Showing posts with label jazz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jazz. Show all posts

Nebula Music: "Fall In"- Esperanza Spalding


My vision of love has evolved over the years with separate experiences, but overall I am unsure about love because it remains undefined. As humans we like to classify things, hoping that by giving something a name or grounding it into our personal level of thinking, we can possibly understand it better. No one knows what love is, yet they try to criticize the love of others. Most of us can't fathom an unknown subject, and when we do come in contact with one we either reject it out of fear, over analyze by picking it apart hoping that it will somehow make sense, or we stare into its eyes, trying to connect pleasurably, simply wondering how such an intriguing thing could have ever been created.


I recently expressed to a friend that I don't love anyone, not that I have never loved before or that I’m incapable of love, but that I am currently not divulging love to those around me. This philosophy led me to examine all of my past expressions of love in order to understand where I am now, and how I got here.
My earliest quest for love was my childhood relationship between my father and me. The irony was that I never saw him much because my mother and I had moved to another state when I was practically a baby. Our visits could be summed up with sporadic phone calls, an occasional card and a few summer visits before the age of ten. Nonetheless, I loved my father, even though I never actually got to know him until recently, after almost 20 years. As a child I dreamed about what love should be like, between my mother, father and I, but that dream never became a reality. I was a child clinging to an idealistic concept of love, while never experiencing what that love could be like. As I grew older, God gave me another father, but then the love that surrounded me had grown into a dysfunctional beast, and by my teenage years I was disgusted with the only love I had known my entire life. 

The love that I trusted had deceived me, and the love I prayed for had never come.

Since I was a little girl I’ve been infatuated with the concept of love, a concept birthed by my vision of what love between two individuals should resemble. Whenever I experienced a particular love that wasn’t ideal, I continued to hope that it would change for the better. When I became exhausted with hoping and teetering back and forth on a tightrope of possibilities, I’d jump off the line, only to find myself coming in contact with the ground.

 " They say if you live in a dream you're hopelessly lost."



It takes .2 seconds to fall in love and become completely smitten with something or someone, for whatever reasons. Love is a conjunction between both the heart and the brain and its biological effects are comparative to euphoria. When in love your veins begin pumping with a cocktail of narcotic chemicals which create a blinding high that seems as if it will never end. But when the high does end, some are left searching for that particular loves equivalent, a buzz as great as what they may have experienced in the past or something better.

"I won't worry if we fall in love, we will never touch the ground, just fall into a dream."

Love is not a seamlessly honest part of reality, it may either deceive or enslave you, but faith in love is not as dangerous as the human beings who posses it.

"Trust me when I say that we’ll never fall... and I may be hopelessly lost, but I managed to find heaven."
 

"Fall In" is a composition about releasing your inhibitions and taking in the drunken-like state of unexplored and addictive love. Esperanza  Spalding  (composer and performer) attests to the hardships of falling in and out of love, but indulges in the possible fate of the love that she has found. A love so worthy that she's willing to put faith in, and lose herself in it. Equating love exploration to floating in the heavens Spalding creates a dream-like sound, both soothing and romantic. “Fall in” is a lofty testimonial to a journey of finding love lost, and wearing it like bare skin, fearless, trusting and without shields.



 


"Life is a flower of which love is honey."

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Jazz Fusion: A Conversation with Marcus Roberts




This sound reminded me of mint chocolate... 

  While listening I closed my eyes and envisioned a park set in the fall, surrounded by trees, golden-red leaves brushing through the cool breeze. I was listening to jazz, damn smooth jazz at that. Music meant to heal the listener. With “He’s always been there” on replay, I was waist deep in sentiment and reflection that put my daily stresses on hold and opened up the door to attainable bliss. Marcus Roberts creates a story that draws from his experiences while remaining universal, “I want to basically be transparent and let people into my head. I figure people are basically the same and some stuff I go through and overcome can help you with situations you come to.”  

