Back to the MATRIX. I will begin sharing my thoughts, incidental pieces, book excerpts, book reviews, and notes on the pieces of writing I am developing.
My love for jazz music began since I was in high school, having been immersed into the world of "progressive rock". During my early college years I studied the history of jazz and many years later taught also a course in the the history of this quintessentially American music. Jazz like a Baktinian concept of carnival; it is "carnivalesque". Mikhail Baktin is a Russianphilosopher of structuralism, by the way-- discovered by the West through a "semiotic turn" in the study of language and in the emerging interest in the study of "discourse" and the view that everything is a text.
Back to jazz and "improvisation". It takes a structure and deconstruct that structure into many forms. It is a manifestation of the one and many. And after travelling into the "many-ness" of experience, comes back to the struturedness of the Oneness of the form. (You might think that this is a "spiritual" interpretation of jazz-- maybe. Art imitates life, some would say).
One of my favourite modern jazz pieces is this one by ChuckMangione's below. Good for us in times of economic trouble in which the United Nations said that globally 50 million people have lost their jobs, in a globalizing world of "zombie politics" and "casino capitalism" in a world of "blue ocean strategies invested with sharks and piranhas" and postmodern "indentured servitude" in which humaniods are fed with bread and circuses.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are,the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef,but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuot slpeling was ipmorantt!
Strange Fruit By Billie Holiday and Abel Meeropol (1937)
Southern trees bear strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south, The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth, Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh, Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck, For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck, For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop, Here is a strange and bitter crop.
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