How Many Miles On That Tool ...

Hello Folks,

OK – armed with new technology – including padded underwear – jumped on the bike and headed out for a loop ride towards town and then back on a lower road and then uphill to the condo.  I still maintain that downhill is good – uphill is bad – that said, the legs are coming around – the butt is not. We are just going to have to visit the American Butt Institute’s web site to get this sorted out. 

As I write this, tomorrow is Photoshop’s 20^th birthday – as I post this, the birthday is today.  It certainly did not begin life as the digital darkroom that it has become .. but the impact this piece of software has had on the development of digital photography is equivalent to the development of the operating system for the PC.  That said – I’d much rather have a point and shoot camera, combined with, the mastery of Photoshop, than own the best DSLR equipment and know nothing about Photoshop.  But I say this, thinking of myself as a mechanic and not an artist.

Today’s photography is Photoshop – today’s music is ProTools, compression and AutoTune – today’s computing is Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.  But that said, somebody has to make music; someone has to take a photo; someone has to write the words – otherwise tools are for naught.

This raises an important issue – what is more important – the artist or the artist’s tool. Despite what I said above, I maintain it is the artist – artist tool experts will disagree with me and they may have a valid point – let me give you an example.

Miles Davis was a musical genius – he was one tough SOB to figure out – but let’s be kind and say that most highly intelligent and creative folks are ‘eccentric’.   Miles played with a number of other equally creative folks and the music they made is ‘classic’.

Jazz, being the free form exploratory and sometime spontaneous music it is, finds it ultimate expression in the ‘jam’ – the explorations of a theme by the members of the ensemble that has gathered together to do just that.  The jams, being the organic things they are, can be mediocre, or, at a given time and place, can be transcendent and revelatory, resulting in ad hoc arrangements that are referenced by other players in homage to what I will call a ‘brilliancy’ – which I will define as the unconscious, spontaneous creation of a piece of music, by an ensemble interacting with each other, that redefines the limits and the possibilities of the music form itself.

Miles Davis had many of these ‘brilliancies’  - now enter Teo Macera.  Teo was a musician himself.  Teo became involved with Davis about the time of Kind of Blue. Teo’s job was mixing and editing – in other words Teo would go through hours of tape, pull out what he thought was good, edit those performances together as a sequence and then produce a track – when all the tracks had been assembled he would play the result to Davis, the other band members, engineers, etc. – there would be some back and forth and Teo would prepare the final tracks, sequence them – and with artwork, liner notes and photography, this would become the final album.

Who’s the artist here – Miles and his fellow musicians, who laid this stuff down – or Teo for excavating it, picking the right pieces, putting the pieces together in the right sequence and assembling it?  I say it’s the laying down – it’s Miles.  Because without that Teo can do nothing – that said, if Teo doesn’t excavate it, do we ever hear it – does it get released as a different edit and sequence that means nothing – that doesn’t have those ‘brilliancies’.  I’d like to think so – but I am not sure ... Teo’s tools were an important part in making sense out of Miles’ explorations – that said, if Miles doesn’t blow, there is nothing to make sense out of ... fascinating, n’est pas?

To quote verse 337 from the Krome Koan,

‘What you don’t do is always more important than what you do, do.’

The hike yesterday was Mill Creek Canyon – Mill Creek runs through Moab, dumping into the Colorado River. The hike was following the creek upstream as far as you like – well after 7 miles you do have to turn around.  There is an old generating facility on the creek that is longer functional – thanks to a flash flood in the 1950s – a great waterfall right there at the old weir.

There was something about this hike that was totally enjoyable – the running water, the steep canyon walls, and the light in there – I loved it – I will be going back to this area for sure.

On the return trek, the winged menace finally showed himself, and was frantically pointing to an area with one wing – when I looked over – there they were – those Canada Geese that he had brought with him from Grand Junction.  OK ... he appears to be assembling a team ... no time to panic .... after all, they are ‘Canada’ Geese ... they must have some loyalty to the country that provides them with the world’s largest outdoor toilet ... wait a minute ... these geese only have one wing .... and it’s on the right ..... and they’re partying ..... and drinking tea ...... oh nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ....

More later,

Phil