The Secret Service

When you are backing a singer or a soloist it's like being part of the Secret Service. You don't see secret service agents staring at the wall and looking bored EVER! No, because their mission is CLEAR; they are to protect the President AT ALL COSTS, even if it means sacrificing their own lives. Mind, heart, intuition, breath, EVERYTHING is focused on the protection of the President.

IT IS THE SAME WITH MUSIC; EGOLESS SERVICE TO THE MUSIC AND TO THE MUSICIANS. Bradford Marsalis remembers what Coltrane's drummer ELVIN JONES had to say about this.

"a lot of younger musicians were hanging around with Elvin Jones, and they were talking about, ‘Man, you know, you guys had an intensity when you were playing with Coltrane. I mean, what was it like? How do you play with that kind of intensity?’ And Elvin Jones looks at them and says, ‘You gotta be willing to die with the motherfucker.’ They started laughing like kids do, waiting for the punchline, and then they realized he was serious...."

The AWARENESS needs to be resilient and flexible enough to maintain awareness on the execution of an instrument and feel (holding your own), while at the same having an awareness of the entire band as ONE UNIT (giving your all).

I tell my students that it is the drummer's DHARMA to be the OCEAN for JESUS to walk on. This requires a balanced ego, massive intuition, dedicated practice, and LOTS OF LISTENING AND RESEARCH. Peter Erskine says in the new DRUMHEAD magazine,

"Imagine, the rhythm section is a bright blue background and the soloist cuts a brilliant red diagonal stripe across it, it makes no sense for us to turn red"

RHYTHM SECTION = OCEAN
SOLOIST = JESUS WALKING

Hunting for Jesus

This morning I AM AWAKE VERY EARLY after going to bed VERY LATE. Al Green's song "Jesus Is Waiting" is playing in my head before I got up and now in my headphones. Here I sit guided by a strong predisposition to write. As'f this article has already been written. (As'f is my new favorite made up word :))

Last night I glanced at an article in a newspaper at DENNY'S (full moon :)). It was about how the Boone & Crockett club of Missoula, Montana had recently given their concurrence that the world's largest antlered Bull Elk is now dead and is a new world record for big game.

This morning in an ordinary epiphany I connected the Al Green song with this dead elk. What is the aggressive thirst to nail down forms; to control rather than to allow? This must be why so many artists either wind up insane, dead too soon, or religious. Once the inability to attain anything with FORM dawns as a reality, then the formless eternity of God is the next logical hunt.

I have mentioned before in this blog my theory of THE CROSS; the VERTICAL or INNER aspect of art which deals with spiritual practice and fulfillment; the HORIZONTAL or OUTER aspect that deals with knowledge and skill in action. But I found the third and crucial element, THE INTERSECTION, in this amazing piece in THE POCKET ZEN READER translated by Thomas Cleary.

INWARD AND OUTWARD VIEWS

To cling to oneself as Buddha, oneself
as Zen or the Way, making that an un-
derstanding, is called clinging to the inward
view.

Attainment by causes and conditions,
practice and realization, is called the out-
ward view,

Master Pao-chih said, "The inward view
and the outward view are both mistaken."

Pao Chih also says in this book,
"Just seek nothing at all, and afflictions will naturally fall away"