Jazz.

Something about jazz flows into your life. You could have played one jazz song once, you could listen to it all the time, you could take one picture of a musician or you could be an aficionado. No matter your experience, the minute you touch jazz it engulfs you, and changes you from the inside out.

Something about the improvisation, the divine falling together of music. Communal living off of sound waves. It changes you. You begin to take life less seriously. When you go to get something to eat and find out that the restaurant is closed, when you run out of gas or blow a tire on the highway... Even, yes, even when you get lost in a strange city jazz quietly whispers out your name. It gives you your game plan. It casually tells you in it's silky, cool voice made from years in clubs to;

"Improvise."
All of the sudden you discover a new restaurant, you walk to a new place and meet new friends, and you discover the heart of the city. America, the land of opportunity, and discovery.


Jazz, the real American music. The one style that is wholly American. Born from the spirit of what makes us, well, us. New Englanders made new ways of surviving, they created something out of nothing. We've found ways to survive over the years. America does a good job of evolving with the times, redefining ourselves to fit with new times. Our Constitution was written in such a way to apply to things unforeseeable.
Whispering it to us. "Improvise." In this spirit America does everything.

But, wait, what happened to the spirit of jazz? The silken, cool, go-with-the-flow nature in which notes fit together? The adventure, the real adventure that jazz music is. I am not saying to go out there and buy every jazz album you can, to become an expert on such an evolving, changing, living thing. But let it reach out and touch you. Although, if you let it swallow you, no doubt you will be a lot happier than you were before.

If your tire blows, if you don't know what to have for dinner, don't get hung up on convenience and how America has changed into everything I need, right now, my way or the high way, rush rush rush and never ever slow down to create something.

Make something out of nothing. Improvise. MacGyver. Create. You'll be so much happier when you forget your to-do lists and make an adventure out of the mundane.

Improvise. It'll fall into a cadence eventually. It's more the journey than the end.