, and are at peace.  Anybody want to take the plunge with us?

Working with James Joyce

This Saturday, (March 2nd - details below), I'll be premiering a new piece based on the writing of James Joyce. In doing it I'm very fortunate to have three of France's finest jazz musicians - Dominique Pifarely (violin), Stéphane Payen (alto), and Christophe Lavergne (drums), and the great Irish saxophonist Michael Buckley, playing with me. The mix of irish and French musicians isn't accidental, since the piece is called 'Counterparts - Joyce in Paris and Dublin', and is based around work he did when living in those two cities.

Music was very important to Joyce and his works are filled with descriptions of music, songs and singers. He himself was reputedly a fine singer, and he even competed in the Feis Ceol, (a venerable Irish amateur music competition, which is over a hundred years old and still going), entering the competition as a tenor. Joyce’s language is also very musical both in terms of rhythm and alliteration. The cities of Dublin and Paris are similarly very important to Joyce’s work – born and raised in Dublin but spending over twenty years of his adult life in Paris, both cities played crucial roles in his life and work.

The first impetus for writing the piece was my rereading of ‘Dubliners’, and being made aware again of Joyce’s musicality. The idea of Dublin and Paris came from my passing ‘Shakespeare and Company’  - the famous Parisian bookshop which had such an association with Joyce – on a recent trip to Paris. Since I’ve also had a close association with several French musicians in recent years, it was a short jump from the reading of Dubliners and thinking about Joyce’s life in the artistic hotbed that was Paris of the 1920s, to coming up with the idea of writing a piece for French and Irish musicians, based on writing undertaken by Joyce in both cities.

We also rehearsed the music in Paris and in Ireland  - before Christmas Michael and I went to Paris and rehearsed with Dominique, Stéphane and Christophe, and now we're at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, a beautiful artist's retreat here in Ireland, working on the piece and putting the finishing touches to the shape of it.

‘Counterparts’ is partly written and partly improvised, and uses audio taken from street sounds recorded in markets in Dublin and Paris - it's always fun and a different kind of challenge to work with audio. The piece also uses text from various works both as a generator for the music, and in spoken word format as an integral part of the piece. Sometimes I’ve used direct material from the music in Joyce’s work, including ‘Say Goodbye To Girlish Days’, Joyce’s only known musical composition. In other parts of the piece I’ve used ideas from the works he wrote in Paris or in Dublin as generators of musical ideas. 

In Counterparts I’ve tried to create a unique environment for improvising musicians to explore the work of Joyce through musical means, and through that to reveal to the listener the sheer musicality of Joyce’s prose.

For  anyone in Dublin this Saturday March 2nd is interested in seeing the finished result of this work, you can come to the National Concert Hall at 1.05pm where the piece will be premiered as part of the New Music Dublin festival. Full details here

And here is a video clip of some of the rehearsals from Paris last year.

Where Is My Heart?

Wow, I just realized it was Dec 22nd since I last blogged!  The comment thread has been constantly active since then, anyway.

Lynn spent Christmas with me and we went to the community dinner in Moab put on by Wabi Sabi. This was the first Christmas in a long time that I didn't spend with my parents, being tied down to a house-sit.  It has been a record cold winter in Moab, and Lynn toughed it out for a few days outdoors with me until a house-sit came along (right when it got bitterly cold).   Lynn decided to take a bus back to Maryland after the New Year festivities.  Of  course I got really sad, missing her and our wonderful talks and quiet hang-outs.  Ah, yes, I'm still a man of attachment, loving to have new friend visitors and sad when they leave.  What most impressed me about her is her spirit of constancy, never complaining (except jokingly, about the bitter cold).

I got pretty sick with a bronchial infection before Lynn left.  I only get sick when I'm living indoors.  In all the years I've lived this way, I've never gotten sick sleeping outside in the bitter cold. Whatever, I'm healthy now and still indoors, until Monday.  When I make sure I eat super healthy food I'm okay.  Living outdoors, I eat wild edibles every day, and that keeps me strong.

