RUDIMENTS pt. 985
(little sense, little shame)
A lot of my time was spent
in what I called 'free meditation.'
Which was exactly what it was.
And it really was free. I didn't
need any rules or things to
follow. Whatever I was doing,
mostly my mind was on other
things. Free-float stuff, like
in space. That's not good if
yopu're a surgeon or a dentist,
I suppose, but for the kind of
crap I was doing it was OK.
When I got back to studio
time and art and writing and
all, I was able, quickly, to
re-focus. My life was in
some ways like a free-form
jazz solo; the kind where the
horn guy's not the featured
one but able to find the holes
and the gaps in the music
in which his own contribution
won't interfere with the others,
will mostly fit in to the 'overall,'
and help fill out the sound too.
Not much glory, but lots of
playing.
-
In that respect, the thing about
music is finding those spots.
Some guys, like Charlie Parker
say, they'd be flitting all over a
tune, starting our straight-chord,
and then breaking it up, crazy-mad
fast, staccato's up all over the
place, and always taking the
forefront. He was the big-star
of all that, lunatic that he was,
and he could get away with it,
and thrived. Some players would
get miffed the way he was always
in their musical spaces, but it
went with the territory, them
saying, 'It don't matter, I'm
playing with Bird!' But, inside
a piece of music, there's always
these spaces, with gaps, the
cool spots where you can jump
in; ensemble-wise I mean. If
it's just you, say, on a piano,
by yourself, you go about it
all differently because those
spaces are yours alone AND
so are all the other moments
around it, which is what I like
because you can stop and
break-in and fracture your
own time and make your own
spaces. Redundancies and
breaks, together. I never got
it how anyone so strictly only
plays a piece the way it was
written; like a Mozart piece,
to any other. That's the way
THEY wrote, in that time
signature and with their own
manners all in it, but it's not
ALONE like that, and it still
'ain't correct.' That may be
the right way fro Mozart or
Burt Bachrach or Jimmy Webb,
to have finished up a tune, but
that's still only ONE way. I never
duplicate; nor do I play for any
exactitude. It's just me, I guess.
-
This whole 'free meditation'
thing was great for me, and it
got me into all sorts of cool
situations; like the horse guys
and the food wagons. No one
else would think of just bumming
around like that trying to find
an 'in' for one of this pissant
little jobs, but for me they all
were perfect; I could think, my
head didn't necessarily have to
be there, and it was idle-time
and automatic too. Another time,
same sort of thing, one of those
studio school big-head guys,
living out on east 1st street in
this nice, top floor apartment of
like a six story tenement mostly
filled on the lower floors with
Spanish families, cooking and
hallway smells, and a zillion
kids. One day he asked me if
I'd care to help him out, take
over one of his responsibilities,
for pay. I said, 'shoot, whaddya'
got?' Turns out, this top floor
apartment was his, for like 20
bucks a month, provided he
acted as sort of superintendent
and cleaner too, of the whole
building. He'd done it for a
while, never very thoroughly,
and was tired of it. I agreed,
I think it was 30 bucks a week.
I'd have free access, with key'
to his apartment, and I was to
broom-sweep the hallways
and tile floors, and the wooden
stairs, throwing down that red,
waxy stuff they used to have,
and then sweeping it up, making
sure the garbage areas were OK,
checking out the basement commons
room and laundry area stuff, and,
only if, do basic and minor repairs
lightbulbs, switches and fixtures,
and things of that small nature.
Any leaks or broken stairs, etc, I
had a Long Island number to call;
I guess it was the landlord-owner's
rental company or management
group. I never needed it, and
never met anyone from there. In
fact, other then for getting paid
I hardly even saw the Studio
School guy - it was as if this
entire assignment didn't exist
between us. But it was cool; he
had the neatest apartment. It
was set up like a real place - TV,
records, record player, magazines,
and even had kitchen towels and
a great bathroom too. I often just
hung out there, gazing out over
Delancey Street, I think it was;
all the cars running to and from
the bridge, all those people, all
those jobs and details. Everybody
always seemed so busy. I'd do
my sweeping and tending, monkey
around with the kids on the stairs,
and generally use up three or four
hours every few days. There was
an old Gulf, or maybe Mobil,
gas station at the 1st street corner
there (it was actually First and
1st, meaning Avenue and Street,
which was weird), and that old
gas station was a real throwback.
It too used to fascinate me - one
or two greasy old guys always on
the job about some car or the other,
everything ancient, twenty-years
out of date. Nobody around there
had an extra dime, it was a real
dumpy area, and probably dangerous
too but that never bothered me any
because I looked like the danger,
not the threatened one. Up in
that apartment he always had
music magazines, Crawdaddy
and all that stuff. I'd sit there
sometimes just reading about
all the early music-scene crap
that was just then coming into
its own - the next Summer, as
I recall, was Woodstock. Or
maybe it was two Summers
off. Stuff like that never matters,
and it too is just another pocket
realization of that free meditation
stuff by which I was blazing
forth with my own pathetic life.
-
A lot of these guys, most all,
were Jewish. The landowners, the
apartment guys, and this guy I
was here tending apartment for.
They always seemed to have a
leg up on a racket, turning coin,
making money. They claimed
never to separate their life from
their religion, but that was always
suspect to me - their religion said
one thing, had its yearly atonement
and all that sorrowful crap, yet
their lives were always about
worldly shit, selling something,
getting one over on someone else
so as to make a few extra bucks.
What was with that? Every
story I ever read, like in the
music magazines, was some
conflict over signing over rights
or contracting with some Jewish
rick mogul who'd eventually
cheat, undercut, or steal their
contractual stuff and have them
in servitude for years. It was
as crooked as the Mississippi
River, time after time. What
a gummy religion that is. I'd
never seen a more worldly
bunch in my life.
-
Little sense; little shame, I
guess that's just how it goes.
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