Let me begin by stating that in all of my years of pursuing the arts through sculpting, painting and designing, no creative process has given me a greater pleasure or a more instantly self sustaining sense of gratification than this jam. Of course there are gigantic intellectual satisfactions to be had in sculpting or fabricating something to the highest museum standards but there is a reason why they don't call that playing. The finished product represents a laborious journey that has very little to do with immediacy. It's never really a frolic and no body who I know has ever gone out of there way to do it because the act of making ones way through the often toxic chemicals, resins, glass fibers and, noxious vapors just feels so dammed good.
The jam, on the other hand just feels so dammed good. For me and the vast majority of those who've attended, the jam is an immediate source of Joy through participation , on the spot creativity and, often instantaneous invention that I could never have been able to predict in it's genesis . It is surrounded by and generates incredible levels of positive energy. All who come contribute just by being there and, no two jams are ever quite alike.
It started with only a few of us, Halloween 2006, me, Ken, Adam, Josh and, Omar. It was a cozy little acoustic thing, not an amp or drum in the house, just guitars and pages of chords and lyrics printed from the internet. As it progressed, more friends were invited , who in turn, brought more friends and musicians and suddenly my cozy little strum along became a self propelled musical open house, welcoming musicians and music lovers from every walk of life. Then came the amps, small but many and the black spagetti of cords and the house guitars and the rattles, shakers, tambourines and assorted noise toys and, well the pictures begin to tell the tale. It has happened without exception, every Tuesday ever since. Even when I'm out of town, friends and neighbors keep it going. As I write this, I'm guesstimating that we've done somewhere around 140 tuesdays in a row.
As the attending musicians became better and better I simply couldn't keep up with the guitar and moved toward percussion. Omar brought a magnificent Balinese djembe which became the first musical instrument that I actually fell in love with. I ended up buying my own djembe (that I like but, alas, am not in love with) and added a double kick peddle on a timbale and a third peddle for tambourine and cow bell. More drummers started to come and they of course brought more drums. At this point I have to say, judging by how the room seems to jump up and down, we've got one hell of a rhythm section.
The diversity of musicians whom have visited is almost hard to believe and makes me ashamed to have not done a better job taking pictures. There is no question in my mind that there have been more musicians whom have come and played their hearts out, not represented in this blog at this point than those whom are. We've entertained more guitarist than I can honestly count, we've had violins, clarinets, flutes, penny whistles, banjos, clay dumbeks, cellos, sax, wonderful singers, didgeridoos and a host of harmonicas. As I'm putting all of this together I deeply lament the absents of their images. All that I can effectively do in this regard is promise to be more conscientious about taking pictures and feeding the blog weekly, now that it exists.
I will miss you guys this week.... jam away some good vibes to me, I'll be blocks away at NYU on 17th and 2nd!!!
ReplyDeletexoxoxo
Curly