Right now I'm house-sitting at Cosy Sheridan's house while she is on her music tour all over the US.  She has lots of good books and I've been reading voraciously.

A Hungarian television journalist, Hesna (Al Ghaoui Hesna) and her film crew were here for a couple of days and camped with me in the guest cave.  They were lots of fun, but I'm a bit frazzled.  They're working on a documentary which should be available on You Tube in a few weeks.

Planning But Not Vowing With Words

Some friends and I are brainstorming on a possible walking moneyless tribe on pilgrimage.  I so feel this moneyless venture can't be a one man gig.  A lot of folks over past months, years, have emailed me wondering if they could join me, needing direction, and I've been a bit overwhelmed, not answering hardly any of them.  Feelings of uncertainty.  But new inspiration is arising!  Maybe I'll go through all those emails and contact them (you, if you're reading this) and share these ideas, sometime when I have lots of computer time.  God willing: Inshaallah: the will of all Nature, all that is natural.

Community and doing, not merely talking, is where life resides.   If this moneyless community happens, it must be total commitment, with nothing to go back to, no credit cards (of course), no money (not even a penny), no cell phones, no dead to bury, no attachments, not something to try for a while half-heartedly.  Where your treasure is, your heart will be there.  Is your treasure a spot on earth or is it in heaven, within, so you will always be Here and Now, here with your neighbor and not somebody else?  We want people here who are here and no where else.  There can be no courage, no confidence, otherwise.  Put the hand to the plow and don't look back.  Life looks forward, death looks backward.  Live life.  It's a little scary writing even this much publicly, because I too often feel unworthy for the cause.  But we'd never get out of bed if we let such doubts rule us.  There's much more in the plans, but that's all I can share for now.

It's natural to plant ideas and plan with words and thoughts.  But beware of boasting for tomorrow, making vows, placing ourselves in debt!  When our minds are in debt or seeking credit (attached to the past or future), our hearts, our treasures, are not Here and Now.

The doing is the vow, the doing is the commitment, not words.  There must be absolutely no delay between the vowing and the fulfilling of the vow, because the doing of the vow is the vow, beyond words!  Spoken vows for the future are fickle and illusory and come from a deluded heart.  There are no marriage vows or contracts or promises in Reality.  There is no divorce in Reality, because there are no marriage vows, no written contracts.  Marriage vows and contracts and promises cannot come from a heart of love, but only from a heart of possession and fear of the future, fear of loss.  Vows are are insidious debt, and come from a heart of debt, delusion.  The True Buddhist Vow is not words for the future, but words stating the Present, what is already happening.  And to state what is already Present is to state what will always happen in the future, the unbreakable vow for the future.  A heart that is not here is dead.  Forgive us our debts, forgive us our vows.  Resurrect from death, awaken from sleep, Now.  Only Reality is total, unshaking commitment, loving your spouse, loving your neighbor, totally in the Present, un-divorce-able.  When we have no debt (except love) we seek no credit, because the credit is the doing.  The debt of love is the credit of love, when credit and debt are both One in the Present.  Hallelujah:  All Credit to the Eternal Present.  What will unfold in grace will unfold on its own without manipulation.

So don't let yourself be so impressed with these words.
Be impressed with doing.

Do, or do not.

There is no try.

--Yoda

 

Anatomy of Perfection - Monk's 'Jackie-ing'

I first heard 'Jackie-ing'  almost forty years ago when my father brought home a compilation double LP of Monk's Riverside recordings. At that time I had no technical knowledge or experience of music - I wasn't to become a player until much later and knew nothing about structure, form, jazz history or anything that would have given me an insight into Monk's music. Yet I was attracted to this music immediately. There was just something about it - a vibe, wittiness, swing, or more accurately, the combination of these elements - that spoke to me with an immediacy I don't think I'd experienced with my father's other jazz recordings. 'Jackie-ing' was a stand-out for me, even then. I listened to it so many times, loving it on an intuitive level, and I've been listening to it ever since. Like all perfect music, it never gets old, and this really is perfect music. Flawless.

