Jazz for the Year of the Dragon

The Dream


"Though we are told to mourn it, we must know that it was a noble sound. It had majesty. Yes, it was majestic. Deep down in the soul of it all, where the notes themselves provide the levels of revelation we can only expect of great art, it formed a bridge. That’s right, a bridge. A bridge that stretched from the realm of dreams to the highways and byways and thoroughfares and back roads of action. To be even more precise, let me say that this sound was itself an action..." 


The Dragon


"...Some people might ask, “What is this man doing talking about nobility? Doesn’t he know that this is a dragon-spawned and blood-encrusted century? Doesn’t he know that the dragon breath of our time is breathing down the neck of the year 2000? Doesn’t he know that this is the era of flash and cash?” ..."


written by Stanley Crouch, delivered by Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr. 


This is the Year of the Dragon in Chinese Astrology. Let us listen to the ancient and modern forms of the myth interweave with our creative dream for a new reality, a novel sound, to transcend the European Dragons of Mythic Evil and enter into the Astrological Dream of Good Luck, Power and Creative Strength in this the luckiest year of the Chinese Zodiac.

The Modern Synagogue of Exotic No-Escape

Algerian Women in their Apartments by Eugene Delacroix

I enter a conference/theatre hall in a resort hotel, similar to the Gaylord National Hotel conference center in Maryland. In one of the main halls there is an exotic Asian show, I can’t make it out exactly, but it seems to be a cross between Bollywood and Gamelan. It almost appears as if it were a community center for Philippines cultural activities [my step-dad told me about a non-profit organization who presented at the Gaylord National conference center about Philippine culture]. Suddenly I am walking with my wife, we head into another smaller hall, though it is still quite roomy, because there is a sign that there will be free dining. When we get into the hall, a video is playing with my wife’s original music in the background, we both nod in approval that the sound is good. Then, we find ourselves in the pews of a synagogue service. The man at the front is dressed in regular secular clothes, but is speaking somewhat in Hebrew sermon. A guy my age in front of us speaks up with dissent in an Americanized Hebrew accent and just as I wonder what I am doing there, I wake.

Thursday October 6, 2011