Wherever The Music Takes Me

For the past two weeks I have been listening on Sirius XM exclusively to the Sinatra channel and the Jazz channel.

I typically dabble in these channels but for some reason - right here and right now - they are captivating my mind and my emotions. That's what I love about music and, frankly, about my open minded approach to it - you never know what is going to  give you peace. Make you smile. Make you cry. Make you think.

The Sinatra channel has blown me away with variety. I love a lot of what Sinatra did. I also have heard Tony Bennett, Rod Stewart, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Willie Nelson.

Billie Holiday, man. She alone blows my mind. If you don't know who she was, what her history is, check her out. The opportunity to hear her music is pretty fucking cool.

I dig the Jazz channel because I get to hear old school jazz, the names I am familiar with, and more recent musicians - people I don't know but who manipulate my emotions.

I dig musicians, man - I used to be one. Once a musician, always a musician. As I listen to what these people do - drum solos, trumpet solos, sax (fucking love sax), small groups, big bands - I am thrilled. The Allman Brothers were all about improvisation. Sense a connection?

I think improvisation in music is the ultimate statement of how much talent, emotion and empathy a musician has. And knowledge. You gotta know what you're doing to improvise. It is a direct translation of what you are feeling into musical expression.

I was smiling to myself last night on the way home from work. Smiling at the range of stuff that turns me on. Had Carol's car because my car has been cranky lately. She doesn't have Sirius. I listened to a classic rock station. They played a bunch of Metallica and I was rocking out. I fucking love Metallica.

Heard a song on Sinatra this week called All I Have To Have. Love song, all I have to have is you - you get the point. I loved one section that goes a little something like this:

"If there was no confetti, if there was no champagne, I would eat cold spaghetti standing in the rain."

Is that a good lyric? Or is it corny? I don't know. But I like it. It got to me.

Hal Linden sang the song. Hal Linden played Barney Miller on TV many years ago. Who knew?

OK. That's it. I am done.