Almost forty years later I began to think about what elements were involved in this track that made it so great, and when i began to investigate it in an analytical way, the music revealed even more facets which were always there, but were not so obvious. Like investigating any great music, (such as Bach or Bartok), an analysis of Jackie-ing reveals some of the reasons why it's so great, but still remains mysterious.

The recording was made in 1959, and featured Monk's long-time saxophonist Charlie Rouse, (who had only recently joined Monk at the time of this recording), the brilliant Thad Jones on the rarely heard cornet, who puts in an extraordinary performance on the whole album, and the stellar bass and drum team of Sam Jones and Art Taylor. It's an interesting recording in that it's one pf the few times that Monk recorded with the classic bebop line-up of trumpet (or cornet in this case), saxophone, piano, bass and drums.

This piece is classic Monk and in a way encompasses all the virtues that make him so unique - the slightly awry humour, the seemingly naive tune that catches you unawares, the incredible swing, the sonority and rhythmic complexity of the comping, and above all the primacy of the melody in determining the whole piece.

The Melody

The melody is an extraordinary affair - an almost banal tune that creates an anything but banal atmosphere. A seemingly simple 16 bar form, with a unison call/response melody that is largely made up of quarter notes, but which, through the use of displacement, catches the listener unawares, making you feel that you've somehow missed something. I remember when I was a kid, listening to this for the first time, thinking that perhaps the LP had skipped! This effect is achieved through the simple but brilliantly effective displacement of the main phrase of the theme. In measure 12, Monk starts the final phrase of the theme two beats earlier than you would expect, throwing everything out of kilter and effectively displacing the entire final theme phrase. This makes the theme finish two measures earlier than you would expect, leaving the drums to fill in the space at the end of the form that you instinctively feel shouldn't be there.





This displacement dominates the whole piece, as it infects the soloing throughout. It keeps the listener slightly confused all the time, because while the horns refer to this unexpected melodic twist in their solos, the bass and drums place the changes in the more traditional sixteen bar form. So everything feels like it's not quite lining up.

Monk also creates this dual world of off-kilter simplicity by the way he comps the melody, bringing the full range of his control of dissonance and understanding of piano sonority to bear on the melody. The placement of these clangorous chords is very strategic, and when you listen to the melody a few times you realise that there's nothing random or accidental about them. In measure four of the first head, Monk placed a very dissonant E natural in octaves alongside the humdrum F of the melody. This jarring effect is repeated at the same point in the second time through the head, but this time Monk uses an E and an Ab, (an octave and a major third above the E) to create the dissonance against the F. He does this in exactly the same way in the in-head and the out-head - clearly this order of dissonant chords was something that was planned in advance and is part of the composition rather than being something that was improvised on the spot.

The harmony of the tune is also  quite mysterious. Mostly centering around Bb major (with a very prominent sharp 4th), with a few excursions to the territory of V chord, it strongly features the notes E and A, and yet Monk adds this mysterious Ab in his comping which one imagine would suggest a Bb7 chord (but which never appears). Again we are in the world of duality - a simple diatonic type Bb melody but with the major 7th and tritone clamouring for attention and an errant Ab buzzing around the theme.

