Friday Night Jam

Nowick Gray

Cougar WebWorks

VICTORIA, BC

Copyright © 2014 by Nowick Gray

All rights reserved.

Published by:

Cougar WebWorks

www.CougarWebWorks.com

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Gray, Nowick, 1950-, author

Friday night jam / Nowick Gray.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-4995-6682-6 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-0-9811431-2-5 (epub)

1. Improvisation (Music)--Instruction and study. I. Title.

MT68.G782 2014 781.3'6 C2014-905267-7

C2014-905268-5

Friday Night Jam

Introduction (1996)

During the last six years a number of the local

neophyte drummers have attempted to breathe

life into and out of that longer-lived institution,

the Friday Night Jam. Haven of Elvis aficionados

and Credence Clearwater hacks, Willie Nelson

impersonators and would-be-Deadheads, the

Friday Night Jam has lived by one rule: anything

goes. Unfortunately for my taste, the “any” part

of it sometimes gets lost in the Standards shuffle.

Which is to say, group improvisation is hard to do

well. When it works, however, it’s dynamite, true

inspiration, golden. It can even redeem the most

tired of oldies, given an injection of altered lyrics,

rhythms, and original solos.

The chronic problem at the Friday Night Jam

has been to amalgamate the Afro-Latin drums

and percussion with the western guitars,

accordion, piano, harmonica, and their associated

forms: primarily in the straight-ahead four-four

mold. The drummers generally want to lean the

beat over to the offbeat, the syncopated, the

reggae. Reggae has been a convenient meeting

ground because the compromise is simply found

in the regular upbeat. But more than that is the

issue of a controlled, recognizable “song” versus

an extended, authentic and moveable jam.

Group drum jam energy works best in waves,

without restrictions of straightjacket lyrics,

measures, predetermined chord changes. You can

put it all together in a great package, if you’re

Santana or Olatunji. For us amateurs, that

challenge takes work and practice as a group, and

these are not appropriate to the looser anarchy of

the jam. Even the oft-attempted “Let’s take turns

and go around the circle for starting something”

is hard to maintain consistently in that venue. So

success is left to chance, to who shows up and the

mood they’re in, to the phase of the moon or the

health of the crop or the status of one’s lovelife, to

how many drums can support each other for the

occasional detour down Africa lane. It’s all about

listening, and sharing leadership, and these are

qualities that don’t come to us easily or

automatically.

The biggest obstacle in this culture comes

from the worship of the guitar god. The lead

guitar calls the shots: sets the melody and mood,

determines the volume (easily overpowering

drums with a twist of the amp button, or

requiring them to tone down, if there’s no amp,

until the natural projective life goes out of them).

It’s true that rhythm is fundamental and so a

single percussionist can take any song and shift

its character, ruin it or drive it to new life. But in

terms of group dynamics, the guitarist is

generally preeminent, by default. Everyone looks

to them for the next song, waits for them to

retune, and depends on the structures that they

have memorized and are offering as a well-

furnished boat for everyone to ride in. What the

drummer offers is support: this is what is

expected. For a drummer to share or take the lead

is not expected or easily allowed. Conversely, it’s

hard for other musicians used to taking lead

melodic parts to learn to settle for supportive,

truly rhythmic roles.

So lately the jam is in decline. Lately there

haven’t been many drummers showing up,

because when we do, we’re held back by the

inertia of low energy, low volume, and low

creativity. We, like the other musicians, are aging,

or have a lot of distractions on our minds, or are

afraid to boldly take the loose reins, or have

simply given up trying—for now. But as always,

it’s different every week. Who knows what

stranger or visitor will show up this time, or what

random collection of hideaways will decide to

come out and celebrate this full moon? When it

fails it’s deadly dull, and a Friday night wasted.

But when it clicks, and moves into magic, there’s

nothing like it in the world.

1991

September 23, 1991

Day after Fall Faire and I’m sitting here dull

and reeling after a weekend full of the social

whirl, performance Saturday afternoon, again at

night by campfire, drums drums drums, the

lesson being, this time, again, to listen, to tone

down enough perhaps if that’s what it takes to

listen, to converse. This lesson arose in the jam on

the first good song after the long instrumental,

and Walkin came in with the lyric again, and I

interrupted in the next half line with an inane

idea for a title. Peter had to say, “Too late,

Nowick” and that killed the song. All right, it’s

not a conversation, it’s a ceremony.

Music, like life, is a learning in social relations,

interactions. Sometimes it’s complicated, or I care

too much, or try too hard, or find it a difficult

sport. I do better at the individual sports, I always

found; does that imply playing as a drum soloist?

No, the best is when the teamwork, the laughter,

the ceremony clicks.

1992

January 4, 1992

The drums played beyond performance

anxiety on New Year’s Eve because the

appreciative dancers were eating it up, and the

band was grooving, and I was feeling good. To

find again, get in touch with the inner voice, the

voice that needs to speak. Not plodding, muted,

dull and lifeless, bored and sick of life, but

determined to share what is of worth, what is

experienced in the social impulse of shared stories

and mutual energy, having to do with self-

confidence and feeling of acceptance, and thus

freedom of self-expression. To accept the role of

shaman to drum, to speak the incantations that

will connect us. To be inspired and thus conspire

with the sacred rhythms; to be a keeper of the

rhythms, the tales, the songs. This is the

responsibility, the joy of the artist.

On the one end, to invoke the muses and other

helping spirits, and to placate the evil ones. On

the other, to translate, to convey, to be the

medium and the vehicle between the visible and

the unseen worlds, the living and the dead and

unborn. To bridge the rainbow arch between

people and nature, between people and their own

inner nature, their destiny and origins. To honor

the flow between the various worlds of

experience, and the integrity of each.

January 17, 1992

Lars and Jane and I arrived with the “heavy

artillery,” me saying, “These guys’ll freak out

when they see all these drums.” We started

mellow, and worked into some good tunes

together, except I blew it with “Black Magic

Woman” when I got the mike in my hand, going

off-key and low-energy and pointing into the

amp for wild feedback. Finally Peter attempted a

slow, swinging “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” on

the organ, but Lars and William and Dick and I

kept rocking along with some driving rock beat

long after Peter sat slumped inert at the keyboard;

on and on we drove until my hands were tired

and sore, and finally as he sat there still I said,

“Well Peter, did we destroy your song?” And he

said, “Totally.” So we sat speechless for a while,

and he got up and took out his guitar and sat on

the washtub and played a few mellow acoustic

tunes, no accompaniment except a little of Dick

on the piano, and Lars finally a bit on the conga,

and I got up and moved to a seat against the far

wall, brooding, and Jane looked like she was

ready to leave, and I started to pack up too;

William meanwhile sitting off on an opposite

bench cool and professionally unruffled, and

finally saying, “Aw, don’t let Willie Nelson there

scare you off.” Okay, man. See you guys again.

February 12, 1992

First annual 24-hour drum jam. One rule: Keep

the beat going.

We arrived at the hall, called in the four

directions, chanted, beat the steady 210 of the

shaman’s drum, Michael and Walkin and Jane

and Rowena and I, and a guy from New Denver:

gettin in the mood. Then began a good rolling

rock in the forming circle, with a jazz beat offset

by Ken. Julie, Lars, Doug all showed up and

joined.

From there, a pastiche, a roller coaster, a

trading of percussion toys, a sharing of drums,

ongoing beat. Peter and Michael show up, go like

crazy. Later, Julie and Jane with Peter, Doug and

New Denver, cohesive and driving.

Sometimes it didn’t always work. During the

most high-energy jamming, as between Michael

and me, or me on the good djembe and Nigel on

the yew, I’d be self-centered, loud and

improvisational. Julie and Nigel later would say

they’d look for the quietest drum, to play to that;

or that the loud stuff was overbearing,

impenetrable, lost on a jag. Lars remarked that

traditionally African drummers didn’t play free of

the forms until age 30, after fifteen years of

practice. “Yeah,” I replied, “but we’ve been

listening to jazz for twenty years.”

Miles Davis said, “There are no mistakes.”

Walkin said, “It’s all good.”

Into the night, the evening and night.

Michael lays down, Julie and I take it up. Me

on the big bass, her on the djembe, steady, slow,

and powerful. Michael says, “That was the best

music I’ve heard in Argenta.” I say, “That’s what I

thought hearing you guys play when I lay down

to sleep.”

Of course I didn’t sleep.

When we lay out in the circle on the mats and

benches, we took rattles and shakers in our

hands, to keep the beat. At one point only I was

up, with the sticks. Then New Denver relieved

me, and he took up the slow bass djembe.

Toward morning we made strong black coffee

and got into some grooved jamming, alternating

with slow breathers. At one sparse point Doug

said, “It feels like some Buddhist colony.”

Okay, I thought, and once more set up a

sustained 210 on the yew drum, chanting Om

with New Denver beside me, Doug cross-legged

on the mat opposite. Jane nearby; Julie

wandering, Lars and Michael gone, Ken asleep or

out. It took off—the rolling drumstick beats, the

billowing group voice.

Nigel walked in, dumbstruck. Later he said,

“It felt like a church, a sacred space. You guys

were egoless, totally spaced out. You’d gotten rid

of everything, burned it all away.” He took over

the driving force on the yew drum, eyes closed

and grooving from then on, the last four hours. “I

figured you’d need the energy boost by then.”

When it’s over, we drift outside in the sun on

bright morning snow. And the ravens pick it up

and carry it on: quork, a quork-quork... qu-qu-qu-

qu-quork...

July 24, 1992

Big warm-up party jam, with ginseng, brandy

and pot, till midnight when X arrives stoned on

mushrooms and with pot brownie to share

morsels of, energy for more music and talk in

Third World Stone Age limited lingo words

without connectors:

truth... you... everyone... always... why... why...

when... ah, yes, when... now?... all time... no

time... world to shit... them... ripped off...

garbage... in mind?... whose... beautiful teeth...

yours... good looking you... you fuck other

women?

“No,” I answer, “past... not any more...

different life now... happy.”

Sept. 7, 1992

Fine debacle of a music politics on Saturday.

Nigel having said show up to play, and put a

poster on the board with the same message.

Richard arrives and sets up on stage; William

lurking beside, then up with the keyboard. But

then John steps in and says we can play off to the

side; Michael concurs, “Yeah we’re gonna play for

an hour and see what happens after that,” and

Nigel caps it off with, “It’s just gonna be the four

of us. The guy wants to turn the canned music on

after that.”

I’m resigned to it, Richard dismantles, William

bullheaded stays to play. Good for him, Gary says

later. Okay fine.

Boring old rock and roll, it turned out,

uninspiring for dancing, listening, or playing. A

wave of karma rolling out, said Richard the next

day. Michael, the next night, apologizes and

profusely disavows any role in the strictures on

personnel, then or in the future. John mentions a

lukewarm apology to me, “Sorry about what

happened.” Nigel remarks how pissed off he was

that the DJ pulled the plug on his voice mike

halfway through the last number.

Hmmm, I wonder who the real culprit is?

Willing to give these the benefit of the doubt and

blame the DJ, or the wedding organizers whoever

they may be, it still smacks of a turnabout and

power trip...

That’s okay, I still got my guitar (Hendrix).

I told Michael that the experience sealed it for

me: I was through with rock and roll. I told John

that I realized I didn’t want to play that kind of

music anyway; instead I accepted the

responsibility to get together an act that could

play the kind of music I liked. Lars, Richard, Julie

were on same wavelength, at least. Michael and

Nigel say so too. Peter? Hank? Jane? What about

Dick P. and Dick K.? William?

