FUNCTIONAL JAZZ

MAKING FUNCTIONAL JAZZ

She asks if I am afraid to make my marks—
What if I mess up?
I will.
I pivot. I adapt. I am a source of surprise–
the joy of making.

A learned attitude after laboring over minutia and stressing over surface.
Mary Oliver said I do not need to crawl across the desert on my hands and knees.
I do not need to throw care to the wind to be free.

To let the soft animal of my body be.

And so I watch the jazz–
happening before me.

The bassist playing off of the pianist,
the pianist playing off the drums,
the drums playing off the horns.
The music follows itself around the room like this.

I watch in excitement–
confidence and care in their uncertainty.
Glances between musicians no more than subtle cues between strangers.

Is this how the music is made? My focus narrows in on each of them. Listening, I can hear each instrument one at a time– the steadiness of the bass, the cry of the piano, the thwomp of the drums, and the whine of the horns. Then my focus widens and I hear the whole story again.

This is how I make my pots. A band of elements playing out a story. The form itself, the soft animal of the naked clay, the slip upon it, the marks carved into it, the glazes alone and layered upon it all. They play alone and together, in dissonance and consonance, to make a song– a story.