Bass and Drums

 (Sam Jones)


A huge amount of credit for the success of this track must go to Sam Jones and AT, whose contributions are judged to perfection. The connection between Jones' quarter note and AT's ride cymbal is sublime - both of them play forcefully yet neither of them are dogmatic. The beat is is clearly agreed between them, and they create what can best be described as a loping swing feel that  both clears the ground yet is rooted to it. Jones note choices are always interesting, he never does the expected, yet he clearly outlines the changes. AT keeps the ride cymbal going throughout, there are no real fills, but the snare and bass drum keep up an insistent, percolating rhythmic counter-melody throughout. His wonderful 8-bar intro is a perfect example of what he does throughout the track - swings hard but with a melodic intelligence informing everything he does

Charlie Rouse

Rouse was never my favourite Monk tenor player. I always felt he stayed too long with Monk and all those live albums show someone who knows the music very well yet never really pushes it in the way that Coltrane and Rollins did. I also love Johnny Griffin on the live 5 Spot recordings. Griffin's playing with Monk is often maligned, but I think his playing on those recordings is inspired, the sheer amount of ideas he has and the technical ability he has to carry them out, is staggering. The usual criticism is that he plays too many notes, but if you're going to level that at Griffin you have to level the same charge at Trane!

But I'm getting off topic here - in this recording Rouse is absolutely at the top of his game, his tenure with Monk is just beginning and no doubt he was less jaded than he must have become in later years, playing the same tunes over and over again. His solo on 'Jackie-ing' is marvellous, starting off by brilliantly juggling the theme in different ways, paraphrasing it and using it, rather than the chords, to create his solo. Listen to the first chorus and Rouse's effortless reworking of the theme.





He goes on reworking it until he gradually moves away from it, at least in the sense of clear paraphrasing. By the end he's making more references to the underlying harmony and finishes with a wonderful phrase that doesn't feel like the kind of phrase or place, (the first bar of the form), where you would finish a solo. But despite the unorthodox last phrase, Thad picks it up in the 4th bar and uses it to launch his own solo - reminding me of an improvisational relay race where the baton is handed over effortlessly. Here's that moment:

Thad Jones

Thad Jones was hugely underrated. He was revered as a big band writer, but his abilities were pretty much all-encompassing and he was one of the most original trumpeters ever to play in jazz. Immediately identifiable, he was quirky yet swinging, completely in the tradition yet totally surprising. His note choices and use of thematic material to advance his solos showed how compositionally he thought, and in this regard he's up there with other thematic improvisers such as Sonny Rollins and Jim Hall. And, like Rollins,  this made him an idea foil for Monk and his music. Never one to just run the changes, his ability to fully investigate the simplest motif and set off in pursuit of an idea, while never losing sight of where he was in the overall scheme of things, was unique among trumpeters and had few peers on any instrument.

Here he is simply brilliant. I never tire of his solo on this tune, it's remarkable for its sense of internal structure, respect for the atmosphere of the music, great swing and sometimes startling note choices. While not quoting the melody as closely as Rouse does, his solo still reflects the theme by the way he uses sometimes banal-seeming phrases which through brilliant rhythmic and timbral manipulation become startling. I always feel with his solo here, that though it faithfully follows the harmonic scheme of the piece, that if you took the solo out of the context of the tune, it would create its own internal logic, independent of the melody or chords of the tune from whence it came.

What's interesting harmonically is how he'll often skip notes in the scale and by doing so suggest a slightly Asian pentatonic quality to the line. The descending line he plays in this next clip, at face value conventional in the extreme, suggests a pentatonic scale consisting of Bb, D, E, G and A. This contradicts the conventionality of the phrase itself - more duality. And at the beginning of the next chorus he suggests a C major pentatonic, but heavily disguised by an up-rushing rhythmic shape that seems anxious to escape the confines of his cornet.





Monk himself helps Jones achieve this duality by virtue of his comping. One the things that I love about this track is that Monk comps throughout. These big slabs of bright dissonance appear throughout the piece in an amazing variety of rhythmic places. He is clearly engaged from start to finish and the way he ensures the primacy of the melody through comping that only obliquely refers to it, is an object lesson in both accompaniment and compositional thought through improvisation. And check out the way Monk picks up Thad's last phrase and uses its shape to start his solo - which puts him in a 3-beat cycle which is superimposed over the four of the bass and drums - something he resolves effortlessly........





