I periodically experience affirmations of where the musical center of gravity is in my heart. It can happen at any moment as I am listening to Oscar, the (new testament) Basie Big Band, or any other deep swinging happening thing. The other week I came across a live stream from Jazz at Lincoln Center featuring Catherine Russell. Bam. So now the chicken and the egg question: Is this music what reaches me most deeply because I've spent so much of my life immersed in it, to and beyond the point where there is any possibility I can ever accumulate similar time with anything else? Or did I lunge into this musical culture as a teenager (and stay there) because my heart found its home? Yes. But I'm finding a more generalized lesson for myself here as well. I need to find my own (emotional?) connection with whatever it is I want to perform, before I can be anywhere near a satisfactory place (to me) in expressing it. So, once something speaks to me, I can then begin to learn to speak with it, or through it. I need to find that piece or part or area or essence in whatever it is that touches me, in order to connect with my own expression. On one level, this seems obvious, a description of the natural process. On another level, this seems a bit of an epiphany, that can focus my procedure by
understanding my starting point; to find it in my heart/soul before I can begin to effectively manage it in my mind. So (therefore) my most meaningful thoughts are those informed by my deeper feelings. Yes. I need to live in whatever place it is long enough to begin to feel my connection to it (patience, the key to everything). If I apply study to what I can first intuitively find or feel, my study will have more meaning. Okay Joe, get to work (and re-read this every day for the next month).   ;)