1993

January 9, 1993

Morning after great jam. I will call it: Just Jam,

or Animal Nature.

In order of appearance: Lars, John, me, Phil,

Julie: two mouth harps, electric bass, drum and

percussion.

Phil waxing poetic on the evolving point of the

cosmos, here and now, thinking, playing music,

herb consciousness, all of us here ready and

waiting for the Aries tiger to come claws out to

wake us up to say, Oh, yeah, right, that’s what’s

happening, it’s the spirit of the sixties coming

back cycling around again, Jim Morrison and Led

Zeppelin doing acid in a Toronto apartment 1968,

or with sixty natives in Alert Bay playing on a

hollowed cedar log with maple sticks so that

everybody, even the RCMP and 80-year-olds,

were up dancing.

Lars spent New Year’s Eve in Dubois, Idaho in

a blizzard in a rundown 1930s motel, a cowboy in

a pickup truck waving with a salute saying,

“Howdy.” One TV station that night aired a show

about making African drums, dance, music: the

same video Nashira has currently from her home-

schooling correspondence course.

Like Phil says, it’s all coming back to the beat.

We’re warming up for next month.

It’s all happening now, Mr. Zepp.

It will keep the perfect time if we are relaxed

enough to feel into it, get into the groove of the

all-becoming, through us in cosmic unfolding

now here in the awareness boom of our own

making and consciousness-keeping: circles of

celebration, our sacred duty to carry on, act out in

the street theatre of the us and now, the who are

we today and tomorrow: to wipe the old

memories out where useless, so as to free up disk

space for the more creative functioning of

programs yet to be heard. Carrying on the energy

of youth, of what’s alive today, even with the

rhythms of ancient times, cutting through the

buzz and blare of advertising unconsciousness,

pap and blather obscuring who we are together in

the ongoing beat of the keys of right now, who are

you, what’s going now and let’s get to it: jamming,

of course, into the night if that’s what it takes,

universal language music. Fatala says: beyond

spiritual politics.

Market news and other diversions.

Animal dreams, rising sun.

Outside today, feeling nothing of the 10-

degrees cold because I’m relaxed and therefore

warm, beaming into the fresh sun of a sky rich in

blues and fir-green, bright with the mounded

buttocks and breasts of snow and shadow, a

brilliant overlay of starpatterned jewels, a cosmos

apparent in film before the eyes, shimmering on

an invisible blanket over the blanket of white

snow, while, like part of the overall symphony,

crystals fly horizontal in shimmering sheets,

passing flocks darting by dissipating in the

updraft breeze, another elusive shower sweeping

down from stirring branches, it’s the energy

constant that keeps the music going, the stirring

in the branches, the keeping of the beat, the sand

shaking or the bass skin pounding, rockin and a

rainin...

I want to hold too the clear consciousness of

clarity and space and time enough for all, of social

fabric in music which is metaphorical for all of us

relating, ritual the form by which to recognize it,

all in the sacred circle dancing, carrying the rock,

drinking the potion of our life, sacred fluid

together in veins interlinked, consciousness

behind the shifting scenes, it’s all a kind of body, a

common or linked consciousness behind the

shifting scenes of our life interactions, our

separate bodies merely limbs and organs and

cells of the moving animal that is our human and

of course, larger living and nonorganic life, the

earth our body, the earth our consciousness. I

want to remember this sense of unity and

harmony, I almost say purpose but purpose being

mostly in the awareness itself, of what this beast

is and to appreciate the wonder of its working. To

see in this way, the art in everything, the art of

everything, that it’s all an ongoing jam, a huge

street theatre, we’re playing parts even when

we’re unconscious of it, or partially aware, or

forgetful, vindictive, and other ways obscured-

mind human, which after all is the game we’ve

chosen, at some level, to play. All a large

computerlike draft, us the players in the unseen

program, all the more wondrous because we do

have the chance, anytime we wake up to the

moment, to enter the programming level and

modify, customize, add wrinkles to the brainfold

rules, shades of meaning to the patterns,

embellishments on the mother beat.

This is visionary: hard to maintain against the

play of personality, the separateness of our voices

when we talk and write and explore to the utmost

our personal and individual opinions and

variations. Again the music metaphor is relevant,

for the secret of harmonizing these individual

understandings is to play together: to allow with

tolerance and yet resonance the separate strands

to color the tone of the whole, to weave into the

hybrid code. To blend the obscurities of rhythmic

variation into the common ongoing underlying

pulse... pulse... pulse... of our common body

which is the sacramental understanding of

human unity, love. If this is cosmic purpose in

any literal or anthropomorphic sense, so be it. If

only symbolic in that way through our own

imaginings, that’s as well. It’s the tone of the

interactions and spirit of our lives together that

counts in either case, and if it be prophetic to state

it thus, so be that too.

January 15, 1993

It’s Friday again, it’s snowing, Lillian Allen is

rappin and rockin in my skull, and I’m sitting

down to work. I’m inspired by virtual reality,

holographic theory, psychoactive politics, and

ceremonialism. Looking to go to town to buy a

drum. Good, good... my blood is secretly boiling

for the next hot jam, the all-night ritual. It’s the

space that counts, the spirit, the mood, the energy

that sweeps along.

January 23, 1993

A special time—alternating chosen obsessions.

A best ever jam last night, second in a row to 4

a.m. after one to 2, and after two harps a bass and

two drums, and ten people last week, this week

fifteen: Phil, John, Walkin, Dick, Gail, Lars,

Richard, Michael, Peter, Nigel, Michel, Julie, me,

Nathan, Rowena. New heights of drum

performance as well as total music energy

experience and connection. Many peaks, and

everything from African jazz to “BeBop a Looda”

worked. Pointers from Michel today.

Once more a sense of all things possible, and

thresholds crossed. Still room for learning,

improvement; but the encouragement is there.

Bad news and good news. Not in static state

except for human condition and character

makeup, but in dynamic evolution, continuing

relative progress.

January 24, 1993

A long chat with Michel yesterday on

drumming and jamming: the need to be more out

there, present, expressive, not flat and holding

back, but dynamic: moving in and out of the

rhythmic base, with others supporting and being

supported: taking and giving space for solos: jazz

practice. Controlling beats and striking clearly;

keeping it together whether on the base or taking

off. Keeping the central pulse and the other’s

place in mind at all times. Using accents: but

using them for controlled effect; not getting lost

with them.

At the same time, he was affirming about the

potential, the power, the magic, the talent that

was there.

I feel a letdown now of personal criticism after

feeling so incredibly high from the performance,

necessary I guess as balance. Part of the

vicissitudes of ego inflation and deflation. The

bad news along with the good.

Revelation during meditation: that taking off

on rhythms is analogous to drifting away from

breath attention, the centered pulse of no-

thought, while meditating. Similarly, my life

seems to be composed of alternating states of

obsession in the rounds of baseball, writing,

music and reading, and daily chores, not often

enough returning to the central place:

contentment, breathing, centering, appreciating,

slowing down in the real sense of connectedness

and nonactivity. Robert Bly says, “We are leaving

our time now” to go to the sacred space of

timelessness. This happens back and forth,

relative to the movement; as in the jam,

remarking to Lars: “We are entering our time

now.” Shifting gears, altering states.

January 30, 1993

The time of the full black moon. Scattered

rhythms walking, four horses galloping together.

Modes of communication shared. Blake, Jesus and

the saints and angels of the ages, watching,

waiting on the street corners with the recently

dead. Meeting, saying haven’t we met somewhere

before? Tiger coming down from the mountain,

walking through the village. The log is beaten, the

barrels sawn to calculated gradations to produce

a harmonic convergence of all sounds, all possible

tracks around the web of light to cause it to shine

brightly and to burn off the shadow memories of

the past. Keeping the golden bridge open, and the

small tunnel under the river. Meeting on the other

side—is this individual understanding or

collective awakening? We produce a purpose of

present happiness: going naked together through

the garden.

This is music, what we see in one another,

standing before the fall; the avalanche is frozen in

mid-motion, outside the picture window. We

walk around inside, cleansed and getting ready,

milling around, while it waits for us to say the

word. Will we get around to it, the white and

formless tiger outside with its unfocused eye

upon us? The tiger is us. Its eye is nowhere, and

everywhere. Our eyes are but facets of its insect

intelligence, memory equaling gravity, light

equaling thought as it travels seemingly on a road

going somewhere, but the where is here, coming

back around. This is the “Burnt Norton” of the

New Age upon us now, the Mediatatio of the

present soul, its time come round:

You surround me with ears breathing

I hold you out in a widening ring

Closing down dark in a sacred circle

I draw one growing thing

The high sky of the blowing world

Shrinks to a spinning blue

Reverie corrals a billion souls

Chanting the one word, “You”

Is this escape or capture?

My thumbs remember trees

My fingers point to blossoms

We walk inside these old, deep

woods toward new springs

In the end is the beginning. Adam in his myth

comes to the new time, the time for reborning.

The knowledge now is contained in the sphere: to

which all memory makes reference, pulled to the

center, holding around the starlike presence of the

whole. In our case, awakening earth, we can posit

a manifestation of our thought: so we sow, in

projection, in creation, in new dreaming, travels

to lands that walk beside ours. No need to kill,

though we still die. No need for unnecessary

suffering: only that it is necessary to suffer. Partial

truths cohere inside the sphere, and when they

seem to depart, the vision must enlarge to see the

wider layers that otherwise swallow the visionary

line of sight. So there is no real sight outward:

only a version of what it is like the long way

round. Or: beam directly up or down, the hotkey

to the past or future, the elevator of time working

at light speed to bring awareness to and from the

all. To create new metasynapses in the global

brain: beaming across the gulfs of left and right,

life and death, good and evil, separate and whole.

Throbbing in the wingbeat pulse of fluttering

reality, hummingbirds of creation all.

Molecules, star systems, electric rails

humming. All of these particles, swarming

together down the great river of: call it the all, the

becoming, the being in motion. Energy, a number,

quality and dimension, tag labels of a hundred

and sixty-seven tongues. Reducible at any node to

the code key reference, one through twelve, the

triads and quartet linkages tying down the

relations, each numerological sequence reflecting

a principle of affinity, of bonding to show distinct

qualities and as a way of entering the various

states available to us. If this goes nowhere visible

it is still along the tunnel, begun at birth and

before. Womb entry, tomb egress, paths of glory

and paths of stone. We walk, lightly shouldering

our load for the day, the provisions for a near

future. Monkish relations and nonrelations,

howling in the wilderness, quiet assention of

what goes down. Tomorrow, yesterday, today. In

this dreaming the breath rolls, universal in its

beat. The language gleams outward, and in,

holographic union achieved before it is even

attempted. In the fields of play: at work in the

subcells of the directed and in the skating

surfaces of the directionless. It all coheres because

it is of the same universe. In this way more is

possible. All is psychosinging, polyrhythm of the

whole. All the notes however dissonant and

patternless, all the conversations and revelations

and interviews and soundbites chattering, the

wordspeak monkeys hanging from the eaves, all

cohere in the jungle to come. There is a garden

waiting, under the snow of our white time. There

is an earth dreaming us.

The collective verities come home to roost. The

music they/we cluck all the livelong night can

stop at any time, or keep going: it’s all the same to

the cat outside eyeing the black full moon.

These nights and conversations do comprise a

glimmering, a shimmering resonance with what’s

being described around and about the brainpan

electric these days: Maya where have you gone, to

wait for us coming? How do we contact you now?