  Marcus, head pianist for the Marcus Roberts Trio, “grew up less fortunate” than a lot of the musicians he’s worked with and throughout his success he still remains humble. “I respect the things I’ve achieved a lot more. I really thank God for puttin’ me in situations that made me work for my skills.” Most of the artists he’s “shared the stage with” received music lessons at an early age and “were cultured in music their whole adolescence”, but Roberts bears a history that yields the most unique creativity, the kind listeners can relate with.

   Inspired by the likes of artistic greats such as Michael Jackson, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Stevie Wonder, Marcus infuses classic and contemporary sounds. Under the name Mavrick Traxx, Marcus cooks up R&B and Hip-Hop styled beats, his goal being that secular artists become inspired and “get back to creating music that means something and makes you feel a certain way.”

   There is nothing certain like the high you feel when great artists work together to create a piece that is profoundly satisfying. I have a huge appreciation for mash-ups, the type of music that’s mainstream, but can’t be aimlessly thrown into the pop genre because it’s that deep. Marcus serves this type of collaboration; he has worked with national artists from Montel Jordan, Ray J, and Eric Roberson to local and indie artists like Algebra Bassett, and Choklate. “I like working with others because of the different musical conversations that occur.”

   These “conversations”, not to be confused with lectures, the type of shallow music that's merely "good" to listen to, (When music should remain multifaceted) can be found on Marcus’s upcoming jazz record entitled “3”. You can also find Marcus Roberts and a host of Hip-Hop artists at Park in Downtown Dallas on September 30 for “The Cipher”, the first in a series of Thursday night performances as a part of the Green Bandana Project: So hot you need a password.


Honey is sticky,but the bee is sweet …

8<3Track Honey

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Bar Tales Chapter 3: Longing



It is always dangerous to talk about love while staring into a girl's eyes.

The big brown vessels that are mirrors, that are tunnels, that are gavels rendering judgment.

You were a feminist who hated questions.

A traveler who loved the bed.

Maybe you are a fierce lover.

Maybe you bite and cry.

I hope you unravel like a ball of yarn.

I hope you slink that sexily.

I bet you have been broken. Hurt.

You want someone to love. I just want something real.

I want to fall in love with an angel and teach her about God.

I want to have my heart cry.

I want that joy and that uncertainty.

I want something even jazz can't bury.

I need more than cool Dallas nights.

I need more than her beauty. Her soft brown features.

I need more than what she can give me.

I need pain. I need that brokenness. That fragility.

That triumphant strength, that ecclesiastic exhale.

I need that faith, that judgment, that fire,

that loneliness, that mystery -

I need so much more than just a good fuck.

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Bar Tales Chapter 2: Glynetta



Brandy alexander nights when cinnamon slips past the lips
delicious milky kiss, liquid dreams, jazz bar scene
sippin summertime, texas was easy
living in a jeweled city,
bass guitar color of a peach martini
harmonica cues ragtime rules
scattered applause whenever words go off
holdin the mic cocky like music ain't enough
like you wouldn't trade a trumpet solo for a sculpted ass
like a hundred g's ain't better than jazz

like you don't wish you could be the immaculately dressed
too hot to retire lounge singer
who still has pipes enough to make young women cry
whose grandkids would rather listen to lil wayne
who is tucked away in the corner of a forgotten bar
singin' Stand By Me, holding a cigarette,
glistening as the band jams fun glam
what you wouldn't give to be that real
on nights as quiet as a timpani roll

I go to bars to find God
to find myself a stranger
black man singin Etta James, I like to feel
that blue struggle, the grimy love, interlocking melodies
the tug of war of the soul
the caress of a woman on my back
the unknown comfort of the stranger
those moments when you can sip your favorite drink
and find yourself lost in a breeze of piano chords
the bustle and laughter all around you
when you can be by yourself and still be happy
when you can find out what love really is

those sometimes when you close your eyes
and there are flowers all around you.

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