Maybe it’s the morning here. Dark and somber sky with an unyielding flatness in its gray. Very quiet morning as though nothing really wants to stir and begin this sultry summer week. A fans hums, trying to move a little cooler air through the studio and I am sitting with my coffee. Chet Baker‘s Every Time We Say Goodbye is playing above it all, accentuating the gray mood with its deeply spaced tones. I’m not the biggest jazz guy but there I do like what I like and for certain moods, like this morning’s, nothing fills the bill like Chet Baker.
I think it’s one of those instances of pure expression, where the art and the individual meld. It’s not put on, not contrived. It’s real and felt deeply, his own truth– all that you can ask from any artist. I think we all aspire to a true expression of ourselves, to create something that we can say genuinely represents who we really were during our time here.
I know that has been a driving force for me. Sometimes, it seems close to telling my truth and sometimes it feels just a bit shaded or slanted away from reality. Maybe it’s a case of hoping that the motivation, the goal, becomes the reality.
I don’t know. Maybe, that’s just a bit too much thinking for any Monday morning, especially a sleepy gray July one. Here’s Chet.
Redtree Times 