Or do we acknowledge your groundwork, your

earthworks, and ride upon your bones

respectfully to the church of your imagining: they

be crying on the altar, and rockin in the aisles

about now.

In reading, to have collected all the necessary

materials for a thrust forward into the outer

atmosphere of earth-consciousness. In music, to

have broken past the barrier to the drum; and

past barriers of expectation, performance criteria,

needfulness of form: to the openness of becoming

together. In relationship, to accept and appreciate

the grounding energy, the simplicity and

contentment of family and close personal contact,

frequency sharing. Resonance within and

between these tracks of being.

February 1, 1993

Monday, a new month today. I have a new

drum. At this point I’m ready for more

experience: a workshop with Olatunji maybe this

summer, other travel, publishing, achieving states

of happiness in everyday life. Is this yuppieism?

Could be. Phil says keep the planet in mind, the

suffering of others. Phil the bodhisattva. To

relieve suffering... how? Rinpoche says by

teaching enlightenment. Awareness, self-

knowledge. How to be naked in the garden

together. How to be. To be.

Michel has input on the drumming practice:

listen. Play out there. That is, loud and clear, but

together: on the rhythm, connected to the

common beat.

A series of late night jams, 2:30, 4:30, 4:30, 3:30.

With five, ten, fifteen, six players. All good, all

different. Is it going anywhere? Does it matter? It

goes... around. The sphere holds all the variations

together. It’s a music of physics, not of railroads.

It’s horses galloping together.

I plan, get excited. Run into people randomly

in Nelson, tell them to come: the Quebecois

woman, the New Denver guy, Lucy, Michael and

Rowin. A slew of people from the Slocan coming,

Ken with a trap set. It could be good. Sylvan with

his big bass. Jack with big bass drum? Tell him, at

least.

The search for common pattern, consensus,

harmony, the holding force. The ongoing, moving

force, allowing freedom within its gentle

boundaries. Not dogmatic, not rigid, not

unchanging. But dynamic, weaving, changing

and evolving together, with continuity of

tradition and resonance of each to the other. This

is political, literally on the level of teaching form.

How to be as a group, how to play together.

Synergy.

And I care about the quality of the experience

for others. Why? Because it is a group experience,

and I am not happy if all are not. Back to

consensus model, politics. Musical democracy.

Sylvan: You can tell a lot about a person, playing

music with them.

The comfort of many people playing drums:

all are welcome, even me. Some are better, some

worse. It doesn’t matter. The tribal mentality. All

have a part to play, even if we’re not all virtuoso

soloists. All can contribute, and enjoy the fruits of

participation.

I want to show off, and enjoy the experience.

This is natural ego, living. Plunging boldly into

the thick of life.

February 2, 1993

Drumming group yesterday, all five of us:

Sylvan, Jane, Lars, Julie, and me; also Sheila, and

Bronwyn. We had some good high spots, and for

me some disappointments: uninspiring solo, dull

roar of everyone playing, not really listening to

the quieter ones. However there were those few

bright moments, high-speed and high-energy

runs. The new drum is slick and fast, has clear

distinct tones amid the roar without

overpowering others.

I am human, limited, fallible, and I can accept

that. My powers are not godlike but finite. I am

mortal and subject to pain and suffering. I partake

of the human, the earthly condition. I have cosmic

understanding and partake of the infinite wonder

and joy and power of creation, of all creation; yet

also my feet are clay (aluminum, mylar; wood

and skin). I have a partner and a child, a stomach

and an ego, an asshole and a place of

disappointment and dejection. All of this is as it

should be, life on earth. We work with that,

tuning the strings of catgut or steel to sing the

harmonics of the whole.

February 4, 1993

Another day gone, another day closer to the

beat: and yet it reaches back, to the beginning.

This week I haven’t done as much rhythm

practice as I had expected. But my consciousness

has been there, my intention and my heart

journey. In this spirit, it’s all part of the music, it’s

all music. Rhythm, parts, ensemble with other

people and elements of my life. The stacking of

firewood, smoking of hams. The fixing of hydro,

mopping of pantry floor, washing of dishes. The

time spent with Nashira. In the African sensibility,

the occasion and social context plays its part in

the music. The dancers, the listeners. The

meaning of the occasion. The taking care of

details: the wordtalk; the walk; the rhythms of

sleep and waking. The dreaming, the daydreams.

The affirmations. The sweat. Release into body

understanding. The form practice too. The

floating into and with the beat.

The taping and reading, seeping into

consciousness. From now on it goes. It does not

stop. It’s the merging of the individual and body

and hand consciousness with the ensemble and

the larger ensemble of reality. And so I continue . .

.

February 5, 1993

Last day, the day has come. Am I making too

much of this, setting myself up for

disappointment?

I learned much from Chernoff, finishing last

night and this morning. Crammed also on Afro-

Latin rhythms, and circle philosophies.

From Chernoff, the movement from technical

virtuosity to social context, to placement in

pattern. The ethical and social dimensions of

music taking primacy over individual

performance standards: the latter having a place

determined by sensitivity to the whole, the sense

of the deeper movement of the music, and of the

dynamic connection of that with the ongoing

appreciation of those not playing. With the whole.

It is holographic, not enclosed. It opens to

resonance with the whole, live responsiveness to

the situation. And so I flow with the food

preparations, packing, getting ready, making

love, doing the dishes, typing...

In the meantime, the streams are collecting in,

now, as in the beginning of Woodstock. The

Rajneesh meditation tape in the background is the

soundtrack for this live movie in the making, this

even of our creation, and the media can do what

it will or not, that’s another part of the world and

not the central concern, which is the spirit of the

time and place and the gathering of us who

choose to come, resonating in speech and

movement of every moment, in the whole. Parts

responsive, ever open and responsive, answering

in kind, from individual expression and offering.

Mutual respect, gentleness, coolness of spirit and

warmness of heart. Thus the old men dance, thus

they play. They guide the changes smoothly,

sweetly.

February 9, 1993

My theory is that language is by nature an

illusion giving a semblance of reality, like the

bodily senses. So that to be truthful it is better to

use fiction, which claims only to present a parallel

to reality, an image, not an accurate overlay. In

this way I am truer by constructing worlds of

image and thought with the written word, the

texts and patterns of art.

And yet in explaining all this to Sarah, I could

use clear thinking and language to approximate

the concept which I believe in. This is perhaps the

key: to translate what is true for me, given a

common understanding between us. Some

ground for mutual truth, communication.

Between is language, vocabulary and style:

stories, metaphors, connections, a spiel of

revelation. As with Phil, whose expression is a

visual art form that expresses well his

understanding. All people have an ability to

speak their own minds, and to some extent

individual variations, interpretations of a

common reality.

In this way we can, like musicians, talk

together, even echo thoughts or play a common

beat, with individual tone expressions or timing

variations. The more interesting music is not to all

drum the same beat (though this is the way,

perhaps, for the tribal Amerindian) but to drum

around the same hidden beat, in the way of the

African ego. The European ego takes yet another

form, which is the display of individual virtuosity

supported by the hierarchical organization of the

band or orchestra.

February 21, 1993

Jam in Banff

A hot urban “male” funky rock bassline

energy with Doug flying and Maria at the

controls filing, weaving invisible threads, two

drum sets full tilt and high volume bass against

eggcarton foam walls, “songs of the blue

sarcophagus” (long and a little too narrow),

hymns to Aphrodite and Tristessa, D minor

fugues and a high-end break from Yves or Andy,

and Nick wired into headphones wild on the

drums at the end.

Off to the Rundle afterwards, after prospect

lookout on Banff Springs castle like two bull elk

pissing, a step away from death. In the Rundle

with coffee and hot chocolate and crinkle fries

and Chiko the Chinese sage saying fortunes for

everyone but me, moody. (I dream later that

night, an old man slices at the young maiden in

black with my boots, for the $5 Indian bracelet on

her wrist that Chiko just gave her). In the shop

window, “Roots” in white letters. Traffic goes by,

oblivious. No one has spoken of the actual jam,

except Maria, and later, Doug’s friend. But they’re

cold to people; they do it through music. Yet, it is

a present thing, always present. Communication

through word and rhythm and melody, turning

in, back in later through work, evaluation of

tapes, conversed replays, rehashed miscues,

setting up bridges. Breaking down walls.

Bringing it home to what the elders say, where the

sparks fly. Bringing it forward in new knowledge,

networking, not for happiness but deeper

satisfaction, needs fulfilled, pushing edges

forward together, into new realms of nowness,

together I say not just personal visions and studio

time, but somehow in the right now face to face

what is there to lose but the fear of going there, or

failing?

February 27, 1993

After another in a long almost unbroken line

of great jams last night, ten people again, Peter

running with me and taking it out there. A new

universe every week, out of the blue sarcophagus.

Getting beyond the need to stay uniform, varying

the beat within a constancy. This is the struggle: a

roller coaster running and swaying back and forth

from teetering on one rail to teetering on the

other, especially on one song where we hit the

Coltrane standard of everyone together on a

different beat. We got there with that one, me on

the shaky tambourine drone because it’s not the

individual virtuosity that is telling, but the

interplay and tension between the rhythms; the

place where the interest more than melodic is

rhythmic-harmonic: that is, the harmony of the

rhythms.

Increasing evolutionary understanding and

growth. Again, I say progressive.

Power at the corners of the mandala, strength

up the middle. Fantasies of recording, going

somewhere with it.

The dream of altered state going into music, a

spirituality then. And the dream of bringing the

music to that point: a workable energizing ten-

person true jam. Who says we can’t? It can work

every time because there is an overriding

philosophy or underpinning which says that it

can happen, and it proceeds from that basis. The

rhythm is the fabric that holds it together: I

learned this in Music 83 and the lesson continues

to be proven... beyond all expectations. We can

create anything together. Our lack of skill is

transparent when we first try to get off the

ground with it, feeling our way, verging on the

cone of power. Then it takes off and we fly: new

spaces never before heard or conceived off. To get

past the personal anxiety of holding a beat to let it

go sometimes and throw it in the court, and the

response of having it picked up, to come back to:

that is a current happening that is starting to

work. Listening to music is helpful along the way

to understand how these spaces and macro

rhythms can be structured, can flow together.

We’re missing William’s liquid mediator, the

synthesizer and electric organ.

Evolution, personal and communal: this is the

energy running through the core of the mandala,

the line of self and community, with family close

beside. As in the music, I’m increasing my focus,

understanding and appreciation of the primacy of

the group experience. However, I’m skipping the

political angle per se for the moment, the

revisioning workshop going on today, because it

is in those personal expression realms that I most

enjoyably, directly and engagingly participate in

community life. Community in the abstract is

meaningless but takes on life with shared

enjoyable activity: thus the music.

Family time is more valuable to me when I am

whole in the other ways, not hemmed in by too

many chores, easing off on self-pressure to flow

with the human connection. It works well this

week with Nashira time building, the block mode

of scheduling more effective than an hour a day

of this or that. This works with music practice too,

with more accomplished in five hours of group

practice than in ten of solo: though if I did both, it

might really take off.