Another feature of this track, and something that is common on a lot of Monk recordings, is that the solos don't follow the usual bebop dynamic curve, where each soloists starts quietly and then builds to a crescendo before handing over to the next guy. Here the dynamic remains the same throughout and the soloists could finish at any time. In fact this whole track is very far away from the bebop tradition where harmony rather than melody is the main instigator of improvisation. Here, the melody and the comping boss the whole piece and the soloists' prime concern is with melodic manipulation coming directly from the theme.

Here is the whole piece - a masterpiece in which you couldn't add a note, or subtract a note to or from anyone in the band without diminishing the overall piece.

There are very few perfect pieces in recorded jazz, but this definitely one of them

Blogging and money

     Yesterday I got a mail from the Royal Mail, Britain.
     I said to myself: "Look, Adrian, british people are mailing you. You are an important person!" (I live in Romania). When I open the envelope, what do you know? It was a CD and an invitation to an online casino. So online casinos have so much money, made on our expense that can afford to send me, situated at more than 2500 km away, an envelope with a CD, knowing that I might throw it away, but hoping I will install the software and give them money. Now that is something. 
      Of course I threw it away.
      I have found another way of making money online. And it is free. You only invest in it with your time. No, it's not PTC or PTS or any other thing like this. It's plain-old, boring-old blogging. I determined that if you constantly write on your blog, more and more people will come to it. That of course, if you provide good content.
      So I started up with just one blog, on Blogger, this one. Then I started up another, and now I have 4. Two in english, and two in Romanian. I've set up the ads, and now the cashflow has begun. And the more I write, the more traffic I get, so, the more money I get. It's that simple. No investement of money whatsoever. I write what I like and I get paid for it.
      It is so good that I started thinking of making a guide so everyone could do the same, but there are already so many guides out there I am having second thoughts.
      I could, as well make a document in which I could explain how I did it, but that could get boring, as I didn't make it over night.
     So then I thought maybe you want to ask me particular questions. You can do this, as I am willing to share everything with everybody. In the comments section below ask me about making money for free, from blogging on Blogger.
     And don't forget to subscribe, as there will be more info on this in the future!

Why do casinos thrive?

       This is equal to: "Why don't casinos run out of business?", or "Why can't you win long term from gambling?" , and most important "Why should you consider gambling just a means of having fun, and not a job?".

       Well, for starters, let's take roulette, which is my personal favorite. Afterwards, we can generalize and extend the idea to all the games that involve gambling at a casino.

       As you know, European Roulette offers you the best chances to win, because it has only one 0 (zero). In this case, the odds for you to win a, let's say, even bet are 48,6% , and pays out 1 to 1. That means your bet is 50% of the winning. So the chances for you to actually win the bet are smaller than the odds of loosing. This means that, if it were for the casinos to be fair, you should be paid 1.15 to 1. However, this is not the case. The difference is not major, you might say, but because this difference you can NOT win long term in a casino, even if you are lucky, you will eventually run out of all your luck, and thus, the casino will collect all of your loot. Game Over!

       This is valid for all other types of bets. Here is a table of odds to win and actual payouts. You can notice that all the payouts are smaller than they should be if it were to be fair. 

       And for American Roulette the odds are even lower, but the payouts stay the same. So now you know why casinos don't get bankrupt. Unless you figure out a way of predicting the outcome, without being detected by security, which is kind of hard, if not impossible.

       The same  happens in all casino games, but not only. The Lottery is also based on the same principle. Keep the payouts lower than the actual deserved payout, given the odds for that outcome=Profit $$$.

      So there is no reason in lying to yourself that you can beat the system. Maybe in the short run you will, but in the long run, you always lose. And you lose more than you have recently won. This is kind of the first law for casinos. Make people believe at the beginning that they have a fair chance of winning, and then collect all their money they've spent dreaming for that new car, or house, depending on each others interests.

      Good luck! And may you wisely spend your money!

