interference
February 28, 2007
Life has an irritating habit of getting in the way of important things like writing about music. So: I have changed job (again), moved house (again) and discovered that, all being well, I’m going to be a father in August (a first), but entirely neglected to set down my weighty thoughts on what I’ve seen and heard in the moments between bouts of momentous personal change.
I have, however, kept up the jazz classes, which are immense fun. The tutor, bass maestro Paul Westwood, handles our group of duffers with immense patience and charm, drilling us in scales and chord changes and, increasingly, offering kind and constructive criticism of how we might improve our soloing. It is a luxury to have the regular opportunity to improvise in an encouraging environment, and for the first time in my life jazz harmonic theory makes perfect sense.
I’m under no illusion that I’ll ever be any good – I don’t have the time to devote to it, nor the obsessive self-discipline that woodshedding requires – but it’s a useful corrective to critical omniscience to get the hands dirty again, and remember the phenomenal craft that underlies the improviser’s art.