I do not need to write philosophy. I need to

write philosophy. Philosophy has its own way of

writing itself in a form that hides it, clothing for

the soul, the body of thought. These

obscurantisms are like the constantly changing

rhythm, going to new places, unexplored

frontiers, rather than staying home. I am an

explorer in all ways: each moment, word, day,

year, jam... is a new universe. This is the theory

that carries on. Tomorrow, different. What is

pleasing in this: to think, to hear? To feel the flow

of it, onrolling. To roll with it. To float and swim

in those waves. To become one with the

movement. Of thought and writing, these are of a

kind with music. To play with other souls and

currents of thought in this way. To dance with

them, on to where we go together, our footsteps

finding the way. To bring new light into the feet,

not just the eyes. To broaden the doors of

perception past clichés of expression and

represented thought, to new sky. To pull new

lyrics out of the depths, to bring them on. The jam

will grow. It will take a balance of free expression,

sometimes humbling and sobering, yet freeing in

the context of control and discipline. A balance of

these two forces, entropy and organization,

matter and energy, gravitation and centrifugal

force: it’s what makes the world go round. To take

for my guiding principle the universal, physical

one of apparent linear motion that really forms

small and large circles of orbit: not fixed but also

onrushing, so that the traces left in space are a

spiral. To take for my metaphysical truths the

meanings afforded by physical truths and

patterns. To use as thought models the values of

the subhuman realms, survival and work,

relaxation and oneness, excitement and

energization, merging and exploding, traveling

through stasis.

The still center of the turning world. Laying

on the paint. Improvising live, on stage, lines

from somewhere. Psychomusic. It’s really

happening now. Freeing the creative dragons

from their media-forged chains, the prerecorded

songs, except as templates to grow new culture

on. Recording all of this thought, creating it as it

goes, and for what: not to hold on to, but to use as

a springboard to new consciousness. In this it not

only records the way but also plows. A sharp two-

edged blade of spirit moving, turning up black

earth to the light of day. To inspect the creatures

of the underworld thus exposed. To send some of

the luckier spores out of that grave world forever

to other stars.

Philosophy... or art. The distinctions perish

like daffodils in a killing frost. One image brings

them all crystalizing like cast-off snakeskin into

the museum of time, so that they and everything

can be seen for what they, we all are. Creatures of

form, thus of imagination. Because it is apparent

form that is the imagined world. The real world is

invisible to the human eye. Form is a convention

created by our interpretive senses. They need

something to entertain them, so they create it.

This is not literally true, evolutionarily speaking.

* * *

Now what to do, at play in the fields of the

Lord: free to create, or ruminate, play a game or

sing, work at an intellectual task or mime an

artist... be true to myself. Meaning what, when

the self is evolving forward into freedom?

This is a riff that comes unbidden: those wild

animals of possibility roaming through

consciousness and caught to hold and display

through these barwords, for the world to see. A

wild animal hunt in which all are subject to

extinction, yet all are immortal. The concepts are

fluid, the boundaries of form unfixed. Because

we/I have the power of the universe creator, the

power to say this is or isn’t, and has thus and so a

shape or size or other chosen characteristic. In this

homage to the Lord of life I say I am a humble

hunter, asking permission to bring down and to

table the flesh of gods. Later I will pay dues of

work direction, planned and focused form,

blueprint for visible construction that may stand

up to weather, public scrutiny, time fatigue,

interested minds and wandering souls in search

of nourishment. My responsibility in service, to

help the focus collective to hold what is a

refreshing sight. As in the jams,

to take a part in moving the rock.

Titles for band, jams, albums, songs:

Moving the Rock

Just Jam

Animal Nature

Dreaming Angels

Cowboys Against Extinction

Weaning Our Devil

The Trance

Edging Max

The Verge

Counting Sheep, Backwards

Future Inside Out

Clamdigging in Paradise

Preoccupations of the Chosen Many

Rare Birds in Cages

Politically Canceled

Wilderness in Oils

The In And Out Of It

Rainbow Train

Counting Down Dawn

Apples and Evergreens

The Jesus Stomp

The Existentialist Rhumba

Songs of the Blue Sarcophagus

Changing Planes in Midair

A Thousand Reasons

Tantrums of the Undead

Magic in Numbers

Process Makeup

Gearbox Breakdown

Telling it Like it Was

How We Got There

Chants of the Sleeping Army

An Ounce of Dread

I Was a Turquoise Changeling

Lost and in Love

The Breathing Night

Funk the Courthouse

Sinners at the Well

If I can write something, rhymed or not, for

any of these, I can start to get into

singing/chanting/rapping them. The voice can be

free, and the missing inner dimension. Bring the

singing in whole and the others will go. The

singer sets the tone. I need a melody perhaps, or a

rhythm with each. But not necessarily. This is

Doug’s trip, but in my style. There is a movement

out there. This is rap, ska, what’s happening.

There is a freeing movement of expression, of

exploration, of self-indulgence but with group

support, group-tempered. The shared experience

of creating art. Creating art, not just performing,

but group creation. This is the unique and world-

shattering message of the jam. We are at an edge

of world and human culture. The possibilities,

implications are not self-serving or self-gratifying

only, not little platitudes of stroking comfort: but

a vision and analysis of who we are in fullest

potential and what we represent and are part of

as aware and fully acting beings. Carrying

forward what with life’s energy we have

inherited, and bringing it forward not in stale

rehash but creatively remixed (Pound: “Make it

new”) fashion. And there is the more integrating,

synesthetic form of merger, of group

consciousness, group creation, process turned to

magical ends.

Listening, responding, moving with each

other and the entity that makes itself available to

us. This is a transcendental form we’re breaching,

that pulls us past our struggling individual parts

to ride the whole animal. To tour the wild

universe, riding together to parts hitherto

unknown. To do this not in abstract and

solipsistic thought, but out there on stage

together: and wider, with dancers. To give up the

limitations of personality that come up along the

way, to the purpose and spirit of the whole. Also,

to take some of those personal risks for the sake

of new vision shared: and sacrifice both in that

sense and in the reverse sense, of holding back

and supporting others to do that too. Not to

encourage the staid and laid back, however,

except as a relaxer: and that’s fine, too; homage to

the old folks at home, the golden oldies and

hymns of the past.

It’s a new kind of music, that’s what I’m

getting at: and also a new kind of politics,

socializing, way of being in community. That

works both literally and as a model of how to

interrelate, communicate and evolve together:

both in the bounds of an individual song, in the

movement of a jam session from one plane to

another, and in the macro development of the

practice from week to week, year to year. There is

a magical and organic, not simply chaotic and

random, process at work here. A thread of getting

used to each other, even when the exact definition

of personnel changes in the details from time to

time. This new music is roots-based, African and

shamanic, rock and folk, jazz and blues, Celtic

and Slavic, it is all music together. Blending all

possible forms into a pleasing whole; all

instruments, types of voicing and lyrics, modern

also urban funk and reggae, soul wails and

psycho-psychedelic, bringing it all together 28

pages or 2.8, just so it says it and says it again and

keeps on playing. It’s a new music and as such a

reflection and also a motivating seed force in a

new world birthing. Group consciousness in

action, work and play together in joyous spirit of

release and common understanding, taking care

of needs of each other as we may become

sensitive that way, not the steamroller to hell but

the swan boat of natural movement: we are a part

of the whole, and it is not practiced riffs but

honed readiness that will bring us into that place,

and through it to discover what is beyond, and

beyond, and beyond. For why else would we

bother traveling, if not to see what we may see?

* * *

Still I go on, to move this rock of forty-two

years a little to read the moss that’s grown there.

To comb the lichen-encrusted surface for traces of

spores and to fingerprint them for color-spectra

planets of origin, to decode the messages they’re

singing to us. It’s a poem singing along the silver

wires of thought between those spores and me,

from their progenitors or between them and me. I

converse with those spores because of the way the

grass turns green tomorrow, or next month. It

rides all night, and this day is night somewhere,

why not here?

Jam anytime, honey jam. Words of madness,

of magic, of timeless dreaming, come to me now

in this hour of empty rhetoric; steep my boiled

ears in the brine of kindness not normally

understood but now curdling formless in the milk

of generation. The entity has gone now, the birds

fled south. The grass still slumbers, beaten brown

and holding time damp, clouded, mysteriously

uncombed and forgotten. Not to worry about the

fuckups, by the way, it’s not all grace. There are

missed spots, other realms of metaphor,

mechanical messes, treeplanting trips to trip on,

slash to burn. Fires to rage through the world.

Reptiles to reckon with, starships burning.

Wrecks on the ocean floor, starfish-driven now.

Sharks prowling, greeneyed and soulless. A killer

at work somewhere, now. Pain and wasted time,

childbirth and disease, maimed limbs and dashed

expectations. The time rolls around and the globe

smiles on, or suffocates, depending on the aspect

chosen, the color on the brush. Spiders walking,

spinning, biting down. The other side of life,

death of this beauty and loss of its children.

Tragedy for those who choose crying.

Abandonment of the jewels and retribution in

ashes and mud. Bark bruised; sap running into

the earth. Volcanoes rising. Continents crashing,

stars blowing up in our faces. A new race of

dinosaurs, chasing the old into the galleries. The

door slams shut. The shovel scrapes dirt, hits

wood. A sound is made, another. The music

begins again.

March 6, 1993

Great bursts of revelation from reading Yatri,

Talbot and McKenna. Especially Yatri, the sense

of, it’s okay not to be in that pure realm, because

I’m on earth to do it here, to apply the truths of

the transcendent, to enjoy the time here and make

the best of it, to incorporate spirit in body and

spacetime. Also to keep the light in mind, mind in

light: the dual movement, out/in, in/out, not just

the paragate, go-beyond movement. Incarnation,

reincarnation, like breathing.

The jam was perfect for this lesson, in its

imperfection, its plodding frustration, its

acceptance of our limitations. Yet with faith in the

process, we (Dick, Walkin and me) were able

finally to break through the underlying gross

layers and move out into the celestial spaces.

Some of the earlier stuff with Julie, and Peter and

John worked well along the way.

I have a new patience for daily chores, for

social stagnation, for our weaknesses as

individual people. Because we all have talents

and riches to appreciate as well. “Welcome to the

Jam,” I tell Sarah as she’s talking of anxieties

before facilitating the Co-op AGM; and when I

explain in this way, she answers, “Welcome to

Love.”

Yet I have more resolution also to work on the

technical level to improve the music, both

personally and for the group. Through practice,

and learning songs.

* * *

More on that jam: it was like, you can’t force it

to be great, or together, or in a groove. If the

energy isn’t there, if people are tired, or sick, or

not ready, or there’s no bass... on the other hand,

with patience and faith, it did get there: where the

heart’s desire needed it to go, in that

unpreconceived form, to that unexplored place.

At play in the fields of the Lord.

Also, to have the physical skills honed

beforehand, and enough sleep under the belt, can

only help. Also expectation of success, along with

the openness to whatever happens: other people’s

types of music, a bad time for whatever reason, a

good time in an unexpected direction or aspect.

This time wasn’t so great personally as a

performer, expect for the usual few high spots

interspersed among the sitouts, the plodding

onebeats, the predictable dronebeats, the

predictable tangential flying outs. I learned some

valuable things by playing softer, hearing the

accordion for instance, and in the end letting Dick

come out even further on piano keyboard. Also

room for some better, more sustained improv

singing on mike; supporting Walkin by holding

mike for him while he improv’d, in contrast to

boycotting his solo standards. And standing out

in the road for a final hour’s gab with Walkin and

Dick, down to earth this time in contrast to the

usual rap with Phil. This time jokes: “Flowers

don’t harm the ozone if they’re grown in

dogshit”... and talk of earning a living by growing

dried flowers... raising mules and donkeys in

heat. Earlier Walkin’s saga of crossdressing in the

badnews biker bar in San Jose, stumbling on a

Texas shorthorn in a pasture in the night high on

mushrooms, being chased around in circles,

grabbing it by the horns...

