Something very strange happened with the post on jazz today. It seemed you only got half of it. And it ended very abruptly.
I was talking about Matthew Halsall, who set up Gondwana records. He has an affinity with jazz, meditation and Buddhism.
I’ve been studying meditation since I was about 14. My mom’s quite spiritual in general, she’s a bit of a hippie, which I love about her…I became interested in Buddhism and read loads of books on it. I think, for me, as much as the meditation, I like the reading of books about mediation. It makes me feel relaxed. There were always words that were really special. Mudita was one of those and samatha. Those were really nice ones. “The End of Dukkha,” a track from On the Go, is the end of anxiety and stress. There was this big battle in my life going on at that point, so I was trying to bring in different ways of talking about the different moods in my life and put a bit of my own life experience in there as well.
In these dark wintery nights I like to swept off to Nordic climes. Through listening to the sublime music of Norwegian tuba player Daniel Herskedal.
You could do no better than immersive yourself in his track ‘Call to Winter’
But I urge you to listen to more of his music. Just listen without distraction. It is cinematic in it’s scope. For me, there is something about brass played in this way that is reminiscent of the positive pride and strength of the brass bands of northern England where I grew up. Brass band music from that tradition sometimes also has strains of melancholy and sadness, which I hear in Herskedal’s track The Lighthouse.
The freedom of form and expression of jazz, appeals to my meditative mind. It is evocative of how, when we watch our minds, we see where they flow too, the strong currents, the little recurring streams. And just like in jazz we can give it focus, space, and watch the interplay, and should we wish to we can bring a sense of order and focus.
So, thanks for reading this extra post (which should’ve been part of the earlier one - where did that go to?). See you next week.
I watched and listened to the brass jazz track you included. Sublime!