tending the garden

How do you lose credibility in the blogsphere? Easy. Letting your blog languish untended like a garden rife with weeds. So, where I've been? Well, in the literal garden, pulling weeds like nobody's bidness. Therapy of the soil. It's been feeding me on a beautifully unanticipated deep level. Here's how much I love pulling up the unwanteds: Got home at quarter of eight last night from work, dog tired of the computer keyboard and the airless office. The last rays of the sun were still in the sky, so I got in about 20 minutes in the garden. Somehow, this proved more grounding (okay, pun very much intended) than the hour that followed watching American Idol. Why that should be mysterious, I don't know.

Here's another wonder: Just got back from my temple, Yoshi's Nitespot, home of worldclass jazz. A fellow jazz compadre and I went to hear Dave Douglas and his quintet play tunes from their latest recording, Meaning and Mystery. My friend, Paul, bless his open-minded self, was willing to accompany me on faith alone, since he was unfamiliar with the great trumpeter, DD. How cool is that?

Dave Douglas and his quintet delivered a great set of what I dubbed tonight white boy intellectual jazz. Not to say there wasn't funk and soul -- there was -- but mostly when Uri Caine was playing the Fender Rhodes. Nevertheless, it was a pleasure trying to follow Douglas's aural thoughts, accompanying him on the sometimes sweet, sometimes edgy ride. These guys (Donny McCaslin on trumpet, James Genus on bass, Clarence Penn on drums, as well as Caine and Douglas) were so tight, so incredibly in sync, in the way that the best musicians are. Kind of seems like a miracle when the music is that good, but it's not, of course. Dave Douglas has a new music label, Greenleaf, which is an old family name he told the audience tonight. Honestly, not the herb, mon, no. Dave Douglas is also penning a blog, a real jazz lover's nectar.