April 15, 1993

Friday night jam, waylaying myself toward

the derelict fringe (“No, man, the cutting

edge!”)—Peter and William—before going in. A

mistake, though it proved a great jam in the end

(despite a rough vocal on “Fire on the Mountain”

and a really botched try of “Jammin” to a

promising blues jam begun by Peter... Lost my

composure then, back to little boy blue; recovered

however and later had a smoke with Peter on the

porch and we came back in and he served up “All

Along the Watchtower” to raves of “best ever”...

A good one-of-a-kind group: John K. sans hair

and beard (I recognized him only by the harp),

Michael from Nelson, Gorm around 11:30, Julie

around midnight, Peter, William, Walkin, Al, Gail,

Lars, Richard, Dick. But I stayed an hour too late,

the last hour marginal anyway but for one worthy

song.

Lessons: from previous week, learned not to

get caught in the endless variations but to be

more steady, with more assertive one-time leads

returning to basics. This time: warm up playing

before smoke, and then easy on it, to stay

comfortable; forget the fear. Also, re. Julie, Lars,

and others: listen more, modulate volume to

blend into whole sound, that’s the best. When

everybody is heard, and my own part is

unobtrusive yet contributing—there, and yet, as if

not there—especially on minor

percussive/timekeeping.

Haunted all week by that local version of “All

Along the Watchtower.”

June 8, 1993

A little retrospective after a rare week off,

usual high/low session the week before with Lars,

Julie, Richard, Walkin, in which I thought I heard

some comment by Richard about my dominating

the play, and later a joke in the form of a heavy

metal name for us, “Overlord and the

Underlings.” I laughed aloud before I realized the

barbed jibe, and heard finally a comment to

Walkin, “Wait’ll he has his coffee.” Afterwards I

approached Richard and said, “How did it go for

you tonight?”

“Oh, all right I guess. It had its moments.”

Someone else: “Oh, Richie didn’t have a

religious experience?”

Richard: “A little bit of satori... “

Me: “That’s why we’re all here, right?...

Anyway, somehow I imagined you were having a

hard time with it.”

“Me? Oh, I don’t think so. If you don’t reach

satori it’s nobody’s fault but your own.”

I was left to ponder that one. Later in the truck

home Julie said she’d heard nothing of the

comments I mentioned, felt the music was great,

my playing was fine. But she pointed out there

might be an element of competition among some

of us sometimes, naturally as artists.

Reading Bob Moses later was helpful to focus

on some bad habits: flitting from one rhythmic

feel to another, or playing with a soloist like “both

trying to get in the same end of a canoe” rather

than staying with the internal hearing and

providing the structural support.

June 10, 1993

After volleyball, talks with Lars about jam and

competition, my fatal mistake trying to tape

Gabrielle Roth for him (taping over the original

instead), and thoughts today about imperfection.

Not so much an issue of competition with others

as with oneself, limitations, the spirituality of

imperfection. Am I caught in the Western,

egocentric model anyway, where Alzheimer’s

effectively ends purposeful life by consignment to

a mental Third World of subsistence rather than

growth?

I posit one model of purpose, being a process

of improvement, growth and learning, cultural

advancement on an individual as well as group

level. Striving, with desire for, ultimately,

spiritual perfection, complete transmutation of

physical essence to metaphysical understanding

and achievement, awareness of completion.

All this available in the meantime in love.

Also in momentary plateaus of smaller

achievements, relative perfections, stages of

advancement. Yet these highs feed the whole

cycle which also produces lows. How to tap into

the process yet retain an equanimity of

nonattachment? The question, to bring it full

circle, I discussed to no conclusion with David,

who had brought me the Roth tape. There is a

lesson here symbolized by that tape, I guess,

which I botched trying to hurry while finishing

manuscript corrections to get to volleyball.

Now, this apprehension of unity, this aesthetic

sensibility put into some kind of recognizable

form, as here, represents a kind of perfection or

completeness.

Enjoy the highs as available; learn past the

lows. Use the lows as object lessons to advance

both to greater achievement potentials, and to a

distancing sense of equanimity. This is what life is

all about, so go for it, get into it: the groove. There

is the beat to get back on, the group pulse, merger

with the greater whole. Individual perfections are

meaningless out of this context anyway.

Here is a resolution of the two models. To

enhance the expression of the common

experience. To trade and share opportunities to

shine the light we share. Even in the “individual”

art of writing: to express the common truth. Not

to “show off” for the sake of individual

aggrandizement, but for expression of natural

exuberance as it spontaneously manifests through

the individual. Thus it’s not so much the extent or

type of expression per se which is at issue, but the

intent, motivation, tone-coloring, underlying

theme or rhythm which is crucial.

June 28, 1993

In Friday’s softball tournament I go 3 for 4 at

bat, and we win 15–12. The Friday night jam is

great fun, at the time. Saturday’s tape tells a

different tale; and I’m wasted from the 10:30 p.m.

coffee and 3:30 a.m. wine and little sleep for

today’s game. At bat I go 0 for 3, leaving five

stranded, in a 14–12 loss.

undated, 1993

Am I only a lowlife at heart, son of a

horseplayer, devotee of baseball, local jammer at

the hall with the boys of a Friday night? Now

Henry, Jack, I hear you callin. Walt, Percy, Edgar

in the wings, warming up. Tipping the bottle,

Patrick and Trevor, shufflin cards. Hold on, I’m

comin.

I know everything, I know nothing: the song

of the mystic. I know I’m capable of everything,

up to a point: the same point or level in

everything I do. What I don’t do, I probably

could, up to the same level. Know thyself: and

what do I know, but myself?

Style, personality is all. Form is all: because it

is secondary, an individually distinguishing

substance clothing the spirit that is common to

everyone. “Humanity is ONE SPIRIT,” the paper

at my window proclaims. So useless to bother

with in detail, except as we might be reminded to

honor that truth, when we forget and start

carping or harping at our ego’s behest. So let’s

enjoy the positive differentiation of our separate

little selves, and make the jam together by which

to join multiplicity back into unity. That is the

mystical search, as in lovemaking, and other

forms of aesthetic and spiritual communion, or

physical through accident or orchestrated form,

as in sports or random encounters touched by

spirituality.

I know myself and what I want to say and like

to talk about and what I am capable of creating

and sustaining and where I want to put energy:

so on these paths I will walk and continue to

explore, not trying to out-Emerson Emerson or

out-anyone-else anyone else, but to honor these

influences and sharings of spirit-cum-personality

coloring and be unafraid to express the fullness of

my own particular spectrum; being also unafraid

to use forms of expression I receive from others.

I don’t know what life has in store for me. I

don’t know how I will perform in health, or arts,

or relationship; or how I will sleep tonight. I don’t

know, I don’t know. It feels good in some ways to

say that; like Sarah, last night, saying of the

philosophers, let them fight it out, I’ll wait till I’m

eighty-five and ready to die and see what I know

then. In the meantime, why bother?

I am with the utmost reverence (to the strains

of Barking Pumpkins in my ears, thanks Frank)

contemplating the sacredness of the moment in

motion, the eaves of splendorous time mounting

to eternity...

Oh come now; nothing is that reverential. I am

here in morning time reliving in a thought the

hours of tossing and turning last night before

sleep, the realm of lying in state, the brain at rest

and yet in movement while the body’s normal

activity state is suspended... I am nevertheless at

your disposal. This sickness of aimlessness can be

turned around to march in the right direction, if

one be so disposed. The difference between

genius and lassitude: harnessed energy?

Submission to the unconscious currents of whim?

All language fails. Each sentence leads to another

and might, at some more propitious time, be

sanctified or scythed or both at once. What does it

matter, in the face of the Upanishads, the Vedas

and the Tao Te Ching? Very little; yet here I am to

say my obeisance. To renew the pact. To illustrate

with a picture from my dream: an old dodge, a

‘49 truck body cut and placed on a newer frame

from a Plymouth car. Brain rot today is rather

abstemious; so let it go, until another day. I am

sorry. Come again, please. Now I am going to

wash my nails; sweep the porch; air the curtains. I

am on my way to buy lunch at the delicatessen. I

step on a dead cat inadvertently, I assure you. Hi,

Samuel. Wake up, out of that can, now, will you?

Join your voice to mine. I’m on my way to

Frankie’s, later on. Come over for a jam, hey?

September 1993

Wondering how I did at the jam, if I turned

people off with tuneless singing or self-conscious

drumming; yearning for positive self-image,

praise and strokes, good dancing, basking in

public appreciation and fellow feedback... as if the

music groove itself was not good enough!

September 16, 1993

Nashira’s birthday today. I awake at six, get up

at six-thirty, make coffee and walk down the

driveway, slowly. Halfway, a squirrel skitters up a

tree, halts as I pass. But I stop. It scolds me as I

look pointedly at it. I scold back, jamming. The

scolding proceeds, back and forth, each varying

tempo a bit on impulse, call and response. The air

is thick with dying leaves, damp earth, end of

baseball season. Clouds hang thick around the

ridges and peaks. The fence stands nearly

complete, apples near ready for the plucking.

Cucumbers hang beside me in their vines of tan

leaves, waiting.

September 19, 1993

The Death of the Friday Night Jam

Nigel is there, plus Scott, Walkin, Dick,

Richard. How you doin, I say to him. Good, he

says. And you. Good, I say. Well, that’s settled, he

says. The others go out for a smoke. I play on

Richard’s conga with Scott on bongos, rockin till

the others come in and sit to wait and see what

happens. A slow, slow Walkin song; a token

instrumental bop jam; then “Bad Moon Rising,”

and I help Scott roll in the piano; but halfway

through “Me and Bobby McGee” and I’m gone,

for good.

Peter arrived as I drove away; and Lars, I

heard, later for a couple of hours of boredom.

Saturday up in glorious fall color and sky to

Meadow Mountain lake for fishing with Nashira

and Nyle and Sarah, corn and fish feast with Lars

for supper and hatched plans for a band, our kind

of music, by invitation: Julie, Scott, Dick on

keyboards, Richard.

September 24, 1993

The jam is dead. (Long live the new band.)

I become bored with conventionality. I must

be original in style; otherwise, I might as well

play rhythms for Elvis Starbuck. Isn’t that better

than nothing? No. I’ll go my own way, find

creative alternatives within myself and with help

of others. The important thing is to trust the

positive nature of the creative impulse. A way

that rings true to everything that is central for me.

Nothing forced except the discipline of doing it.

Taking it dead serious and also with a grain of

salt. For this the timeless of night, of winter, is

especially conducive.

October 25, 1993

I went to the jam Friday night, late, thinking

they might have needed me, or that I might be

missing something hot, though I didn’t really feel

great, or gung ho about playing. They were in a

pretty good groove all right, a pretty tight circle.

Jay and Ellen dancing, Scott on the piano and

djembe, Michael and Peter working out, Lars and

Richard and Walkin... but it seemed like a closed

circle. I made some tentative efforts, got into a

slow blues groove at one point that killed the

dancing, a nice reggae number led by Scott

singing, and a good rocker and a Michael

standard. But then Michael switched to bass. The

drummers couldn’t get off the ground. Julie

arrived. I couldn’t get out of myself, into the

music. Peter packed up and left. Michael

followed. I tried a couple little beats on the conga

and gave up, myself.

The moral of the story, if you don’t give it your

all, don’t bother. One person holding back energy

can drag down the whole group (just as,

conversely the previous week, I felt primed and

ready and the whole thing took off, Michael

agreed, best ever).