Contemporary Music

Whenever I see those ‘best CDs of 2012’ lists that appear around this time of the year, it always reminds me of how much current music I don’t check out and how behind the curve I often am when it comes to the music that’s hot off the presses – or whatever the Mp3 equivalent of a press is.

There are a couple of reasons for my not being totally up to date – I think as you get older, your desire to hear every single new note coming out of the jazz scene becomes less strong. I’m still interested in new things, but not to the point of obsessively checking the jazz media to see what’s coming out, and who’s doing what. I used to be like that. Even in the pre-internet days when information was harder to come by, I was still absolutely up to date with what was going on.

I made it my business to know everything about everyone. I was hungry for the new – new influences, new techniques, new compositions, new genres. New was good. Now, although I’m still interested in new things, I’m also very interested in deepening my listening to music that I know, trying to glean more from that, explore its depths more. And I’m also interested in trying to deepen my own music, but not necessarily by constantly adding new things to it. Some of that is a byproduct of age – reflection is more a function of one's later years than one's callow youth.

Another reason I’m not so obsessed with checking out everything new is that I find myself a bit underwhelmed by a lot of the new music that seems to get the critics’ juices flowing these days. I find that a lot of the music that’s raved about – particularly music coming out of NY – is either complexity for complexity’s sake, or virtuoso mainstream music – music that idolizes soloists, (this is particularly true of the current crop of guitarists), for the speed they can play at, but ignores the fact that their music is essentially doing the same thing, (soloist with rhythm section, and solo following solo), as has been done for the past 60 years.

But every now and then I go on a trawl of recent music to see what I can find, and last week I hit pay dirt – three great recordings, all recently recorded, all quite different and yet all showing both personality and originality – particularly in composition.

All three recordings are connected in some way – all three feature alto saxophone and piano, two of the recordings share the same pianist, and two of them share the same altoist. 

Dave Binney

I should start with the oldest CD - Dave Binney's 'Third Occasion' which is not the prolific Binney's newest recording, (which I think might be the wonderful 'Graylen Epicenter', another recording which I've enjoyed very much). 'Third Occasion' is from 2009, but features many of the qualities that make Dave an important figure on the contemporary jazz scene. Although he's a virtuoso player in every sense of the word, his compositions are not just vehicles for his playing, but also form a vital part of what is clearly an overall musical concept rather than an instrumentally driven ethos. His music is not easy to play and often features complex rhythmic and harmonic structures, but he has a unique leaning, (in this very contemporary jazz setting), towards melodic hooks in his pieces that not only serve the music well, but are deeply attractive in their own right.

He has an ability to use simplicity to great effect - I'm always surprised by how much unison melodic writing there is in his pieces, even when there's more than one horn. Ones instinct when you've more than one melody instrument is to write contrapuntal lines, but Binney often eschews that and goes for repeated unison hooks that are almost anthemic at times.

Dave also has a great sense of the right collaborators for his music, and here with Craig Taborn, Scott Colley and Brian Blade he has chosen musicians which, like Dave, are all virtuosos but play for the good of, and from the inspiration of the music. This is not a playing by rote/soloist with rhythm section recording, it's a true collective, all playing for the good of the music and stepping out to make individual statements when called upon. I find Craig Taborn to be a particularly inspired choice as the pianist on this recording - he is a true individualist and his playing has a crystalline brilliance that really works well with the alto, creating a transparent sonority in the ensemble and brilliantly original solos. Check out "Squares and Palaces' as a great example of all the things I've mentioned.

Michael Formanek

Taborn's presence on the second recording I'd like to mention, Micheal Formanek's 'Small Places', also contributes in no small measure to the success of the music. Here Taborn's originality and control of sonority is captured beautifully by the ECM recording. Taborn is a true original, he is clearly a contemporary jazz pianist, yet he borrows none of the clothing of the usual modern jazz piano suspects - he is resolutely his own man, unpredictable and endlessly creative. He is getting a bit more credit for his brilliance these days, but I still think he is very underrated.

