God, I don’t know where to start. If you drop by here regularly, you know that I always approach what I write about from a (very) personal and instinctive vantage point. It either has to be very close to my heart or I have to hate it. Both aspects bring out the most passionate responses. Often I have to root around parts in my head that I don’t always like to root around in to drag up or sometimes even unearth things that I buried a long time ago. To make a long story short, this one is going to be one of the more difficult posts to write. Try to bear with me … I’ll get to the point (relatively) soon.

When jazz greats die, there are always tons of people posting their R.I.P. lines on the various jazz forums around, writing up a few lines about how good this or that musician or singer was, what albums they loved and how important said artist was (or wasn’t). This time, when I joined the line of mourners, I tried to write something and could only post a line of sad smileys. That was it.

Why?
You need some patience for the answer. Continue Reading →