At volleyball Sunday, I thought I did feel

ready. During the game I mused about how it

didn’t matter anyway, maybe, because it’s

competitive, not cooperative, it’s everyone for

himself. Then my energy faltered and I got

discouraged, along with everyone else on my

team, about the poor play of a new player, Cory, a

dumpy woman who couldn’t do much of

anything, and that discouragement rubbed off on

the other team as well, so that the whole thing

pretty much ended up a bust.

And so I’m supposed to let the sweetheart

sing, but she only sings the blues.

November 7, 1993

A day of mourning the death of the jam

(again). Why?

Walkin sings, prophetically, give it everything

you got, give it your best shot, and still I hold

back, withdraw as Lars says, waiting for another

outlet to focus my energies.

It’s no big problem, only my problem if I make

it one. No remedy but to remedy it, to go on into

the great and small time and space and... no, not

fuller, but even emptier of personal

accomplishment and aggrandizement and

identity. L’homme sans qualites, my tag. All

things and no thing. All roles and no role. All

skills and no skill. That is my path. One I tread

like the line between the light and darkness. The

line between genius and madness, elation and

depression, immersion and detachment,

absorption and boredom. It’s a trick of the mental

and emotional and spiritual body, to float free yet

attached to the body of this world.

The work whether social or aesthetic is carried

forward in subterranean motion, the spirits

nudged forward on their path of destiny in this

costume, this time around. I go forward to new

light, riding the winds of motion. New gladness,

shedding old skins of lives lived to their various

ends of incompletion. Ready for the new

incarnation as of the moment. This philosophy

my byword, my guiding light.

November 9, 1993

I am afraid that I cannot live up to others’ or

my own expectations. That I am not competent

enough, and therefore not worthy, not

worthwhile. Alone, I have only my own

expectations to meet. Given enough time I can

work up to it. With others, the passage of my time

is marked, I am accountable for my

accomplishments, I check in and compare myself,

and I come up short. Maybe I project onto others

my own high standards of expectation, and feel

inadequate, judged poorly. With such an attitude

I’m bound to fail: jam evidence.

So what can I change?

I can realize that others don’t actually have

such high expectations or harsh judgment of me.

That on the contrary, others are pleased by what I

can do and think well of me. Or, even it they do

have high hopes for me, I have the ability to live

up to high standards of achievement; that my

talents are, if not grandiosely excellent, at least

competent and adequate and worthy. I should

just do the best that I can and not worry about the

rest. Sure, objectivity and self-evaluation are

useful, along with receptivity to feedback from

others. I should take it all objectively and without

paranoia or ego attachment.

I take heart from the image of strength within,

gentleness and adaptability without: “this is the

way of achievement.” It characterizes my life, and

my “Quaker” image to others. With this kind of

self-concept in mind, I can refine my interactions

with others: not being all yielding and gentle, nor

being rigid and brittle; but soft on the outside,

firm on the inside. A good model for jamming: the

strong central pulse; interesting variations with it.

And for my basic life activities: to have a strong

core of purpose, but being able to work with it in

my fullness of life in a flexible way.

November 11, 1993

Lars phoned and told me about the jam at

Richard’s 50th—which I had chosen to skip— and

it all came crashing back again. “The best music

ever with that group,” is how he put it. I told Lars

I couldn’t jam anymore for a while, at least,

because it just wasn’t working for me. All this just

as music is taking off in several directions: but is

it? And is it coincidence that it is now I need to

withdraw? How much of this is a pattern for me

of withdrawing from group involvement, and

how much of that is justified as truly inadequate

for me, as contrasted with ones where I just don’t

cut it or am afraid I don’t. It’s only the latter

category that I want to weed out.

It’s important to have the perspective of

“Good Times and Bad Times.” Most of the times

we had were good. My expectations were for

perfection of understanding and thus were shot

down. This is useful knowledge. I can be glad of

the negative influences as they drive me each time

to look for perfection in creative ways only I can

accomplish: yet not at the eventual and total

exclusion of all social activity because, like

politics, it is “imperfect.” So are we all, even in

our individual artistic productions. Sociability

teaches well-rounded tolerance and likewise self-

forgiveness.

One thing I wonder about is my contribution

to team chemistry. Am I a winner, a loser, a

motivator, a leader? Sports results, like jam

results, are mixed. I’m somewhere in the middle,

as I am with my social skills in general. Maybe

that’s a source of frustration. That is, in some

areas (academic, athletic, aesthetic) I’m at least

above average. But in the social realm perhaps

only midrange or lower (with a broad range,

anyway). So I have a self-concept or image based

on one set of criteria that breaks down or is

undercut in the use of other criteria. Hence my

attraction to my working class jobs in California:

real people, basic social skills. A levelling process

of the other inflated criteria. (“Everybody has a

heart; let’s play sandbox,” sings Youssou n Dour).

At least I can realize from this discussion that I’m

not in the great scheme of things, inept: but just

competent, and a bit deflated as a result from my

own grandiosity. This is ultimately healthy, the

grace of Lars’ phone call a reality check on my

isolated mountain-climbing. Just do it, forget the

elevator shoes.

One thing comes in clear: it’s not enough

simply to feel competence or self-confidence with

my own worthiness in the cosmos, or in my

partner’s eyes. I also seem to a need a nurturing

social context in which I feel worthy in my

participation. What I have to offer has to work

beyond the level of self-confidence to affirmation

and positive feedback from the group. I realize in

looking at group members in detail that I’m

intimidated or suffer from inferiority feelings,

pecking order stuff, from certain people, just as a

matter of personality. It’s not all a matter of talent.

More a matter of personal style, personality,

coolness. X is a loner but still projects an arrogant,

critical air. Y is pretty mellow but hairtrigger

sensitive. Z too seems moody: so (like me!) I get

the feeling I can’t take risks.

I realize that music (like sports) has been a

prop for me these last few years, like social

drinking or smoking; but really it’s just another

form of social communication both directly and in

the broader context of the musical setting. I’m

really no better off that way than verbally. Still I

long for the grail of the music magic, group

process glorified and lifted (at its best) to the

status of art.

Musicians can be, like writers, good at their

art while inept at ordinary social interchange. In

this I need to recognize mutual tolerance and

support, along with the real element of social

interaction on the level of scene context. And in

the pursuit of good music, it will help to pay

some homage to the pedestrian pieces as well as

to the virtuoso jazz and funk masterpieces of

inspiration and individual and collective

spontaneous fluid genius in the group mind

passing before us. I need to regain the perspective

of spiritual event and homage; also of sport; of

conversation; of worship, work and play. If I am

rededicated and choose this tribe in full

nakedness of initiated humility and pride of

group spirit, it may yet work out.

Yet I can be circumspect, mindful of personal

needs and directions, and of fateful changes as

they come, and of balance in my other life needs,

and maybe just come every other week; or stop

smoking, depending on what works; or forget the

jam and go play at Henk’s; or just drum solo... it’s

still a fluid work in progress.

November 14, 1993

B. B. King is totally himself, in fullest

expression. That’s the genius. We see all of him,

nothing held back. Like Jimi Hendrix. It’s the

courage that gets us, that awes us, to see what’s

possible when a man of genius (and great talent

could be the word, too) lets it all show, gives the

great gift of all of himself.

Put everything into it. Risk everything. Trust

the process, the product. Let it happen. Do it. Do

it. Do it.

December 7, 1993

Jam to Santana Milagro with the high energy

and the snow falling down random scattered

actually quite gentle flakes and Nashira says how

can you type so fast, I say by practice and she

says no, I mean how can you think of what to

write so fast, and I say the faster you type, the

faster you have to think to keep up with it, see the

mind is jamming with the fingers are jamming

with the music, this a new art form perhaps, it’s

kind of like music but there’s no audience to hear

both, though there could be, it could be totally

orchestrated and recorded to keep the sequence,

cues for keeping on the beat, lyrics even for the

instrumental solos and long jams, I’m just the

amanuensis of the bardo world, of the chthonic

gods speaking, I’ll stay up here and watch the

farm from the depths, in case of any eventuality

like the breaking loose of the geldings from their

corral of otherwise pedantic horseflesh, insidious

in their inertial dependence on the japes of

stableboys and the servants of Kali who wake

only occasionally from their lethargic stupor to

feed the poor creatures, who then become manic

in their greed, mob the poor boy and send him

back to the nabobs in the manor crying: “Natty

needs an orthopedic specialist, he’s limping.” As

if this weren’t enough for the already swamped

overseer of duties pastoral, the querulous clerk of

affairs proceeds to reprimand our heroic

rapscallion of a dutiful Sistine artist of horsedung,

quoting the Talmud and throwing caution to the

proverbial and ubiquitous winds, invokes the

vernal wombat spirits to come and chastise our

xenophobic countrymen in the guise of one soul,

stableboy named Hart. His yellow eyes dim; he

closes the lids halfway and intones the mantra

he’s learned in his dreams from the thousand-

year-old Zen master . . .

1994

August 13, 1994

Another pitfall: bringing unfilled expectations

and ambitions from other musical or nonmusical

venues to the Friday night experience,

inappropriately. It’s a cosmic learning crucible,

teaching necessary unattachment to specific goals

even musical. Certainly improvements can be

worked for, or realized by simple advice: Listen to

each other.

It’s a process of letting go of ego, image, value

judgment, permanence, well-defined goals. It’s

also a place where you find out who your friends

are. To experience intimacy and separation, and

the resulting emotions. To let go, and to welcome

in: people as well as musical inspirations. In the

end, those who continue to work and play well

together, to stick with and support each other, to

have patience for extending give and take, stay

longer. Peter left early: then Nigel; but Julie, Lars,

Hans, Dick and Walkin stayed with it, with me,

and in the end it was just Walkin and me.

“It’s not a matter of bad or good,” Walkin said.

“It’s all good.”

“But what do you do with feelings that it’s not

good, especially when they come from other

people? How can you still feel that it’s all good?”

He pondered this awhile. “Why not?” he

finally said.

We ended up on the road outside talking

about trucks, tires. The jam, I’d expressed to him

in the basement, is like another woman. It’s easy

to get tempted into sexual fantasies with an

attractive woman, even when you know you have

a stable relationship with someone and you’re not

going to pursue anything else. Like bringing to

the jam these fantasies that it’s going to go

somewhere—like where?—to performance,

recording, stardom, riches... the perfect

relationship just over the horizon? Get real.

As for putting myself, my emotions, out to

these people, my quasi-friends, it’s a little scary

and also presumptuous of me, but what the hell,

it’s a little more genuine in the way of friendship

than these alien beings showing up for a silent

weird starship trip each Friday night, and going

back away into the night none the wiser but for

the music. On the other hand, there’s some value

in that approach, too, as compared to

overanalysis and heart-on-sleeve antics.

August 17, 1994

. . . and yet tonight I’ll dream again, of Laura

or another, and another, and another... and none

of them will be satisfied with me in the end,

because I’ll be driven to go on; changing the

rhythm to yet another variation; leaving the

structure to others and refusing to take my own

responsibility for holding it up for the sake of the

common music made possible only by this

consensus.

August 22, 1994

When playing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,”

not to alter the fundamental rhythmic structure;

or, to vary but then to return; or to transform the

one song totally, but not to do it to on every song

played. A lesson, as music usually is, for the

structural, behavioral patterns of one’s life.

Control and freedom each allowing the other,

for overall balance.

Total control being repetitious and boring.

Total freedom being chaotic, uncommunicative.

Freedom in the context of a controlled structure,

offering interest, variety, a spirit of play and

creative energy, yet responsible and responsive to

the integrity of the whole piece and whole

ensemble. Control or repeating elements in a

mostly free piece, offering purchase, familiarity, a

place to engage the listeners’ attention.

