Being a kind of anecdotal instructional
how-to (and sometimes painful how-not-to), to convey the elusive magic of group
improvisation, different every time, so sensitive to all factors, and so emblematic
of all human relations. An experiential overview of the confluence and conflict
of different musical styles and expectations: acoustic/electric, world
beat/rock, drummers/guitarists, perfectionists/amateurs, safe/risk,
stoned/straight, standards/improvisation, men/women, fifties/sixties, tight/free.
At the core of the journey is the learning of the limited individual ego, with
its unique talents and limitations, to negotiate the free and structured spaces
with others, to merge in the greater group striving for excellence and beyond,
ecstatic union. And in attempting to convey this spirit and
process, sometimes letting the words speak for themselves, players in the mix,
jamming on the universal pulse.
It will keep the
perfect time if we are relaxed enough to feel into it, get into the groove of
the all-becoming, through us in cosmic unfolding now here in the awareness boom
of our own making and consciousness-keeping: circles of celebration, our sacred
duty to carry on, act out in the street theatre of the us and now, the who are
we today and tomorrow: to wipe the old memories out where useless, so as to
free up disk space for the more creative functioning of programs yet to be
heard. Carrying on the energy of youth, of what’s alive today, even with the
rhythms of ancient times, cutting through the buzz and blare of advertising
unconsciousness, pap and blather obscuring who we are together in the ongoing
beat of the keys of right now, who are you, what’s going now and let’s get to
it: jamming, of course, into the night if that’s what it takes, universal
language music. Fatala says: beyond spiritual politics.
I want to hold too the
clear consciousness of clarity and space and time enough for all, of social
fabric in music which is metaphorical for all of us relating, ritual the form
by which to recognize it, all in the sacred circle dancing, carrying the rock, drinking the
potion of our life, sacred fluid together in veins interlinked, consciousness
behind the shifting scenes, it’s all a kind of body, a common or linked
consciousness behind the shifting scenes of our life interactions, our separate
bodies merely limbs and organs and cells of the moving animal that is our human
and of course, larger living and nonorganic life, the earth our body, the earth
our consciousness. I want to remember this sense of unity and harmony, I almost
say purpose but purpose being mostly in the awareness itself, of what this
beast is and to appreciate the wonder of its working. To see in this way, the
art in everything, the art of everything, that it’s all an ongoing jam, a huge
street theatre, we’re playing parts even when we’re unconscious of it, or
partially aware, or forgetful, vindictive, and other ways obscured-mind human,
which after all is the game we’ve chosen, at some level, to play. All a large
computerlike draft, us the players in the unseen program, all the more wondrous
because we do have the chance, anytime we wake up to the moment, to enter the
programming level and modify, customize, add wrinkles to the brainfold rules,
shades of meaning to the patterns, embellishments on the mother beat.
This is visionary: hard
to maintain against the play of personality, the separateness of our voices
when we talk and write and explore to the utmost our personal and individual
opinions and variations. Again the music metaphor is relevant, for the secret
of harmonizing these individual understandings is to play together: to allow
with tolerance and yet resonance the separate strands to color the tone of the
whole, to weave into the hybrid code. To blend the obscurities of rhythmic
variation into the common ongoing underlying pulse . . . pulse
. . . pulse . . . of our common body which is the
sacramental understanding of human unity, love. If this is cosmic purpose in
any literal or anthropomorphic sense, so be it. If only symbolic in that way
through our own imaginings, that’s as well. It’s the tone of the interactions
and spirit of our lives together that counts in either case, and if it be
prophetic to state it thus, so be that too.
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next excerpt from
The Friday Night Jam, by Nowick Gray