As is Michael Formanek. A real musician's musician and one of those 'super bassists' (like Drew Gress and John Hebert), who can really play anything, from very straight ahead to complex rhythmic music or completely open improvisation. But as if his versatility as a bassist wasn't enough, Formanek has always been a formidable composer. I've been listening to an old recording of his, 'Wide Open Spaces', for over 20 years. Small Places is his most recent album and again features wonderful writing - writing that suits the ensemble so well and sets them up for improvising. Again there is that crystalline alto with piano sound that I also remarked upon in Binney's recording, and some of this probably has to do with Taborn being on hand again. And once more the ECM recording with its molto-reverb policy, suits the music very well. Again this is music of complexity, and although it doesn't have the more conventionally melodic hooks of the Binney recording, it is often deeply attractive music, with an astringent lyricism. As it is with Dave's recording, there is never a dull moment here, since all of the players - Formanek, Taborn, Tim Berne and Gerald Cleaver - are great soloists and when you combine this with the very original writing, the interest never flags for a moment.

To hear what I'm talking about, have a listen here:

Tim Berne

Part of the fascination of Michael Formanek's album is hearing the very unique Tim Berne negotiating the harmonic landscapes of Formanek's music. Berne is a true original, with a sound all his own, and he has created music that is almost genre-specific to himself. He has almost created his own genre - something that only a very few can claim to have done. His playing owes almost nothing to the jazz mainstream, yet is clearly part of the jazz tradition. His music is acerbic, very rhythmic and has a concern with sonority that is all his own. I've been an admirer for along time and was looking forward to hearing this new band. What I wasn't expecting was how different this recording would be to what I'd known of Tim's music up to this point.

In a career liberally studded with unique recordings, this still qualifies as being pretty unique. It's almost like a chamber music recording - the instrumentation of alto, clarinet (Oscar Noriega), piano (Matt Mitchell), and drums/percussion (Ches Smith), gives it a lightness of sonority and clarity that took me completely by surprise. When I think of Tim's music I usually associate it with density and the gnarlier end of the spectrum when it comes to timbre. Here so much of the music has a transparency that is both refreshing and delightful. There's a brightness about the music that I believe is unprecedented in Tim's recorded output. There were hints of it in the past - I first noticed it on the coda to one piece on 'Science Friction' - but here it's given full reign and I've been listening to this music constantly since I bought this, amazed over and over by the sound of the music as well as the content.

What really strikes me about this recording is how European it sounds. I don't mean that as a criticism, or as a means of praise, just an observation. So much of this music has echoes of European art music in it. If someone had played me some of this music as a blindfold test, I would definitely have ventured that they were European musicians. At least up to the point where Tim took a solo - that would have been a give-away. As would the opening of 'Scanners' Both that composition (and Tim's soloing), are completely Berne-esque, and there's no mistaking the author of both alto sound and music. But there are other sections where the music has such overtones of European late 20th century art music, and also it has to be said, of European contemporary jazz of a certain stripe, (I'm not citing that as an influence, it probably just shows a common interest in similar musical idioms), that one could be forgiven for believing these musicians to be from the old rather than the new world.

But that observation aside, I must say I think this music is extraordinary. So original - there's a passage at around 5.25 of 'Simple City' that has a mesmerising harmonisation of the melody line - magical is not too strong a word to describe it. I love the ECM recording effect on Tim's sound too - he does have a very brawny sound and the ECM reverb takes some of the edge off that, which I think suits this music very well. I really regret missing the band when they were in Dublin last year - I hope to get to hear this amazing music live sometime. If only all through-composed contemporary music was as good as this..........

You can get a taste of the music here:

Three great musicians, three great bands, three great albums - although I don't follow everything that's going on as assiduously as I used to, it's so great and inspiring to come across wonderful music like this. Jazz is dead? Bullshit!

Here's Dave Binney with Taborn, Colley and Blade, live in Paris