On Doing Things
“As you become an adult, you realize that things around you weren't just always there; people made them happen. But only recently have I started to internalize how much tenacity *everything* requires. That hotel, that park, that railway. The world is a museum of passion projects.” John Collison, CEO of Stripe, on Twitter, 2022.
Describing the world as “a museum of passion projects” has only become more hauntingly accurate for me over time, and the phrase still pops into my head occasionally….
…It applies to both the large and the small: the infrastructure of New York City itself is basically just Robert Moses’ ossified passion project, for better or worse. While the phrase is most obvious in a physical sense, I think it’s equally true in an artistic sense when it comes to the best books, movies, music, etc. They too are “a museum of passion projects.” And it makes me worried that technological tools of convenience—the newest of which is generative AI—will sap the passion required to make things by rendering them too thoughtless to produce, inculcating a laziness that dims the bright candle of human artistic drive.
I was at Brooklyn Recording, legendary engineer Andy Taub’s passion project, for two days earlier this week, recording a new album with vocalist and composer Yoon Sun Choi. For this, her first album as the sole leader and composer, she put together a quartet featuring pianist Jacob Sacks, bassist Thomas Morgan, and myself. Produced by Geoff Kraly of paris_monster, this project been nearly twenty years in the making.
I can remember playing a Yoon gig with Thomas and Jacob in 2006 in the 7 PM slot at the 55 Bar. We only played a handful of times— Thomas and I thought we might have played six gigs in total back then— but each one was special. Mostly I remember trying to hang on as Jacob and Thomas reordered the musical universe to their liking while Yoon followed her imagination, creating human connection with her voice and the realness of her presence.
Yoon expended a lot of energy getting us together, an incredible amount of work— she composed all the music, scheduled rehearsals, booked a bunch of shows, planned the sessions, etc. There’s not much financial incentive to making a new recording, yet people do love them. (Here’s my latest, of which I’m very proud.) If you make a great album, it does get noticed, it does get appreciated, someone will fall in love with it. Folks will certainly love this one when it’s released. She did a good and brave thing.
Bravo Brava, Yoon Sun Choi!
Pianist Orrin Evans is a strong and independent force in the music. He has his own label, tours and records on his own schedule, mentors and assists young players, and is a pillar of the community. When you’re around him, you can feel it, you can sense the strength of his convictions, how they inform and guide his music.
Evans’s own Imani Records is hosting Club Patio Jazz Day this Saturday, August 31st, outside Philadelphia in Fort Washington, PA. I’ll be performing in a duo with Caleb Wheeler Curtis, my collaborator in Ember, who has a new album coming out soon on Imani. Tickets are available here. If you can’t make it to the Philly area but still want to support, consider purchasing a ticket. We’re hoping this will become an annual event.
To get the idea of Orrin’s community-minded individualism, just watch this YouTube clip. Shminstagram page, Mishtagram page. Those are good pages.
My recent Kenny Clarke post, surveying his work with Miles Davis, was a distillation of many drafts, composed over a few months, each quite long and rambling, grappling with what I started to hear on Walkin’ and Bags’ Groove— Billy Eckstine and Dizzy Gillespie, ballrooms and jam sessions, rebirth and triumph, ancient to modern. Listening over and over, I understood that there was both great meaning in what Kenny Clarke and Miles and Co. were playing, and that it’s just great music. Walkin’ and Bags’ Groove and Kenny Clarke absolutely don’t need me to explain them. The music speaks for itself.
Shoutout to Mr. John Wilson, a great drummer from North Carolina who showed me how to love those records when I was in high school— thank you John. Special thanks to the many comments left by readers, which rounded out the picture of Kenny Clarke in 1954. I am doing this for you. Miles, Kenny Clarke, and their cohort made that music for folks like us, passionate fans, true believers, people who (not to be too dramatic) really need that music. It’s meant to be loved; that’s why they did it.
Kenny Clarke, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Percy Heath, Horace Silver, Milt Jackson, J.J. Johnson, and Lucky Thompson all chose to make the music they made. It wasn’t predestined; 1954 didn’t walk up to them and say “Hey guys, jazz history says it’s time to make some beloved and innovative records.” These were both ordinary and extraordinary folks who needed to play as much as we needed their music. That intensity on Walkin’ and Bags’ Groove drove me to put the essay together; the music’s existence represented a victory for all involved. Every note was their lives, everything was on the line, all the time.
Life was different in 1954, I can scarcely imagine it. But I know that the door wasn’t any more open for Miles Davis and Kenny Clarke than it was for us. If they hadn’t cared so much, why would they have done it? If you don’t care, why do anything?
Fantastic post, Vinnie!
This John Collison quote -- "The world is a museum of passion projects" -- is going on my wall. Thanks for that and for spotlighting the amazing energy of Orrin Evans. Philly knows, the world will catch up eventually.