5th movement from sketches of spain. not performed by miles, unfortunatly, but allright all the same. this music inspires me. have been reading (and watching) up on the influence of muslim/arabic culture on europe, and it's pretty intense. now when i listen to sketches of spain, i don't hear spain, but the middle east. i remember reading an article on carlos santana talking to miles davis about how all music comes from africa, even spanish music. and miles wouldn't buy it.... but damn, if carlos ain't right on the money. i used to forget that marrocco and all those countries ARE indeed part of africa...
i have been writing some new music, too. inspired by miles davis and brant bjork. 'trying to write something more instrumental, landschape type of music. like sketches of spain, but way more stripped down and simple. the rock and roll approach, essentially. coincidentally i've also been listening to a lot of corrosion of conformity (Corrosion Of Conformity - Drowning In A Daydream), and it's blowing my mind. their 1996 album 'wiseblood' is one of the best rock records of the 90's. damn, it just swings and grooves on all ends. there's something to be said for southern musicians. on their latest 2005 record, in the arms of god, they've got a cat called stanton moore playing drums. he's a jazz cat from new orleans, and man, i got to tell you, those are some of the best drumtracks i've ever heard someone play under heavy rock music. people tend to forget that a lot of the early rock drummers (mitch mitchell (hendrix), ginger baker (cream), bill ward (black sabath)) were heavily jazz influenced, and that kind of seems to have gotten lost along the way. this is another song, not the jazz drummer, but pretty righteous all the same, from their earlier 1994 record 'deliverance'. you can still distinctly hear the metal influence (more so than in the above clip i linked to), but it's very open and groovin, southern style.
after another mediocre prac with my cats i've descided to part way with the guitar and bass player for various reasons. don't want to go too in dept (mainly because i've already done that a bunch of times to some of you readers) but it was just kind of becoming a drag. i wasn't having fun anymore. like the old thelonious monk used to say; man, you played it better when you didn't know it! - so now i'm looking for a new bass player. no more second guitar stuff, it's one of the things that really holds me back. i'm an avid fan of space and freedom in music, and two guitars just fill it up too much. i've come to the realisation there's only a handfull of cats i would like to share guitar duties with. if i'm going to add another instrument i'd rather have a hammond organ player. they're hard to find, but man, i would love to play with one! now that i think of it, a hammond player could also hold down the low end (bass) if it needed to, so i might look into one of those cats if finding a bass player gets too hard. not just betting on one horse, i guess. i would love to add a brass player too, sax or trumpet, but that will happen in due time when i'm reunited with my brother mark. we'll kick some ass once our shoes are broken in, that's for sure. been spending a lot of time inside, thinking, reading up on all sorts of things. still try to get in 20-30 kilometers on the bike everyday, and plenty of sunshine when it's raining, so it's not like i'm stagnant. will just need to sit this one out, because i know it will sort itself out somehow, i just need to be patient and ride with it. in the mean time i keep writing tunes and my vision for the record i'm gonna be making in september/october keeps getting stronger, so i'm pretty stoked. a long spiel, mostly music related today again. hope you all can deal with it. i rap about music a lot, but then again, my life is centered around it, so what else am i going to talk about? global economics? politics? i dont't think so, brotherman.....
