2022.04.03
Nature is to zoos as God is to churches.
A divorce is like an amputation: you survive it, but there's less of you.
Manson's Law of Avoidance: The more something threatens your identity, the more you will avoid it.
I remember that we were playing "So What", one of Miles' compositions - from, you know, late 50s, I guess. And Tony Williams was playing drums, Ron Carter bass, Wayne Shorter saxophone. And it was a really hot night, the music was tight, it was powerful, it was innovative... and FUN. We were having a lot of fun and the music was ON.
Tony Williams was banging on the drums and right in the middle of Miles' solo when he was playing one of his AMAZING solos, and I'm trying, I'm in there, and I'm playing... right in the middle of his solo I play the WRONG CHORD. A chord that was... it just sounded COMPLETELY wrong, it sounded like a big mistake... and I did this and I went like this [gasps] and I put my hands around my ears and Miles paused for... a second.
And then he played some notes that made my chord right, he made it correct, which ASTOUNDED me. I couldn't believe what I heard. Miles was able to make something that was wrong into something that was right, with the power of the choice of notes that he made and that feeling that he had.
And so I couldn't play for about a minute, couldn't even touch the piano. But what I realize now is that Miles didn't hear it as a mistake. He heard it as something that happened, just an event, and so that was part of the reality of what was happening at that moment and he dealt with it. He... found something that since he didn't hear it as a mistake he felt it was his responsibility to find something that fit and he was able to do that.
That taught me a very big lesson about not only music, but about life. We can look for the world to be as we would like to be as individuals, make it easy for me, that idea, we can look for that. But I think the important thing is that we can grow. And the only way we can grow is to have a mind that's open enough to accept situations, to be able to experience situations as they are, and to turn them into medicine, turn poison into medicine. Take whatever situation you have and make something constructive happen with it. That's what I learned from that situation with Miles.