Another jam metaphor: making love, how it’s

different every time. Lots of other parallels, too:

listening, with touch. Taking turns. Riding waves

of inspiration together. Joining spirits together as

one. The core of creation, ongoing.

September 27, 1994

Fall Faire full of drumming: Thursday night,

introducing the big drum, and having good

drumming around the circle with William,

Richard, Julie, Jane, Louisa. Friday a performance

to a very sparse crowd and no dancers except

Ellen and Pippa; a dress rehearsal of sorts. The

end of Lamba fell apart, the other pieces were

okay but a little rough. The set with Jane and

Megan for Ellen’s dancers went wonderfully,

though only a third or fourth dancer emerged

from the tipi womb to daylight.

Friday night, the Night of the Living Jam:

multigroupings passing through from neohip

hempsters on drums, to William’s symphonic

sound system, to the Michael and Peter show, to

Jesse and Ryel and Aaron, to the hard core jazz

beat drummers at the end; Mara energizing the

whole affair with shakers and rattles and smiles

and tales of operating a Montreal cafe featuring

Bob Dylan and others in the late sixties.

Saturday Julie and I again suffered from

performance fever. Lamba this time had a rough

beginning; I settled into a good groove by the

end, but then stumbled to the break when Lars

leaned over to me and said, “Six minutes.”

Alpha’s rhythm also was rough, breaking apart in

part B when I fell off my attempts at the fourth

variation. The tempo was just too fast and I

couldn’t catch onto it. We started in again and

again I tried it unsuccessfully, but the group

maintained and I found an easier part instead.

Aconcon and Triple Overtime were fine for me

but now Julie took the turn of losing her way.

Finally, Koukou worked, with Michel standing in

to solo; we did it quite fast and it worked well.

But Michel complained there wasn’t really space

for the solo, so we did Aconcon again for him to

join. Again, however, Lars blew a whistle for a

break to higher speed, and I took it for an end

signal and broke it off—too bad. After a bit of a

break we got into an impromptu Fanga with

Richard and Jonathan, and Michel on the big

drum, and Dee shaking and starting to sing. That

was hot, with Michel throwing in breaks to go

again. I managed the sequence of Fanga parts

pretty well back and forth, sitting on the ground

with another guy’s ashiko.

Square dance time rolled around and as usual,

I found myself out by the fire stoned with the

ranks of youth along the firelit benches, playing a

low lone drum to accompany William hunkered

over a snarly good rhythm guitar groove, new

cowboy style. Later he manned the Indian yells at

the big bass drum, while I inserted Afro-offbeat

bass notes at the other side of the fire. There were

some real fine dance grooves along the way, with

the transient youth rank and file sometimes

bouncing and sometimes wandering off into the

darkness, sometimes passing glowing joints

(William complaining, “Someone’s getting high;

everyone’s gettin high but the band”). Louisa

noted we were all playing on one side, and

should form a circle. A few of us moved over—

Michel, me, and a third guy playing my drum. At

one point, after the Indian chants, I noticed he

was gone. Looked around for my drum and it,

too, was gone. Asked Michel and he said the guy

had just kind of backed away, still playing... . and

gone off into the night.

I looked all around the circle a couple more

times and then was convinced the thief was gone

for good. Went around the far perimeter of the

circle, out to the road, heard Jean say a couple of

vehicles had already passed her going out, and

basically gave up, other than considering calling

the RCMP. Figured, while wandering the empty

field, that my abortive music career had been

fated to end quickly. But then Julie showed up

saying, “I think I’ve found your drum.” It had

appeared again on the opposite side of the circle,

beside a yellow plastic chair.

* * *

While selling tickets for supper, I quipped to

Julie, “So when are we gonna get some therapy

together?”

“Huh? Oh, well, I just had a good talk with

Dee and she gave me all kinds of good advice

about what to do about nervousness up there. To

begin with when you’re nervous it’s because you

think everyone’s looking at you and the first thing

to realize is they’re not. It’s just a big ego trip.

Plus, when you’re feeling like that, all the energy

is coming in toward you. You’re making it happen

that way. The thing to do is turn it around and

send the energy out. To be giving energy to

what’s happening.”

Like Olatunji says, Service.

Other insights I had afterward: feeling yucky

about seeing myself perform poorly, as through

other’s eyes I realized that was just a projection,

an imaginary one. People could also have

experienced the opposite, as some actually said.

But even more importantly, as Walkin says,

there’s no need for a good/bad judgment (about

music, or about personal evaluation); it’s just

what is. Self-acceptance. Yes, there is a place for

objective evaluation, learning from past to future.

But objective is the key word: not feeling yucky;

or rather, making use of a transitory yucky feeling

for evaluative purposes but then moving on, not

taking it on as a stuck personal judgment of

unworthiness.

* * *

So, what are some things I learned from the

weekend’s music?

I was more comfortable with some rhythm

parts than some lead parts (Koukou, Aconcon,

Alpha, vs. Lamba, Alpha variations.)

I was comfortable with my own lead part on

Triple O.

The solo drum part for Ellen’s dancers, or

Fanga with Michel and Dee, worked fine because

I felt less in spotlight of public scrutiny at the

time; none of that artificial, hyperconscious

pressure not to screw up. Of course the irony is

that the greater the pressure, the greater the

chances of screwup.

The whole group was, Michel thought,

“tentative” in our playing, until we really got

underway in a groove.

It takes a high degree of social tact to feel the

place for monotony or variation around, say, the

drum circle fire. Also the most exciting

possibilities of all for high-energy event, fed by

the spontaneous uniqueness of the moment.

Higher energy yet would have been appropriate,

as with the building energy of Lamba; the

performance encore with Michel and Aconcon,

when Lars blew the whistle and I stopped,

instead of gearing it up higher; or with the Fanga

jam after Dee telling Michel she wanted to do a

singing call and response.

Working on tightness is good but not with the

price of perfection anxiety. Though the temptation

is that it can pay off—the all-or-nothing gamble.

The possibility is that performance anxiety can be

overcome psychologically or by building

experience, and not just the easy way of avoiding

it by external changes of form or format (such as

by not performing). Another tip would have been

to practice in that spot. Or to imagine the so-

called crowd as just friends and relatives (which

they were), or the music as background, as Ellen

appreciated it. Or tapping into the “cool green

place inside” (Body and Soul); or the woods

behind my house. Or, Julie’s other solution, the

golden vertical thread of centering energy...

November 24, 1994

No Present

There is no present.

All is past and future, the one becoming the

other.

Consciousness is a vector of acceptance.

To Be > To Become

And not to freeze there in the new become,

but to keep on becoming.

It’s the jam theory of reality and of awareness

and of being.

The present is a useful illusion of presence in

time: of self-solidity in space.

Just as concreteness, in words or sense

perception, is a useful illusion by which to

maintain the entertainment of the body.

I see the concreteness of what has been, by

which to jump forward; or, by which to define

what is coming.

This can be a curse, or a useful foundation: it

is up to the judging free will to decide that, not to

let the pattern drag down. But to use it to build

on: deer trail blazed by droppings.

As in any religion, this focus is the same as a

one-god. A point of consciousness. Most posit the

present, the all-present. They gather the past and

the future into the now. That is a useful illusion. I

would rather empty the present of the past and

future, of self and world, of any meaning or time

at all.

Why?

Because to dwell in the present is to be stuck.

To be more than vegetable is to move. That is our

animal nature, to move in space. To be human is

to move in time. Following thought, forward, to

new awareness. By building up awarenesses as

they come: perceptions, idea links, flashes of light:

building up, or sensing and letting fly by. There is

no letting: they fly by.

To be human is to move in time. Is this mantra

stuck? It’s part of a spiral. Human time is spiral,

cyclical and ongoing. We are not part of the

animal zoo, the caged pacing, if we choose not to

be. If we choose to become other, if I (and I do)

choose to let newness of experience enter freely at

all times. Not to build my own cage of thought or

even religion, even this one: this, too, will be

temporary, a season of ideas.

Let us move on.

There is no letting;

we move.

There is no we;

it moves.

There is no it,

only moving.

There is nothing to move,

only movement.

There is no time,

only timing.

No presence,

only continuity, change, growth, spiraling life

energy cascading into new space with new forms,

new exchanges and interaction.

Words are only words. Yet they are useful, to

move the mind forward. Not in themselves, but

little thought vehicles, individual and linked like

express trains on errands of consciousness,

buzzing in a hive of understanding.

Why is this valuable?

Because otherwise it is easy to become mired

in the dripping honey, the cells of wax.

December 16, 1994

Jammin Shammin Dance

The hall is abuzz with the throngs of the youth

come to see the big band from faraway Spokane,

yet the band is cool with cigarettes on the outside

deck, drums at the ready, cookies proffered by

our furry host. The scene is alive, and we eat, and

we dance, and the beat travels through the spine,

surrounds us and spins us on and on . . .

Plain and white the ceiling, unadorned the

paneled walls. A simple, unfinished plywood

floor. Shapeless, really, made for basketball. Nice

cedar doors in front, which Phyllis the local

watercolor artist found in the nick of time from

the second-hand store. Lighting by Ray of Flash

Landing fame, yet nothing special for this night.

Simple white, though they did bring a strobe for

the special effects.

On this occasion, a particularly desirable mix

of funky beat and ready folks, primed to start

dancing and not stop until the music was over. A

song written even for us: “for the Kootenay

ancestors.” The hall took no notice. It held us,

provided shelter. We shook the rafters, the joists

and windows. The sound meter went off the

scale, so they turned it down a little. It’s not so

much what is seen, a whirl of color and motion.

It’s the music, what goes on inside.

They shook us, they drove us to dancing

distraction. We hopped and bopped, with the

African drums beating up a bitchin jamaican heat.

We drove into it, into the blessed night. The walls

of the hall shook right out, the roof and floor

bounced, full of blessed bodies shaking.

We bought it all, got down good and funky.

It’s the drums, y’see, the African drums, they got

that reggae beat all beat, pumped with sound so

you’re up and down and all around, jitterbugging

no matter what, or a slow walk from the juice bar.

Dancing, slithering to the imperturbable beat,

jammin with the shaman.

Sherry especially, with her tan collection of

African tomtoms, giving an irresistible icing to

the cakewalk underpinning provided by the

organist, the regular drum set, the bass and her

new hubby, the lead guitar. At the break they sat

together so chummy smoking on the front deck,

digesting the wicked cookie laid on them as well

as on a half dozen others of us lucky fools.

We had the dance to beat all dances, here at

our own little hall.

1995

February 4, 1995

Last night, best jam high ever: a new plateau.

Blossoming on drum while Nigel does likewise

with voice, and the group with organic sound:

“Singing Trees.” Jacob, Scott, Peter, Lars, Walkin,

Richard, Dick, Nigel; and Jan watching, dancing.

A high-energy tight group effort totally with it on

every note, “My Generation.”

This a heartfelt song for us old men. It began

in an interesting way. Peter had suggested the

drummers lead one, so we tried a samba-based

jam, which kind of moved around all loose and

unformed. I said at the end of it, “Give us another

chance; we’ll do a tight samba rhythm and keep it

together this time.” Meanwhile Walkin had

started “My Generation” on the other side, the

first few notes. I cleared with him to do our

samba first, or possibly we could work it out with

his vocals and chords.

So I set the beat with the d g d g D - D g - g d g

D - D - pattern and kept it going pretty

consistently with appropriate variations during

the song, and some solo embellishments here and

there that threatened to chop up on me but I rode

the energy wave through them and held the pulse

down steady while Nigel wailed and all joined in

hot and fast and earnest and bold.

