Giving thanks for our time in NYC...

So much has taken place - emotionally, spiritually and personally - in the past week that I have not had time to reflect on our trip to NYC. It was stunning and full - joyful and alive - as we spent the weekend with our daughter and son-in-law in Brooklyn. As some know, both Di and I are engaging in a crash course in jazz history and aesthetics in preparation for our peace-making sojourn to Istanbul in June 2011. (You might get a kick out of her already extensive bibliography over at her blog: Cumulus - http://cumulus.blogspot.com/)

Before heading to the City, I wrapped up both Jonny King's, What Jazz Is: An Insider's Guide to Understanding and Listening to Jazz and The Jazz Ear: Conversations over Music by Ben Ratliff. Last night I finished Scott Saul's, Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't: Jazz and the Making of the Sixties (an extensive music/socio-political history of jazz) and am plugging my way through Robin Kelley's massive Monk: The Making of an American Original.

I have a stack of new/old CDs to take in, too: everything from Ellington and Monk to Herbie Hancock and the early jazz guitarists like Charlie Christian from Oklahoma City who played with Bennie Goodman but prefigured both bebop and cool jazz. Knowing this, our kids took us to the legendary Village Vanguard for a set featuring the Kurt Rosenwinkel Quartet - and MAN can this kid play guitar. As one believer put it: he's becoming almost Coltrane-like with that thing! And after digging his first set, I'm a believer, too.

The kids also turned us on to their favorite new jazz group - the Bad Plus - who are also worth exploring. Like my own musical aesthetic, they like to prowl around the edges of all types of music, deconstruct it and then reclaim it in new ways. They are not purists in any sense of the word - genre-benders I call them - and totally right up my alley. Dig this take on Nirvana's break out hit, "Smells Like Teen Spirit." It is beautiful, challenging, fun and moving all at the same time...

And because we're headed to Turkey this summer, they made sure we ate at the primier Turkish eatery in Brooklyn: Taci's Beyti in Coney Island. What a trip - the place was filled with older Russian men and their VERY young "dates" who consumed more vodka in the 90 minutes we were there than I can take in all night. And the "ambiance" suggested more early 80s Soviet hotel than first date romantic - all bright lights and mirrors - but damn was the food good.

We also got a chance to wander the Chelsea galleries on Saturday to take in Mako's paintings and see what lower Manhattan looks like in the snow. It was almost silent as we walked along the Hudson River at twilight and took in the snow and the city lights.

With lots of time for conversation, too, it was a weekend of blessings and renewal for us both. And now we're back in the groove in Pittsfield with work and ministry, music and study and all the ordinary joys and sorrows of being alive. We wept and cheered as President Obama shared his wisdom and depth with the nation from our old home in Tucson. We gave thanks to God that our Tucson friend, Mark Clark, has been nominated for a crucial ministry with the national United Church of Christ in Cleveland. We pray blessings on daughter number two whose New England Organic Farming conference takes place this weekend. And we are preparing to bury one of the artistic saints of the church community - a lovely painter, poet, wife, mother and educator - amidst the new 18" of snow.

Perhaps this gets it all just about right...

credits:

1) Norman Lewis - Harlem Jazz Jamboree