A concert review, from some years ago, concluded with "Joe's artistry is best enjoyed live in concert where he is comfortably spontaneous and plays with a controlled abandon..." The reviewer confessed to me, after the concert, that he didn't "get it(/me)" until hearing me that day, having only encountered my playing in the context of a rhythm section, up until that concert. Or to put it another way, he (certainly) wasn't a fan prior to the event. Not to say that he necessarily became one afterward, but that what(ever it is that) I bring to the table became more clear to him, or more accessible in that experience. I learned a lot from this, and continue to learn, even as the review was written over a decade ago. Here's what I can articulate, at this point in the unfolding process; My core is improvisational abandon. My path, and presentation, is abandon within structure. Perhaps my strength is creating a sense of "and now what is he going to do?" while at the same time always allowing the listener to know where they are. Tethered abandon, perhaps? Am thinking so, and that the "tethering" holds the control. In my own process, this has become important to get a handle on. Although I can improvise freely for lengths of time, an overarching structure in these improvisations is typically weak, at best. I have hundreds of "free" (or free leaning) improvisations recorded, the great majority unreleased (and unstructured.) One of the things I'll often say, lightheartedly, about myself is that I enjoy structure, especially when someone else provides it for me. And when I say this, I'm not thinking so much about music, but about life in general. But when it comes to music, and specifically, my approach to it, these words make perfect sense. It takes me back to a book by Huston Smith in which he discusses esoterics and "exoterics", and their relationship to each other. One point he makes is that exoterics can provide the structure within which esoterics can operate, which he likens to shells and kernels; the kernel being the creative/big picture/spiritual force, and the shell being that which houses it, so to speak, and allows it to be. He summarizes, "No shells, no kernels" (he then goes on to say that the esoteric understands the need for the exoteric, but the reverse doesn't old. That's a whole other discussion). So here's a statement. I need structure, and probably more so than the average Joe, because I can't easily provide it for myself. And in music, that's what the song does (or is), structure. And I am at my best abandon when tethered to it. Or controlled within it.