* * *

This morning on awakening Sarah said,

“You’re glowing,” as I looked at her and out the

window, with the fresh sunny air and the blue

sky and the awakening trees with the energy of

the peak experience and the samba in my blood

still racing smooth and cool, and then I got up

and made coffee and put on the Who with their

original version and made pancakes with

strawberry jam and peaches and maple syrup,

and heated water for a shower.

Last night I walked down the long trail

through the starry woods stopping frequently for

gazes upward and outward in the dark thinking

about Lao Tse, Buddha and Christ: the poet, the

philosopher and yesman, whatever that means.

And the trees whispered to me, singing, “We are

the long drums.”

February 5, 1995

Day of the Long Drum

Much personal stuff arising around

responsibility as a participant for peak experience

of the group—a difficult challenge, when also

holding the intention of growing as individuals,

stretching personal limits of creative expression.

I felt some of the tensions as ego issues

involving the hot young drummers, the blond

guy with dreadlocks, and the darker guy with a

scarf. When they stopped playing, was it my

fault, their frustration; or just tired hands, or

running out of ideas, or dancers stopping . . .

Louisa remarked, “Sometimes it works and

sometimes it doesn’t.”

Not content with group grooves, droning

steady trance beat, I need to add personal

expression, to push it away from commonality.

And encourage others to do likewise, of course;

but there’s the challenge of progressive music,

jazz or polyrhythms, to honor the central pulse; to

play it or around it so others can still feel it and

tap in.

On the positive side, some really great positive

times drumming, singing. And even dancing I

could feel the controlling power of personal

creative expression to affect the group chi.

Nashira and Bronwyn danced, Rowin a lot, Pippa

and Ellen, Gary and Corol, Rachel and Carol,

others. A hot scene at times.

Someone jammed a whiskbroom in the heater

vent, destroying the thermostat probably.

Back to positives. Real fast riffs, soloing off

each other, good fast group grooves where it goes

beyond the rails of thought to open to

spontaneous spirit. To feel good about progress,

for instance, from last year. The risk of drugs to

push or transcend normal limits: scary,

uncomfortable, and yielding unexpected results.

A mixed blessing, needing care and respect and

control.

Julie evaluating, same as always, mixed: “too

much racing energy of the herd.” Her creativity

released in space, vs. mine in speed. Hers in

playing with space, mine with color of tonal

emphasis over a background of sound.

Evaluating my own contribution, I wonder,

did it enhance or hinder the group experience?

Some of both. As we all are subject to,

conscious or not, by contributing more or less, by

supporting or distracting or dragging down, or

whatever our personal form of attention-getting

might be: sabotage, anger, meekness, conformity,

display, chaos; or order, beauty, sadness,

excitement; every emotional quality available to

the music.

“Forget your sadness, and dance.”

Yet even the dance can control.

When in that space of superconsciousness of

personal power, to use it wisely yet somehow un-

self-consciously, releasing control to creative

spirit. To flow with it not willfully, but with

intentional opening. A tricky balance, aweful to

behold.

I put myself on the line to go further, to take

us to new places. And, with balance, to step back

for others to take a turn too; lots of that. I can

keep it steady, innocuous yet live—but when

really live, it has to be more. We have to be more

than group robots—a group of fully realized

individuals. The “My Generation” song of Friday

night was in that category, group completion

through heights of collective/personal expression.

Really, the issue is to get out of the way and let

real creativity take over... like political leaders, in

Caldicott’s phrase (or was it her quote of

Eisenhower?). It takes being sensitive, committed

to the group, still willing to take responsible risks,

soloing with the pulse, and playing what you

started with or what the others are keeping up.

In a moment of honesty, I realize an

unconscious motivation for the repeated failings.

Maybe I can’t accept my self-image as competent,

good, well-liked, proficient, inspiring, and so feel

compelled to sabotage my own performance with

failures. Then I can retreat into my childish role as

a nobody, loathed and scorned and left out. The

question of marijuana is secondary: it only

amplifies and reveals the real underlying

problem.

Do I lapse into father failure that way?

Or see it as the one escape from my sober

mother?

Hugh Elliott from the neighboring house

didn’t sleep, appeared at the door when it was

over and remarked: “The real Africans from the

jungle would have been horrified to hear what

was passing for rhythm.”

* * *

Changes, this year:

To have pushed the limits, and beyond, of

personal capabilities, conventional boundaries of

music, rhythm, form, sleep and group

functioning.

To be awake to needs for better

communication, listening, sharing of leadership,

giving of ego talents and accepting gifts from

others.

To be aware of needs for greater personal

closeness and heart connection.

To realize that shortcomings have value in

pointing the way to further growth.

To appreciate, despite shortcomings, the

growth of potential, talent, energy, and

participation, relative to past years.

To have realized a plateau jump in the event in

dancing, community members present, voicing,

instrumentation (percussion, digeridoo, flutes

and clarinet), outside participation, youth

participation (local and outside), laid-back

organization, range of emotional charge, technical

virtuosity, range of musical styles.

Inspiration to carry forward the spirit of the

drums, the ongoing beat, these lessons and

growths and potentials, forward into every area

of my life and toward the next long drum, next

year, that much further ahead. To focus conscious

intent and opening, twins of creation.

February 7, 1995

I see: ranks of throbbing dancers, bouncing

forward in unison, to the beat we’re keeping:

Duncan, Axel, David and Jay, me on the shaker

for this last piece in six-eight time. My hands are

in trance to keep the subtle motion steady, the

chickle net ticking against the hard round gourd,

tapped up against my hand, down against my

leg, alternating on the up and down beat feel

because it’s a two motion in the three feel, going

Up down up Down up down Up down up Down

up down in a pattern of twelve: emphasizing

sometimes the one of every other bar of six. The

others are playing a steady three on conga, a beat

that began earlier with a different combination,

Duncan on shaker while I was playing drum with

a D d G d g D or steady three; then when Duncan

went to djembe I took the opportunity for my

turn on shaker.

Jay put up a counterpoint with a timbale-like

stickwork on my old Egyptian doumbek and his

djembe; others were steady and rolling with some

good solos on top from Duncan. The dancers kept

coming, ranks of six or three across, bouncing

forward, arms outstretched and down, pelvis

thrust forward, chests undulating. Toward the

drummers, supplicating, offering praises. All

heads steady, eyes open and blank into the trance

of the steady pulse. Bare feet on the shiny floor, a

wall of mirror behind me. Faint smell of floor wax

and honest sweat. Rigid with discipline, yet

breathing into a relaxed, repetitive drone on the

shaker, as I warmed to its insistent chackaka

chackaka chackaka chackaka... legs bent slightly

at the knees, leaning to my left to play on left

hand and leg with the shekere in my right hand,

across the drum still dangling, totemlike around

my waist, a silent beacon in the call to the dancers

hopping forward with their feet planted in

unison, heads nodding, mine going too,

sometimes sideways as if saying no, counter to

the rhythm and really saying yes, yes, keep

coming.

I see Jane, Giselle, Tamasine, Jennifer, and men

and women I don’t know. There’re no favorites

here, no weirdness before or after.

“You might have to dance, if it doesn’t work

with the drumming,” Tamasine had told me at

the start. “Since you haven’t been here. Maybe get

Duncan or Jay to show you something simple,

and let those guys do the overlaying.”

“Sure,” I said. “I think I’ll be able to play

something to fit in.”

But Duncan and Jay had no preconceived

notions of what to play; they let me wing it just as

they were doing, whatever sounded good as a

basic accompaniment to the movement of the

dance: something in four, or something in six.

Actually I was the one to point out that we

needed a six rhythm for a move Tamasine

demonstrated with the count, One Two Three

Four One Two Three Four, after we started with a

rhythm that didn’t work, in four. But I did make

an effort to stay steady and basic, and the

discipline was helpful in maintaining the

consistency of each piece, with occasional minor

variation, and others coming in and out around it.

Once the initial rhythm was demonstrated, I’d

pick it up and keep it, and the others would play

around more with it. The result was, by the end,

“a really hot session.”

February 18, 1995

I almost didn’t go, but after a little rest in bed

realized I wasn’t actually sleeping. I almost

flipped a coin but went with my intuitive decision

arrived at standing still a few moments in the

living room, while Sarah drew cartoons of “The

Circle and Square Dances” and “The Creation of

the World in Eight Stages.”

Anyway, I did go and it looked bad and I

almost left when by 9:30 there was still only Dick,

Scott, and Dan from Cooper Creek. The rest had

been invited to a party for Beam’s brother Franz

who was leaving the next day for Switzerland. I

never met him; he showed up later drunk talking

to Jan by the kitchen counter. Also later, a

digeridoo. Anyway, a classic jam with good

cohesive driving energy and balance.

Highlight was a good rhumba beat.

Nigel: voice, kazoo, tambourine.

Peter: lead guitar

Nowick: djembe, junjun, yew drum, congas

and percussion

Richard: congas, djembe and percussion

Jesse bass

Jacob: piano, flute, pennywhistle, bamboo sax

Scott: trumpet, electrified acoustic guitar

Walkin: harmonica, percussion, acoustic

guitar, voice

Dick: accordion

Jay, Susan, Betty’s cousin, Beam, Jan: dancers

February 23, 1995

Jay Lamb’s tips, via Jonathan:

A groove expands: but instead of letting it

dissipate, ride it back down to the simple core

again, and go to the other side of that, what

happens next.

How do you decide, then, as a group, when to

end it?

Telepathically.

This gets back to “the Real People” of the

Australian desert, and their mind-reading.

March 31, 1995

Jam Liner Notes

I know nothing and everything. It’s all up to

the movement, the flow of the moment, the jam to

determine, because in the steady-state universe

the big bang is everlasting, that original energy is

onward impelling, and the hands and brain cells

simply respond; and if I speak of nothing else but

the all and nothing, the that and the this with

nothing recognizable in between, there’s always

the TV, novels, philosophy, crazy art, metafiction

or meditation to fill in the rest. What’s the issue,

where’s the rub? Let us face facts. Not irrelevant

facts of my dreams or fancies removed from the

present moment, descriptions of the Buddha even

or of his admirers and minor spirit replicates, but

of the now and the now to come. The not-concrete

for a change, the not-showing, but the all-telling,

the cerebral reality of this moment, the abstract

network of thought that is more concrete in its

way than all the showy show that we call the rest

of the world—let’s take a break from all that and

contemplate the now, the moving now of the

mind in its moment, the meditation joined

together and articulated together and thus

shared. Let us speak of it not in reticence or

shame or negligent duty, but out of a wonder and

respect, for it carries us to ride with it in harmony,

with its music and to its tempo as it runs me, that

energy not that I make, but that makes me... not

far, but near. Every one of these elements in

concert, working and playing together as a

binding skein, a woven maypole ribbon-dance

coming around to the pole that stands in the

center.

About the Author

Nowick Gray continued his study and practice

of West African and Afro-Latin rhythms,

instruments and styles, becoming an

accomplished performer and teacher, while never

losing the love of improvised music in eclectic

combinations. He has produced three volumes of

instructional rhythm studies, Roots Jam, with

accompanying audio tracks, and a set of free

djembe lessons available on YouTube. He still

enjoys jamming whenever possible with the

improvisational band Strange Moon.

To connect further, go to:

http://djemberhythms.com

http://nowickgray.com

http://cougarwebworks.com/discography.htm

http://strangemoon.homestead.com